July 3rd

Cut to the German-Swiss Border on Grenzacherstrasse-

Female German Border Guard steps out into the road and points at us in the Red Golf VW:

Uh oh...
"Papers and Pasport, Bitte"
Uh....
Ja, 'Vere are your papers?
Uh...er ah....uh

I left them back at the hotel.

"Ein moment, bitte."
Oh crap...

The very lovely looking Border Guard comes back, realizes I am not Swiss or
German and starts to question Christoph who is driving his car, with me as a
passenger back from dinner in Germany to Switzerland. It's about 8 pm or so, and now
we are instructed to pull over to the side by the Zoll. Drivers license? Er ah..no,
I left that back at the hotel too. I'm an idiot.

She starts having a short conversation with Herr Schumacher,
takes his license and then goes back to the Guard House. She returns
shortly, with pen and paper. She instructs Christoph that I need to write
down my full name, address, SS #, and where I am currently staying.
Seems they are going to run zee check on zee Americana...ja, ja.
Good thing I'm squeaky clean...at least for the past decade or so!Damn.

I give all my info accordingly, and without any hesitation what so ever!
Hmm, would I be detained and questioned in der Fatherland!?  Might be interesting...
but then again, perhaps not so much. Well, if she was going to stand watch over
me...perhaps okay, I might be in. Anyway, she comes back after 10 minutes or
so, and has another conservation with Christoph. After a few minutes, with some
undoubtedly obvious flirting, I am cleared and free to cross back into Switzerland.
Whew. Crisis averted! Well, okay it would have been easy for him to go back to the
hotel and retrieve my pasport...so no real crisis. But kind of funny!

So that is my semi-interesting story from Europe. What is curious is that going into
Germany, they didn't seem to care much, but coming out, we get stopped! Go figure.
Also, I had ridden my bike 3 previous times across the same border with out so much
as a glance from the Border Guards. What are you going to do...
except produce your frigin pasport when asked! lol.

Can you imagine what this very same border spot was like 63, 64 years ago? Well, I can, sort of, and if that were the case...it would have been lights out. 63 years is really not that long ago in the big scheme, and it is astounding how different life is today.