Well, flank you?

Like I always say... when in Roam.

Stahp

I'm beginning to think it was a misteak to start this up again ...

Bullocks! I dung know what the problem is.

Anyway, shall we agree and shake hands on a temporary taurus?

I think anyone complaining is full of bologna ... but yes, I Wanna Hold Your Ham, and just Let It Beef.

And with that, a close to this Round. :p

'til next time...

TFW you're in the lounge and an attendant comes over and says "Uh, Mr. Kennedy, the police would like to have a word with you."

Stole some nurses heart, did you?

Don't leave us hanging

I need to run the post by a moderator first to see if I can post it here.

I guess I should finish writing it :p

Aarrgghh, my whole family is freaking out. Found out yesterday that there are masonry problems with the school where my kids go and my wife teaches. They'll all be shipped off to a neighbouring village with the older kids doing split shifts until the school board can fix the issues. No timeline yet, things are still developing.

The building is 8 years old. I guess they don't build them like they used to.

It was suggested I leave Europe.

I'm on a flight out of Europe.

Did you go full DC?

Cowxit?

:eek:

That's pretty high up on the list of things that you don't want to hear.

It's not that exciting.

I'm sure I speak for everyone when I say the suspense is killing me

You're speaking for me at least!

C'mon Cow, spill it!

Sorry, it's too hard to post to FT from the flight.

Especially with the cuffs on? ;);););)

No OSD bus in YYZ today. Large presence of border guards on foot checking receipts.

They might be searching for the cow.

Okay...

So there I am, sitting in the FRA Lufthansa First Class Terminal with a friend, awaiting our breakfast orders.

Our Personal Assistant walks over, and says “Uh, Mr. Kennedy, the police would like to have a word with you.”

As one can imagine, many things started flashing through my mind. Luckily, it quickly became clear this was the border police, and the question would be no different than had I actually presented myself at exit immigration. But before even getting to the officer, I knew what it was about.

5 days ago, we flew AMS-LHR, after having spent about a week in Schengen. To my surprise, it wasn’t just EU passports allowed to use the automated gates, but also Canada, USA, Australia, and a bunch of others. I happily went through, all the while wondering how it was going to work without getting an exit stamp. The entry stamp was 10 days ago, also at FRA.

Of course, the officer wanted to know when I left Germany. I pulled up TripIt and told him all the details. There were questions about whether I had residency in any EU country (I do not), and the language barrier made it a little hard to explain the whole kiosk thing. At every other airport I’ve been to, kiosks are only for EU/UK/etc. passports.

He asked if I had a copy of my AMS-LHR ticket. Luckily, I did have my AMS-LHR boarding pass. I had to go upstairs to get it. I stopped by the restaurant, explained the situation, and my friend said “I’m pretty sure I got a stamp there”. Back downstairs with the boarding pass, the officer asked if he could take a photo. He also said he was going to call someone, and I’d probably get a “big stamp”.

The personal assistant spoke with him in German, and the result of that exchange was a check of my friend’s passport, and sure enough, he had an exit stamp.

Back upstairs again, sipping on champagne, talking it over with my friend. After the automated kiosks, most people were just leaving, but some were stopping for a stamp. He stopped. He was ahead of me, I didn’t see him stop, so when I got through the automated gate, I just kept walking, completely oblivious to the whole thing.

It seems a little odd that it’s up to the individual to get their “mandatory” stamp.

Anyway, they certainly encouraged me to take this flight and go back to good old USA, and be more mindful in the future. There’s now an entire page in my passport taken up by a special stamp that says:

"Die ausreise am 19.08.2018 in Amsterdam, Niederlande wurde nachträglich nachgewiesen."
Bundespolizeidirektion Flughafen Frankfurt/Main 24.08.18

That translates roughly to "The departure on 19.08.2018 in Amsterdam, the Netherlands was subsequently proven."
Federal Police Directorate Frankfurt/Main Airport 24.08.18

It also has a “Vorgangsnummer” (operation number) and “Unterschrift” (signature).

Not fun, but luckily resolved without issue.

Though I think I'll stay home for a while (once I finally arrive - one flight left) :p

Cowabunga! Glad it all worked out ok for you.

I'm a little confused why the police came after you in the first place. It sounds like you'd completed all of the automated processing, so I would expect to find a happy state marked against your name in a database somewhere .... but the problem was that you didn't have a stamp in your paper passport. And I can understand how that may have caused a problem if & when you'd shown your paper passport to a real person. But it sounds like that's not what happened .... it sounds like your name did get flagged in an electronic system somewhere, and the (border) police came looking for you as a result. Am I missing something?

Oh no, in LH FCT and the FCL, you hand your passport over when you get there, and it's given to border police. You get it back when you board/leave/whatever.

So he was looking through it, and noticed the stamp.

Yes, OSS. Autocorrect can duck itself.

Maybe it was because I came from a hermaphrodite gate and they figured out that hallway upstairs is as secure as Windows SE.

Edit: twice it can duck itself twice

Side note on kiosks - Canadians can use the kiosks in Australia too.