What kinds of things make you change your mind about travel? Is the Middle East unrest making you avoid that area? Is the AIDS epidemic if Africa making you stay away?

And since I hate flying, I'll have to be happy with boat cruises to Europe or Australia or wherever should I actually want to leave Canada.

I also went a couple of months ago, and was suprised at the security - it was no different than any other time I have flown to the UK. (And we flew into Manchester the day the British Army went into Heathrow).

I flew to Paris the week after September the 11th to attend a conference. Weird airport scene, and almost empty plane.

We've never had any problems getting thru -- except once, the first trip after the mad-cow scare broke. On that occasion, in addition to all the usual questions, the officer threw in at the end, "Are you carrying any beef products?" My father, who was driving, got a little flustered by this unexpected departure from the routine, and made the mistake of snickering a bit. The officer repeated his question, more sternly: "Are you carrying any beef products, sir???" My dad shrugged and said, "I don't think so" or something like that, in a joking tone.

At this point, things got positively icy: "It's a very serious question, sir. I could make you turn around and head right back to Canada, sir."... etc.

Meanwhile, I'm in the back seat, my eyes bugging out as I stare at the massive holstered gun bulging off the officer's hip. I was starting to plan how I was going to decorate my cell in Guantanamo Bay, when everything settled down, and it was established that no, we did not have any contraband cow products on board, and we were waved thru.

I can just see your father snickering while wondering if he'd had any beef for lunch that day that he might have been "carrying" across.

They asked me a TON of questions. I couldn't believe it. And personal ones too. When I told them my occupation was university student, they even asked to see my student ID card. Wild. I was made nervous just by all the questions, and then I worried that I looked nervous.

[ 10 July 2003: Message edited by: Michelle ]

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We were considering going to England this year.

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Go.

You can get into the states with photo id and a birth certicate, but they don't like it. They prefer you have a passport. If you go down without one, be prepared to explain why you don't have it.

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Originally posted by leftylicious:
And always smile and be polite! Never be rude to a customs officer...never ever ever ever ever, no matter what country you're going to. It just ain't worth it.

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Oh yeah.

My rules to anyone going across the border:

1. Answer all questions as directly and with as little wasted time as possible.
2. Never volunteer information. If they don't ask about the trunk, you don't open the trunk.

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I used to think US border guards were the world's meanest until I experienced some East German ones

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The world's worst, in my opinion, were the ones guarding the road from Ohrid, Yugoslavia into Albania

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I think you have to be careful about things like that 'lance.

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#$^#&

They obviously found me boring, but I was shocked at the searches they did on French foreign residents who had, apparently, been shopping in Brussels. (Don't ask me ...) Body searches, right there on the train, in front of everyone. Bags gone through, stuff tossed out of bags. Unmistakably racist.

Welcome to Paris, skdadl.

Near cousins of those guys seemed to be running the paddy wagons permanently parked in Place Saint Michel.

I never had the problems getting into France that I did at the US border. Since I speak fluent French it is a bit different and they think Québec accents are cute (it is a bit condescending, but no time to argue...).

[ 11 July 2003: Message edited by: lagatta ]

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Originally posted by DrConway:
I've decided I don't even want to go to the United States, especially given that the fascist bastards are doing this to people.

And since I hate flying, I'll have to be happy with boat cruises to Europe or Australia or wherever should I actually want to leave Canada.

So yeah, I'm a real stay-at-home.

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They were dumbasses. Yeah, sure, you're right, I WILL have a problem with it if US Customs detains people who are actually prepared to cross the border. Because the difference between that and the dorks in this article is that they will have been properly prepared and have the right paperwork!

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Anyone who refuses to go to the USA for political reasons is as silly as the Americans with their "freedom fries" and refusal to travel to France for political reasons.

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I take exception to this. I don't think there's anything the least bit silly about being political with my consumer choices. If I don't believe in the American war effort, and I don't want to support it, then the only option I have is to take every step to assure that MY money doesn't end up supporting their economy in any way. It's fairly futile, it would seem, but it's my right and my duty to put my money where my mouth is.

What's silly is having politics and not living up to them.

