Good Uplifting Experiences with Customs/Immigration

[marlinfshr]

I've traveled a bunch. Both by plane and by boat. I have only had issues twice. Once was the first time flying and I arrived from Venezuela to Miami. (I took a boat down and was coming home for Christmas) I was nervous and kept fumbling with my passport. That was the trigger.
Another time was arriving into Philly from a trip to Costa Rica with only a small carry on. He was actually cool about it and when we asked what made him target us he mentioned the fact that it was a last minute ticket purchase to a Central American country for only a couple of days and we had no luggage. Understandable.

Every other time I've had no issues. Some seem to have no personality and its easy to understand that they may have a short fuse because of all the people (many not nice) that they have to deal with. So I just show up, don't cross the line until they wave me in, have my passport and customs form in hand with the page opened, smile and say good morning/afternoon/evening and answer every question.

[Ariete]

My only experience with Customs/Immigration was in late 1991 when we drove with my grandad to the Soviet border and my grandad asked if I could enter USSR even for a minute, just so I could say I had been there before it collapsed. I was scared as hell and didn't even want to go, but luckily the request was declined.
I met Soviet soldiers and tanks in Berlin in 1990 and almost sh*tted my pants. The USSR was indeed very scary for a little boy.

I've never been in a country that requires border formalities, even during pre-Schengen no border controls were held in Western Europe.

[pch1013]

Originally Posted by Ariete

I've never been in a country that requires border formalities, even during pre-Schengen no border controls were held in Western Europe.

In 2002-03 I was working for a US software company that had a big project in Svetogorsk (formerly Enso), Russia, which is about 10 km from Imatra. Since the hotels on the Russian side were nasty and unsafe, we all stayed in Imatra. So every morning we'd go through Finnish customs and immigration, and then Russian customs and immigration. Because of the time difference, sometimes we'd have to get up at 5 am to make it to Svetogorsk for a 9 am meeting.

At first the Russian side was a bunch of shacks, then a brand-new EU-funded customs building opened up and they became almost professional. The whole process was a huge pain, but not really scary, except for when the Finnish border guards spoke to me in Finnish (as I have a Finnish last name) and got really disappointed when I explained I didn't speak the language.