It was kind of cool, being able to travel between member states of the EU and not have your passport checked. But still, I was wondering when one country's liberal immigration/refugee policies would run afoul of another country's more conservative views.
From the Guardian:
European nations moved to reverse decades of unfettered travel across the continent when a majority of EU governments agreed the need to reinstate national passport controls amid fears of a flood of immigrants fleeing the upheaval in north Africa.I remember the first time I ran afoul of Europe's border controls. I was, I think, 23 or so, and taking an overnight train down to Italy (I don't remember where I was coming from, possibly Germany - I remember we were crossing from Switzerland into Italy). Anyway, back then the conductor would take your passport and check them at the border while you slept.
In a serious blow to one of the cornerstones of a united, integrated Europe, EU interior ministers embarked on a radical revision of the passport-free travel regime known as the Schengen system to allow the 26 participating governments to restore border controls.
Well, it's way in the middle of the night, we're all dead asleep, me and my 5 Neapolitan bunkmates in the 6-person couchette (I didn't know any of them), when there was a knock at the door. None of us answered - back then there were concerns of getting drugged and robbed in the overnight trains, so you really didn't answer knocks at 3am, The knocking continues, then I hear, in a very loud Italian accent, a voicing yelling "ARAVOSIS!"
I get up, open the door, and there's some border police guy yelling at me, in Italian, that my passport is a fake. I still to this day have no idea why he was so convinced it wasn't real. So the guy is the yelling at me, and I'm trying in my rather-newly-learned Italian, only half a awake but heart running a mile a minute, to explain to the guy that it's a real US passport. Meanwhile, my five Napolitani bunkmates, still in their beds, are all yelling at the police guy, "shut up!"
Yeah, it's funny now.
