At Customs Experience

[Cypress]

I am studying Conversational Italian and have been asked to describe an experience At Customs in Italian language. As I have never travelled abroad or been through customs, I cannot write a realistic description of an event. My three cues for discussion include, Customs, Excuse Me, and Export.

Can anyone tell a brief, simple story of being in customs and what happened. The experience need not have been in Italy.

Grazie

[iris lily]

The friendly beagles in the Department of Agriculture caused me to get pulled out of line in a U.S. airport (Boston?) coming back from Europe. The dogs, with their handlers, were roaming up and down the line of people, as is common, and one dog focused on my bag. They asked me to step aside and they rummaged through my bag and found a half-eaten sandwich with some meat still left. I had forgotten about it. I liked the dogs.

I later read that Customs uses beagles because people are not afraid of beagles. They could use other dogs such as German Shepards but they would scare some people.

[Tweety]

I love the customs beagles! They wear little uniforms.

[lhamo]

My funniest customs story happened when I was 19. I had been studying at an international school in the UK, and got selected to go on a school trip to Bhutan. Was there for five weeks with a visa we got for free because the Foreign Minister's son was a classmate, and he invited us. Typically at that point you had to spend US$250/day on a package tour (not including airfare) to get a visa to Bhutan, as they restrict the number of tourists they allow. So if I had been paying the rack rate, this trip would have cost in the range of $10,000 -- this is in 1988 dollars, mind you. So, coming back to the US I actually had to fly back to the UK before flying home to the US. So I arrive at Heathrow having just recovered from a horrible bout of Delhi belly. I was probably looking pretty grotty, and hardly had any money. I'm wearing heavy duty climbing boots, I've got this oversized backpack and a huge green duffle bag that is stained with yak poo that has "Welcome to Bhutan -- Land of the Thunder Dragon" on it. The customs guy looks at me and is obviously confused. So I tell him the story, complete with reference to foreign minister's son. That led to a search that took approximately an hour, during which they went through every square inch of my bags with a fine tooth comb. Thankfully no strip search. I was so clueless I couldn't figure out at the time what they were looking for. I figured out later it was probably drugs -- I'm sure I fit the profile of a drug smuggler. Though later I learned that some influential families in Bhutan were heavily involved in smuggling endangered animal parts (snow leopard and tiger skins, etc.), so maybe that was it, too. Didn't have anything suspicious so they eventually let me go on my way.

[shadowmoss]

When I flew in from Germany a few years ago the beagle and handler were wandering around while we waited on our luggage. The beagle was cute as could be in his uniform, and the handler was an attractive middle-aged female straight out of Leave It to Beaver. As we walked from the luggage area the beagle nudged in front of me and gentle pawed the guy in front of me who had a daypack on. The handler in a very friendly way asked if he had any food items, and I think he said some apple scraps and a napkin. That beagle was good!

[Spartana]

Hi Cypress - I have never flown directly to Italy by plane, but I have crossed the border from other countries - and many back and forth trips from Spain (where I lived for almost a year - there was a US Coast Guard station there). How they do it on trains is that when you cross the border they stop the train (same with buses) and Customs officals, or maybe they were Border Patrol, would board the train, often with a drug or explosives sniffer dog, check passports and often stamp them (I love getting all the little passport stamps - not every country does that though). That was it. Very easy. When I've flown into or out of other countries to or from the USA, it was always easy. Just show my passport (and visa if needed) at Customs and sometimes a quick look into my backpack (I travel grundgy backpacker style) and that's it. I've never had a problem.

I also love the little drug sniffing beagles at the airport - so cute and always happy! We had a drug sniffer dog at one of my duty stations in North Carolina. He was a beagle/lab mix named (what else) Mayday! I loved that dog and he slept with me everynight. He didn't wear a uniform but had his own life vest. I'll look into my vast amount of old CG photos to see if I have a photo of him. I still miss him after all these years.