[ 17 July 2003: Message edited by: Lima Bean ]

On the way there, the customs guy looked at my passport, and then asked me questions that sounded way more like he was worried that I was going to work illegally than to carry out Evil Acts. After seeing my invitation to the workshop, he wanted to know how I was being funded for it and things like that. I guess my nerdly look and tone of voice and accent put me in Illegal Tech Worker category rather than in villain category. I was too honest about my lunch and had to be inspected by the USDA food cops.

Once I had come back home after a couple of weeks, I discovered that on the way back they had inspected my luggage behind the curtains, going so far as to leave me a nice apology note.

People must be aware: if you are not an American citizen, you no longer have the kinds of protections that are generally recognized elsewhere. You could be disappeared by Mr Ashcroft's minions or others, and in extreme cases, you, your family, your home government would have no recourse.

Now, it is true: you might make the argument that that is unlikely to happen to you, as it is to me, because I have dead-white skin and freckles (on top of which I am both a gril and oldish).

But what kind of creep exults in knowing that she gets a get-out-of-jail-free card on the basis of her "race"?

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I got bitten on the way back by the rather dilapidated municipal infrastructure in the part of the US where I was.

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No, what happened was that the Baltimore trains had to be shut down for maintenance, only very little notice was given, since no one really cares (the bus drivers and transit phone operators hadn't been told, for instance, even though it was a planned shutdown). However, I was depending on the trains to get me and my new friend to the airport. The train shutdown caused me hours of headache. It's a long story. My friend almost missed his flight.

It was a good idea to go, in hindsight. I met a large number of friends, a few of whom seem to want to stick, one of whom I must recruit someday for babble, and I met a lot of Famous People, including people from Montreal who thought I should apply for a PhD with them despite being mostly anglo (U de M is francophone). Baltimore itself is a boring city and I wouldn't recommend going there for fun.

[ 17 July 2003: Message edited by: Mandos ]

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I wonder what would happen to much of the fear and loathing of the US so commonly expressed on this board if more babblers actually spent some time down here.

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Why don't you watch your generalization buddy. Perhaps if more American's travelled there would be a lot less of your so caled "fear and loathing", which was set in Las Vegas by the way. Not on babble or in Canada.

For instance, I replaced my passport before going because I had a highly problematic visa on my old passport. Imagine if I hadn't replaced it. I suspect I may have had at least a little bit more trouble. I went to a great deal of effort to screen my luggage, etc, for problematic artifacts, so that the only incriminating thing would be my name and skin. I made sure I had paper documentation from my hosts in Baltimore.

Regarding "afraid to go?", I was told numerous times by family members and friends (but no government sources) to avoid Egypt as "Middle Eastern country" but happily ignored it. The one change I did was switching from a solo travelling plan to a Contiki tour after I couldn't find any reasonably priced hotels. This was a good idea simply for the social factor (I had been travelling Europe on my own for 2 months or so by then and was getting mighty sick of meeting people for less than a day or so before moving on.)

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Originally posted by LocoMoto:
I wonder what would happen to much of the fear and loathing of the US so commonly expressed on this board if more babblers actually spent some time down here. I'm glad Mandos had decent experience. I would have been very surprised and dismayed had it been otherwise.

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Buddy, I have spent time in the United States of America. I have gone down on numerous occasions ranging from a few hours to several weeks.

I have met several people in the USA from several demographics, et cetera and ad nauseam.

In my travels I have found that individual Americans are mostly fine people to get along with. However, in spite of all this the United States is a culture with several elements I feel uncomfortable with - for example, nowhere have I seen strips and strips of boarded-up buildings as I did in San Francisco, California - or sights straight out of the Great Depression in the prosperous (!) 1990s with haggard middle-aged males who clearly had spent years being homeless wearing signs saying "WILL WORK FOR FOOD". The astonishingly poor maintenance of the I-5 and other highways is inexcusable for a nation which is so wealthy, yet cannot seem to maintain its basic infrastructure. Even through Seattle I'd hit stretches of concrete where my car would go BaDUMPbaDUMPbaDUMP like I was driving in freakin' Mexico.

US anti-war activists hit by secret airport ban

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just got a job offer from Bechtel in Iraq.what do you think fly or drive? humvee or kiowa?

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Originally posted by redshift:
just got a job offer from Bechtel in Iraq.what do you think fly or drive? humvee or kiowa?

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You're kidding. Whoa.

