Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2005/03/08
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Alastair, The only time in my life I have been strip-searched was in Norway in the late 80s. I was visiting my parents in Denmark and went up to Oslo to visit a friend there. At the border, the Norwegians took a look at my passport...US citizen, passport issued in Miami (I was living in Florida at the time). I was carrying 3 times the allowed amount of booze and cigarettes for my friend (these essentials are extremely expensive in Norway) but that is not what the customs officers were after. After 20 minutes they concluded that despite my Miami-issued passport and all the episodes of Miami Vice that they had seen, I was NOT carrying any cocaine ;-) Despite all this, Norway is a beautiful country and even though I find Oslo quite boring, it does come to life in the summer. Nathan Alastair Firkin wrote: > gee, Helen and I were due to come up that way, perhaps we will go to New > Zealand: they are only moderately unfriendly there ;-) > On 08/03/2005, at 1:04 AM, Daniel Ridings wrote: > >> Graham, >> Foreigners are not really welcome here. Tolerated, but not welcome. The >> fewer, the better. Perhaps I'm exaggerating, but I feel I have to since >> Scandinavia has tended to have a liberal stamp on it. The various >> countries react differently. I suspect that Sweden has the most liberal >> refugee policy, Finland the least, Denmark, a small country, has been >> over >> saturated and Norway is somewhere inbetween. Probably closer to Finland >> than anything else. >> >> Norway does have a lot of public money, oil money. So it can afford to >> have civil servants on duty who really don't have to pull much weight. >> They can act offended if you show up and expecting them to perform their >> duties. (I've had a run-in with a few of them, so my background >> information might be tainted :-) ). It doesn't really matter if they do >> anything or not. The country and afford them. The bureaucracy is of >> Byzantine proportions. >> >> So you have these furners. You make them report to the police station >> (one >> single police station in all of Oslo, the capital city, mind you, not >> just >> your local station) between 8 and 10? possibly 11. Anyway, at the end of >> the short time frame they close. Doesn't matter that you've been waiting >> there since 8 am, they close. Sorry. Come back tomorrow. >> >> So all these poor souls start queuing up at around 7 am. This particular >> day it was -15 degrees and the wind was raging off the fjord, the >> harbour. >> Cold. Very cold. Most of these people come from temperate zones ... >> Africa, Pakistan, India etc. 15 degrees is cold for many of them. >> >> At 8 o'clock ... make that 8:05 if the police really feel like screwing >> with you, they unlock the door. Now at that point, you don't retain your >> queue place, but you have to rush to a number machine and get a queue >> number. >> >> Some of these will not get served on today. The one station is Oslo is >> not >> open long enough to take care of them. >> >> Maybe they'll get tired of it and decide to move home? >> >> http://www.rollei-gallery.net/ridings/image-80729.html >> >> Excuse my cynical humor today. I had a run-in with the customs people at >> the border last night. Norway is a member of Schengen so they're not >> allowed to do controls of people, only of goods. I think they're >> trying to >> drum up business for the train line to Gothenburg they now have but can't >> get to take off (they raised the price 100%) so they're making sure all >> other forms of transportation are so miserable to use that people with >> opt >> for the useless train instead (it's a milk-run. Stops at every farm >> between Gothenburg and Oslo). >> >> Something like that ... >> >> Daniel >> >> >>> Hi Daniel, >>> >>> I particularly like these two: >>> http://www.rollei-gallery.net/ridings/image-80727.html >>> >>> http://www.rollei-gallery.net/ridings/image-80728.html >>> >>> and I am curious about the reference to 'foreigners dose of humiliation' >>> >>> --Graham >>> >>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> Leica Users Group. >>> See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information >>> >> _______________________________________________ >> Leica Users Group. >> See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information >> >> > Alastair > > _______________________________________________ > Leica Users Group. > See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information > > -- Nathan Wajsman Almere, The Netherlands General photography: http://www.nathanfoto.com Seville photography: http://www.fotosevilla.com Stock photography: http://www.alamy.com/search-results.asp?qt=wajsman http://myloupe.com/home/found_photographer.php?photographer=507 Prints for sale: http://www.photodeluge.com