I don't think Carol's contretemps with the European bureaucracy is quite as dramatic as my tense encounter with three German police and several German TSA-style security people, but maybe the lesson is, if it can happen to a woman who prefers to follow rules, it can happen to anyone.
The confrontation happened in Amsterdam, and likely starred an overeager newish immigration employee. For the first time, to save time, we split up and went to different immigration counters. We'll NEVER do that again! And believe me, Carol will make sure of that.
He asked Carol where we were going in Europe. "Dubrovnik, Split, and then a river cruise in Bordeaux." He then demanded to see her cruise tickets. Well, we didn't have any cruise tickets. It's a small river ship where we will check in by name.
The immigration officer was getting quite agitated, and he got louder and louder as Carol questioned his need to see that information. "You should know. In America you are required to show cruise tickets!" he said triumphantly.
Well, no. In America we've only taken one cruise (to Alaska, back in 2011) and no one asked for our cruise ticket until we were getting on board the ship. They certainly didn't ask for it at immigration in Seattle, as we didn't have to pass through immigration.
By this point, Carol had called me back from beyond the barrier (a decision the officer struggled with at first but finally allowed because he was boxed in. Carol didn't have the tickets, this other person claiming to be her husband might, or Carol and he could be at an impasse all day.
So we have some of the same conversation again, with him relying on the talking point that in the United States you must show your cruise ticket when you are over eight days and 1,000 kilometers from your cruise.
Well, he didn't say exactly that, but that's the situation.
Carol was losing her cool, much as I was on the verge of in the above forementioned "Frankfurt Airport Bomb Scare Incident" of 2023. So it was my turn to calm her down. So did I rub her back gently like she did mine as German prison loomed? No, I responded in the loving husband way: "Stop talking. Don't say anything. I will do the talking."
Let's face it, Carol's anger was not moving the ball forward toward a solution. Finally I searched "Inspirato Cruises" on my iPhone, found a rando email that talked about the cruise.
I'm not sure it was evidence of anything, but by then the immigration officer decided he'd had enough of this crazy and confused couple. Kuh-chunk went his stamp into our passports and we were free to go, whether we were taking an innocent Bordeaux river cruise or actually plotting to overthrow the European Union.
It was chance he was willing to take, just so he didn't have to keep to this couple that had committed one of the great crimes in bureaucracy, insufficient paperwork.
And that's how our trip to Croatia and Bordeaux got off to a flying start!
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