Anything but Normal

Today was definitely anything but normal. The goal for the morning was to drive to Basel and buy train tickets for a student to go home tomorrow. But then came the request... "since you're going to Basel anyway and you speak German, how would you feel about picking up the science department's shipment that is stuck in customs at the airport?" Sure.

So at 9:30, Kristi hopped into my car and we headed to the Basel train station. Tickets from my favorite ticket salesman who reminds me of Mr Bean. Hot chocolate from Starbucks. A solid, uneventful start...then came the fun...trying to figure out how to get 3 boxes of black insect pins and amoeba slides out of customs. We found the airport and drove around in a few circles trying to follow the directions that were given to us that went like this "if you're coming from the city, you'll get to a traffic circle. Right after 100m by the casino. Tollstrasse. Cargo (not terminal). Look for a four story building that says FRET" (French for freight, although we wanted the Swiss side).

Whoever gave these directions to the guy who gave them to me should never give directions again. But Kristi has hawk eyes and saw FRET from probably a km away. A few more circles later we found our way to the locked-down building. So we went to the open building next door that had a Frachthalle sign outside. They sent us toward the locked down building. There was no way in. We must have looked pathetic standing in the huge parking lot full of UPS trucks and semis because some French speaker swiped his badge and pushed us through one of those turny-gates and into the world of FRACHT/FRET. He escorted us to the office of a man who spoke German who sent us through the intimidating warehouse double doors and to an office of another French speaker. She directed us to an office on the first floor. The lady upstairs took our money and explained that we needed to go to another office on the second floor, then the third floor, then back down to the warehouse except around the corner by the big ramp.

So we ventured to the second floor into another world of French (ahh!). Luckily the guy spoke enough (heavily French accented) German for us to communicate. And another hour and sum of money later we were on to the third floor. I handed them the stack of papers we'd collected from the lower two floors, and no one in that office seemed to know what they were or what to do with them. They advised us to not claim anything at the border and just "put the things in the back and hope you don't get stopped." They gave us whatever stamp we needed and moved us on to the warehouse...back to the little office we saw at the beginning. I signed some French papers, then the lady shooed us away... through the doors, to the right, at the end another right, through the other doors like these. We follow the instructions, laughing at the fact that we were just walking around these "highly secured" loading docks as if we ran the joint. I wanted to throw some boxes in the back of a truck just for the heck of it. But we continued.

We rounded the corners and found the doors, opened them and TAA-DAA! The French woman who had just given us directions on the other side of the warehouse was right there unloading our boxes. She must be a ninja to be that quick. I signed some more papers in French (even though we were supposedly on the Swiss, and therefore, German-speaking side). The man told us to stop at customs in Weil to "get money back." We were thoroughly confused since the people upstairs said go and hope you don't get caught, and now this guy is telling us to intentionally stop for our money back.

So, Kristi picked up the body-sized box, and I grabbed to two smaller ones. We started across the parking lot back toward the car and soon realized that we were trapped like rats in a cage! Where was our nice French man to swipe us back out of the compound?! We were standing by a place where cars could exit after a lady in the booth swiped their card and raised the traffic arm for them when some funny man drove by saying "hey what's up?" then motioned for us to walk behind his car as he drove through. But... we got caught. Apparently two giggling girls carrying a 5-ft long box isn't very sneaky.

It worked out to our advantage this time that the lady only spoke French. After asking us a few questions and us just staring dumbfoundedly or answering in other languages, she told us to just go. Yay! We could see the car!

There were probably about 100 men standing outside and maybe 5 women... it looked like a jail, or the military. We got stared at A LOT. I'm not sure if it's because we were trekking through the parking lot of semis or if we just are that attractive, but we'll choose the latter.

So, let's see. I made another wrong turn. The Swiss border at Weil was empty, so I stopped at the German side and asked him what to do with the papers to get money back. He sent us back into Switzerland and through another checkpoint, a place booming with business. As we approached the border, we had three lanes to choose from: the first was for cars with autobahn stickers, the second was for cars without stickers, and the third had a picture of a truck and said IMPORT. Kristi chimed in with the enthusiasm of a 5 year old, "let's be a truck!!" So I drove into the line of semis. We were importing, afterall.

The booth in which the customs worker sits in considerably elevated since the line is meant for semis. So when it was our turn at the booth, I had to get out of my squatty little car, stand on my toes and was still just barely tall enough to slide my papers into the slot for the lady. I could not stop laughing at how funny it must have looked. I looked around, and indeed, there were multiple people staring and laughing. The lady sent us away to "number 3." So I drove into lane number three...which ended at an empty booth with another traffic arm. So I backed up and drove the wrong direction until I could park in the truckers lot.

We went inside to a building full of little booths, like a row of bank tellers, except with a thick plastic partition between the employees and "guests-"one side of 12 Swiss windows and 12 German on the other side. A very outgoing man greeted us while we stared at the windows trying to decide where to go; I showed the German man our papers, and he said "Oh Black Forest! We have some Africans!!" He disappeared and came back with 2 Africans in tow. I guess they were to help with translation, although the man didn't give them an opportunity to speak, and after a few moments, he sent us to the Swiss side.

The Swiss guy looked comfused by our papers, asked to see our car, but when he realized we parked all the way down by the trucks instead of in the logical parking lot right next to the building he said that was good enough and went back inside. He gave us another paper to add to our stack and sent us "outside, around the corner, you'll get money back there." We followed the directions, met another person who looked at our papers as if he'd never seen anything like it before, and sent us to someone else who gave us our Swiss import fee back and sent us back inside to the Germans. While waiting for an available window on the German side, some man told us we had to go back to the Swiss side first. So we did. They stamped some more stuff and kept some of the papers, then sent us to the German windows. The Germans didn't know what to do with the papers and after the guy helping us had asked all the others in his little cubicle area some questions, he gave us some more stamps and a token to get out of the trucker parking lot.

Like the initial booth at this border, the token machine to raise the arm was also made for semis. Kristi took a picture of me on my toes, arm fully extended trying to get the token into the slot. I jumped back in and raced off in an effort to beat the arm coming back down. Finally free!

On the way back to school we also saw an old man literally stop in the middle of the street to check his watch. As if Kristi and I hadn't laughed enough, that was the icing on the cake for how ridiculous our morning was. So... 4.5 hours later we were back at school with the insects, amoebas, train tickets and empty Starbucks cups.