Münchener Meanderings - Part 3

Friendly Skies and Little Green Men

Time to write, finally, about meanderings in Munich again.

Well, Friday dawned bright (oops, dark) and early; wasn’t quite 3 AM when I arose, and wasn’t much past 4 AM when I checked out. Took the train from Münchener Hauptbanhof and reached the airport at around 5 AM.

Needed to change from Terminal 1, where the S-Bahn comes in (Schnell Bahn or Fast Train, if the Germans are to be believed), to Terminal 2, where Lufthansa flies out from. Had a conncection: Munich-London-San Francisco, and I happily checked in at the automated machine. Oooer! This one doesn’t print luggage tags! Helpful airline personnel said they had a luggage drop-off instead. It turned out to be a glorified check-in counter, except that you already had your boarding pass, and were just trying to get rid of your luggage.

That’s when the trouble started. Woman at counter checked in my luggage. Then she proceeded to ask me if I had a visa for the United Kingdom.

- “Wot visa?”
- “You need one for the UK, Sir!”
- “No, I don’t. I’m only transiting.”
- “Yes, you do. You need a transit visa!”
- “Your machine tell you that?”
- “Yes Sir! Where’s your transit visa?”
- “Don’t have one.”
- “But, you need one!”
- “Ma’am, I hear you that I need one. I ain’t got one. Whatchya gonna do?”
- “You can talk to the police”
- “Where?”
- “Upstairs…Wait, I will get my colleague to help you”

So she picked up the phone and called her ‘colleague’. I understand enough German to know she called the cops and said that she had a traveler without a visa… now that could mean several interesting things, including that I did not have a visa for Germany! I decided to act the dumb tourist who speaks only English, and kept myself to myself.

After about ten minutes I was visited by two little green men (German police wear puke-green uniforms). Polizei decided to speak real slow to dumb tourist, potential terrorist, or - horror of horrors - potential illegal immigrant:

- “Anyone stamp your passport when you entered Germany?”
- “And how! See! One of your [little green] brethren did!”

Polizei appeared slightly nonplussed. Now what in Himmel's name was this? Here was a traveler holding not only a very current business visa, but several expired ones as well, with a Resident Card that said he lives in the US. Plainly, works for an American company and comes and visits the branch in Germany often… Um, business traveler, big employer (amidst soaring umemployment), seems exactly the kind guy you don't want to rub the wrong way… I was wondering whether there was mileage to be had by pointing out that the German media actually reported a press release out of the Electronica tradeshow with my name on it, when one little green man squeaked:

- “Umm, there appears to be no problem, Sir!”
- “Tell Madame Lufthansa that! She thinks there is a problem.”
- “But you have a visa for Germany! There is no probe-lame!” The accent was beginning to become pronunced.
- “You are too kind! I insist there is a problem: Madame Lufthansa there.”

By this time other passengers had begun to snicker at the police. I decided to press home the advantage:

- “Madame Lufthansa’s machine thinks I need a visa for the UK. Do you guy’s care?”
- “Umm… No!”
- “Thought so! Tell her that”

There followed exchanges in German, with Madame Lufthansa reading out chapter and verse from her terminal (Sie brauchen einen Visum, and so on...). The police gave her a patient hearing, turned to me, gave me back my passport, shrugged at Madame Lufthansa, and left. As far as they were concerned, that was that. The German police do not like being made to look like fools, and they couldn’t wait to get away from the chuckles of a hundred plainly amused airline passengers.

I went my way. To the friendly skies. Sans Visum.


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