You can't go anywhere in this post-9/11 world without the potential for being hassled by the gendarmes.
When I landed in Helsinki en route to Osaka, I was stopped by a border agent because my passport was not stamped. I was led back into a downright skeery waiting area for what looked like one of those good-cop-bad-cop, beat-the-crap-out-of-the-suspect interrogation rooms you see in cop shows and movies. She also had a pistol on her hip. No mere paper jockey, this one. She had to be ready to shoot a motherfucker.
Now as it turns out I landed in France, and to the French, it seems, stamping your passport is something of an optional administrative detail that may be overlooked. So my passport was looked at but not stamped. That raised some WTF alarms when I landed in Finland. (Good old EU! A model of international cooperation!) I tried explaining this in the best way I knew how, me not knowing WTF was going on either since this was my first European landing, and waited, tensely, for 15 minutes while they decided whether to do the old good-cop-bad-cop routine on me.
Thankfully, they said I could go. But I was on pins and needles there for a while.
Out of curiosity, what was the starting point? Wherever you start from, France and Helsinki sounds like an unusual route if you're on the way to Japan.
When I landed in Helsinki en route to Osaka, I was stopped by a border agent because my passport was not stamped. I was led back into a downright skeery waiting area for what looked like one of those good-cop-bad-cop, beat-the-crap-out-of-the-suspect interrogation rooms you see in cop shows and movies. She also had a pistol on her hip. No mere paper jockey, this one. She had to be ready to shoot a motherfucker.
Now as it turns out I landed in France, and to the French, it seems, stamping your passport is something of an optional administrative detail that may be overlooked. So my passport was looked at but not stamped. That raised some WTF alarms when I landed in Finland. (Good old EU! A model of international cooperation!) I tried explaining this in the best way I knew how, me not knowing WTF was going on either since this was my first European landing, and waited, tensely, for 15 minutes while they decided whether to do the old good-cop-bad-cop routine on me.
Thankfully, they said I could go. But I was on pins and needles there for a while.