Text 4552, 86 rader
Skriven 2010-12-01 09:29:47 av Ward Dossche (2:292/854)
   Kommentar till text 4542 av Jon Justvig (57.fidoftscpubl)
Ärende: Re: Votes received.
===========================
Jon,
 
JJ>WD> Rest assured, I've been scanned litterally thousands of times, so far
JJ>WD> still clean except once those 2 pounds of Belgian chocolates. It
JJ>WD> showed-up quite colourful on the scanner.
 
JJ> What exactly do they put in those chocolates and how would they know the
JJ> difference?  I guess they thought you were concealing something
JJ> dangerous.
 
Those chocolates are a highquality variety which you will never get at a
regular supermarket or candy-outlet. Whenever I travel I always carry 4-5
1-pound boxes with me to hand-out. They make a great gift.
 
Where I get them the outer shell is manually filled with all kind of goodies
... hazelnutpaste, marzipan, sherry, a cherry, sugary stuff ... all kind of
things that don't make you lose weight. Some of them are individually wrapped
in some aluminium foil type wrappers so I guess that shows-up suspicious on the
screen.
 
One day when I was at the UN in New York for a meeting where they operated
older scanners, chocolates even set-off an audible alarm.
 
JJ>WD> Also those 9 pounds of deep-frozen steaks last trip. When I got home
JJ>WD> they had a sticker on them "Opened and inspected by the TSA".
 
JJ>WD> Good steaks ...
 
JJ> You must travel a lot.  What were you doing with nine pounds of steaks?
JJ> I bet you eat good! <g>
 
You have no idea how small and how thin the steaks are you get here. So I told
my folks I was going to bring some real ones from the US.
 
I got them deepfrozen overthere at Albertson's in Missoula where they have an
excellent meat market and packed it insulated and in pastic bags for premature
dripping.
 
It's illegal to import meat into the European Community.
 
So instead of flying straight into Brussels, I flew into Amsterdam which is
both in an EC- as well as Schengen-country.
 
The European Schengen countries have no borders, once you're cleared for one
country you're cleared for all. The border crossing into the Netherlands on the
highway north of here we pass at 120km/h without slowing down for example.
 
So when you arrive in Brussels from the Netherlands the bags automatically
arrive at carousel-8 ... a Schengen country carousel, customs only look with
half an eye there.
 
Now intra-Schengen flights have a special bagage-label, it has a green stripe,
these bags are never searched by customs. The other bags with a plain white
label, like mine coming from the US, pass through a scanner prior to landing on
the caroussel and if something odd is seen that requires customs inspection,
that label will be marked.
 
So customs inspectors are observing body language, skin colour (yes, they do!),
from which caroussel does the passenger come and is there something on the
bagage label.
 
Yes, my bagage label was marked. What to do? It's only marked on one side ...
so turn it over and select some suspicious looking person or group to follow
through customs. They will be stopped, you can pass. Also "look very Belgian"
as if you're returning from vacation or a sporting-event...
 
End of the story ... I made it through customs without a glitch, the steaks
were defrosted and they were yummy.
 
Do I travel a lot? That depends what you call "a lot". When I still worked as
manager for the phone company I averaged 4 flights a month. Mostly
intra-European.
 
Today I reach retirement ... yeehaaaa ... and now I average 3-4 transatlantic
crossings a year mosty involving the Boy Scouts of America.
 
Plus some other trips ... I enjoy travelling and it's the ony luxury which
interests me. Fancy cars mean nothing to me, I don't care about the largest
TV-screen or surround sound, I don't spend my money in bars nor on women (that
is not entirely correct, I've got 4 women in the household here and boy they
can spend), my computers are homebuilt often with scrap parts, etc ...
 
 \%/@rd

--- D'Bridge 3.54
 * Origin: Many Glacier /Protect-Preserve-Conserve-Recycle/ (2:292/854)