Oh.. it's Bush's fault?

That Chicago lost the Olympics bid?

Hmmm.... now, I have heard low rumbling murmurs over here for quite some time now, about how no one is all too eager to travel to the US. Only if they 'had' to, and then they weren't happy about it.

I did know about the fingerprinting and the photos, but missed the thing about paying $130.00 extra for a visa just to enter. Expensive club, hey. If we did that here, we'd have hopping off-the-charts angry tourists telling us we were facsists. And given the 'quality' of some of the ones who do come here, the 'new Romans', as I call them, with their breathtaking arrogance, it would be more than justified.

And then the stating the 'intent' to leave after proposed visit, now that is just idiocy... Who would want to stay there? Talk about overestimating oneself....

Entry being 'harrowing'? Well, have been on both sides of that fence, and can truly say... the authorities treat everyone equally badly on entering the country. From being intimidated on re-entry after a year abroad in 1973 by an agent who printed out a computer list and recited everything I did while gone and studying for a year, to entering as a 'ferner' to visit my father, and being harrassed about it to get a visa to get in in Boston. Now, that latter was really 'fun'. Not.

The official put me on tenterhooks, studying my nearly pristine passport. It had two stamps in it... from Slovenia. How very spooky for him. I live an hours' drive from the border, and used to join some friends to go to the town of Maribor and visit their fine fish restaurants. Fun times...

So I drily said, 'I have a return ticket'.

'Oh, we KNOW that...'

Till I said the magic words... 'Listen, I'm just here to visit my family, and then I have to return and go back to work.'

He drew out the suspense, and then stamped my pass with a visa. And I don't even want to BEGIN with describing the customs people.

And all that was way before 9/11. I do not even want to imagine what it is like now. Not to misunderstand, please. Once in, everyone was nice. But entering? Jeebus H. Christ on a crutch, hey.

For comparison, every time I entered then Yugoslavia, and later Slovenia, there was always an uproar when they found my US passport in the pile of Austrian ones. It annoyed my friends for the ten minute delay at the border, and sent the guards into high activity.

'An American! What are you doing here?' 'Errrm, going to a restaurant with some friends...' And they would run my data through their computers three times in their little toll booth sort of huts, muttering and shaking their heads.

Good times, hey... We came to expect that little show. After all, it was a )))communist country((( ... oooo. Shudder... But at least they were correct, and never impolite.

Entering the US was far more frightening.

And the rudeness was far worse.

So maybe the person quoted in this article was correct.

And I guess I am not alone... read the last part of this article.

I have no experience to quash that theory... Click on the link.