If you travel to Europe this summer, beware of this:

[DFW]

55. SHocked at being assaulted and target for crime? In Europe?

I've been spending over half my time here for nearly 40 years, have lived here full time for almost ten.

There isn't much that could shock me at this point. Although there was one band of Serbians about 15 years ago. They were specialists at breaking into houses and apartments, and if they made a mistake, and there were people at home at the time, they simply killed them. They were only caught because they got sloppy, and one of their victims survived and later identified them. A friend of mine worked for the German BKA, their version of the FBI, at their HQ in Wiesbaden. He later got into forensics, and transferred to Berlin. They sent him to identify victims of the Bali disco bombing (or what was left of them). I think I would rather have stuck to chasing bad guys.

I was only surprised that the tactic that I had experienced up to now only in Belgium was suddenly tried on me in Düsseldorf. Maybe it has been used so often in Belgium that few fall for it any more.