Long Trip

[theoldwolf]

Salt Lake to Chicago to Dulles to Brussels to Kinshasa to Brussels to Bucharest to Zurich to Ljubljana to Tirana to Vienna To Frankfurt to Chicago to Salt Lake.  Probably one of the busiest trips I ever took. By 2003, my passport had 3 extensions in it and looked like a paperback book. The security people always asked me a lot of questions about why I was traveling to these bizarre places, which also included Serbia, Croatia, Bulgaria, Turkey, Egypt, Spain. France, Italy, Malta, and a bunch of others along the way.

It was a great 10 years.

Comments

[thefoxaroo.livejournal.com]

I remember my initial 10 minutes in Canada.

Customs Officer (or whatever she was; I was too exhausted to pay attention): [Especially gruff voice] "Why Canada?"
Myself: "Because it's beau-ti-ful!"

What sort of explanations did you give, and how did they react?

You didn't mention the strangest nation you've visited; Australia.

[ccdesan.livejournal.com]

Well. Australia isn't a country, you see... just a penal colony.


Seriously, though - I was just reminiscing about business trips. As for dealing with the security people, I just told them the truth about my business and what I was doing - supervising translation teams around the world for the LDS Church.

As for "Why Canada?"
I would love to have seen the response had you said "Easy target." Heh heh heh.

[deckardcanine.livejournal.com]

Well. Australia isn't a country, you see... just a penal colony.

You're THAT old?

[thefoxaroo.livejournal.com]

ccdesan said:"Well. Australia isn't a country, you see... just a penal colony."

No argument there. Some remarks I plan to use in my comic is that it's still just as rough, still overseen like a penal colony and it's not much easier to escape from than it was back then.

Also I learned from Melvyn Bragg's "The Adventure of English" that many of the English phrases commonly used in Australia originated from the criminal clases deported here.

ccdesan said:"As for "Why Canada?"
I would love to have seen the response had you said "Easy target." Heh heh heh."

Oh hell no. There are signs around customs areas warning travellers not to make jokes about terrorism. They'd have hauled me off for a full interrogation.