The only problem that I encoutered was that I was in the middle of Copenhagen checking out the touristy sites of the city and I got really sick in the middle of the day. I had just left one relative's house and was planning on taking a 2 hour train to another relative's house to stay. I reallly badly wanted a bed to sleep in and recover because I was feeling so incredibly ill.

The scary thing about travelling ( or more.. the uncomfortable thing ) is that if you get sick, you can't just go home and lie in your bed. I ended up sleeping in a city park on the grass but it was really rough. There were tourists staring at me, and it was noisy and dirty and I didn't feel any better. I had no bathroom to puke in when I was going through the worst of whatever I had, and I didn't know how serious my illness was. Fortunately I can speak decent Danish so I was able to communicate with a Pharmacist about my condition and get some medicine but they have different kinds of medicines in every country. ie: tylenol is banned in the UK ( isnt it?) And they don't have Tylenol in Denmark.

It was a bad bad bad day being a sick tourist.

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Perhaps the more interesting question is why you have to be a "natural-born" American to be President.

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Terrorists come in all shapes and sizes.

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But seriously US Customs Officers have always been pricks.

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Perhaps, though in my experience the Customs guys were reasonable -- it was at Immigration, the gauntlet of which you have to run first if you're at Vancouver Airport and flying (say) to Los Angeles, where they were tense and officious.

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The official title is "Immigration and Naturalization Service," and they seem to think their job is to prevent immigration and naturalization.

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'oops I just realiszed kidlet was coming into the country - those were our pricks!

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I used to work as a role-play actor for the RCMP's Human Relations dept. here at Depot Division, where all the recruits get their training... Anyway, we also used to get Immigration officers through on training programs. They were the worst. At the least hint of anything, they'd get physical. I'd come out of their with finger-mark bruises on my arms, been kicked quite viciously in the knee to knock me down... After one of my other actors got his face mashed into a wall with a body slam, I finally had to tell the instructors in charge that if they didn't make it clear that using my employees (I was a contractor) as punching bags was a major no-no, we wouldn't do any more Immigration sessions. The buggers wouldn't even stop when we called "Time Out".

And they felt justified. "Cops get guns, we don't, we have to be rough". And got a real charge out of being as big an asshole as possible, which, of course, exacerbates the situation, makes it hostile. And they resented HAVING to take Human Relations training.

There seems to be a culture of nastiness in that particular gov't department... Them and Revenue Canada...

[ 13 August 2003: Message edited by: Zoot Capri ]

[ 13 August 2003: Message edited by: kuba walda ]

This is why Customs Officers are so vigilante with ID's, even for 13 year olds.

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I'll be touching down in the land of pommes frites, liberté, egalité et fraternité in a few days, though. I suppose I'll see the usual Pays de la Loire stuff, but we hope to get down to Carcassonne (maybe even to Montaillou!). I'd like to stop by Oradour-sur-Glane sometime along the way...

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Just got back a couple of days ago. Beat the blackout in Pearson Int'l by less than 24 hours.

Stayed in Carcassonne two days, saw Montségur and visited Montaillou. The Inquisition did its job - no Cathars in sight, although the tourist industry now pushes the area as the "Pays des Cathares." I managed to get to Oradour as well. Each place where the SS shot the townsmen is marked. I went in the church where the town's women and children were killed. They were burned alive. The church's bell was a melted lump. *A holiday in someone else's misery?*

I don't think visiting the sites of Nazi terror and the persecution of the Cathares mean having a holiday at the expense of others' pain. It is important to get a historical perspective on the places you are visiting.

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Istanbul is a European city. The rest of Turkey is Asian. But its all interesting. Just watch your purse/backpack.

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I've heard that before, but on the other hand, isn't Turkey's Mediterranean coast more European than most of the country? Certainly Izmir (once called Smyrna), almost 2.5 million people, with its socialist mayor and its new subway system (cool web site) sounds quite attractive. So does the whole coast down through Antalya ("the Turkish Riviera") as far as Mersin, which all voted for the secular left opposition last November while the interior, and even Istanbul, voted for the islamists.

But maybe I'm just dreaming of escaping Ernie Eves' Ontario. Although my son and his partner are not just dreaming, they plan to be there by December. Has anyone been to Izmir? Or Antalya?

[ 17 August 2003: Message edited by: Wilfred Day ]