From the German Rheinland to the tip of Cape Cod, what they told us to expect vs. what happened [View all]

[DFW]

Don't even start reading this unless you have time for a bedtime story!

Instead of two flights to Boston a day from most European countries, you are lucky if some places have two a week. They jacked the prices up to double as well, but I just wasn't ready to buy an advance ticket until I knew we would be allowed to fly.

Within the last 2 weeks--the US embassy in Berlin said as far as they were concerned, Trump's proclamation was still in force (i.e. spouses of U.S. citizens may enter the USA). And: Lufthansa said they would honor it. The only question was--what would happen when we got to the USA? What tests would we have to undergo? How long would we be detained at the airport?

Our train from our little town down to Düsseldorf was right on time at 8:14 AM CEST, Düsseldorf at 8:30, the train from Düsseldorf to Frankfurt airport at 9:04 was also to the minute, arriving at Frankfurt airport at 10:33. Now came one of the two awaited tests of fire. The Lufthansa check-in counter. Would they give us a hard time about a German (my wife) wanting to fly to the USA? Nope, not so far. Took our bags, gave us the stubs and the boarding cards, and that was it. Up to security. NOBODY there except about ten very bored security checkers, so we were through that in a couple of minutes. Where was all this cumbersome hassle we were told on just about every website to expect? Ah, be patient.

At the gate, Lufthansa had additional security set up. They took our bags, gave us boarding passes, we went through German passport control and security, and NOW they want to make sure we could fly? Oh, well, they ARE EU after all. Why do anything in a logical order? So we all had to line up again, show our boarding passes and passports. THIS time they balk at my wife's German passport. Why is she flying to the USA? What justification does she have, since German citizens normally can't? I said I had things to do back home, and Trump's presidential proclamation specifically said that spouses of US citizens could accompany them on flights to the USA. The guy doing the checking was not German, and was unsure of what to do. When in doubt, ask for documents the passenger probably doesn't have, and say "no." So he asked for our marriage certificate (we were married in 1982). Sorry, Charlie, I DID anticipate this and had not only a copy of the marriage certificate from Virginia, but also the entries in German for the government there (also from 1982). Somewhat deflated, he said, "oh." He wasn't done, yet, though. He said I have to check this. When nothing else seems out of order, they need to "check this." There was some rep from DHS nearby, and he said it was all good, and suddenly the guy comes back, smiling as if he was announcing that we had won a billion euros in a lottery and said we were free to travel.

When we boarded, they took the handicapped first, and then called for priority boarding (we were, and it said so on our boarding passes). NOW the guy got to say NO. In English, he said, "priority only, sir." I pointed to our boarding passes that said "PRIORITY BOARDING" on them and he again said no, only priority boarding. I thought of a few choice Arabic insults to try on him, but held back, and we boarded with the rest. What the hell, it's not like the plane was gonna leave without us.

The flight was fine, but that was the easy part. They gave us some forms to fill out for the health people to check, but they were one-page simple things.

We landed in Boston, prepared for the worst. First came a table where we handed in the forms, got asked a couple of questions, and were sent to immigration. We were in the "blue" line because my wife's previous ESTA registration had expired, and she was traveling under a new ESTA number. The CBP guy was nice enough, but freaked when he asked me what countries I had been in over the last two weeks. I listed them, and he said "all those countries in TWO WEEKS?" I said, yeah, it's my job. He said, OK, and them checked my wife's fingerprints. He then kept her passport and told us some one would come to escort us to a special office. Uh-oh. Less than 3 minutes later, another uniform showed up, and escorted us to a special office with about ten other CBP uniforms. We were the only ones there without uniforms. We gave my wife's passport to one of them, who asked the usual customs questions (carrying $10,000? Bringing in food?). I said yes to food, we had some cookies. He said you don't have to declare cookies. I told him that I was once nearly arrested at CBP in Atlanta for saying I had no food when I was bringing in some cookies, so since then, I always answer "yes" when I have anything more edible than a pencil.

So we were sitting there in the little CBP office while the guy fiddled with his computer and my wife's passport, and the others made Herculean efforts at not being bored. After playing with his computer for about ten minutes, we heard that telltale noise of a passport being stamped. My wife and gave each other that little "thumbs-up" look, and sure enough, he called us over to pick up her passport, and told us how to get to baggage claim. Our four suitcases were already there by the time we got there, so we went out, got the airport bus over to the rental car building, and went over to the AVIS counter to pick up our car. Everything was all set, and we went to the slot, loaded our stuff in, and got headed for the exit.

The Avis exit was worse than CBP. The woman at the counter had given us the right car, but the wrong paperwork. We got stopped at the rental car exit for almost as long as we were stopped at immigration. But the woman at the exit gate was in no mood to run into the office and ask WTF they were thinking. So, she re-did our rental papers right there in her kiosk, and sent us on our way.

Now I was terrified that we would be exhausted after the long trip, and fall asleep at the wheel. This was July 4th, after all, and we were ready for traffic to be one 100 mile long parking lot. But it was already 5:30 PM Eastern time (11:30 at night for us), and the roads were virtually deserted. Amazing. We made the trip in a record two hours flat.

All those warnings that the German authorities might block us from leaving to the USA, all those warnings that the American authorities might deny my wife entry, or put us into quarantine? NONE of it happened, and at the end of the day, it was one of our smoothest trips ever to the States. Yeah, there was that Lufthansa jerk in Frankfurt, and yeah, there was that useless check of my wife's passport in Boston, but neither was especially unpleasant and neither caused any delay. Our daughter and her husband, who knew exactly when to expect us, had made up a dish with shrimp, cod, and lemon butter pasta, accompanied by a Caesar salad and fresh watermelon and cherries to finish it off.

Moral of the story? When government and airline websites tell you to expect a smooth flight and smooth procedures, expect the worst. When they tell you to expect the worst, prepare for it, but don't expect it. And always fly on July 4th. Those people want to get home, too!