Thomas Gericke

Once again, I had lots of trouble to enter the United States. Since my first flight took me to Chicago, I had to pass the passport check there. And it took me more than an hour, because I (once again) had to pass a full and heavy check routine.

The reason for that may be found long way back in time. Here it is:

2001, I spent Christmas and New Years Eve in the U. S. and it seems, either me or the United States themselves forgot to mark me as “has left”, after I returned back to Germany in January 2002. When I left the USA then, there was absolutely no problem. The first problems occured a few months later.

August 2002, I spent several weeks of vacation with a friend of mine (Gernot) in the U. S. We entered at JFK, New York. While he passed the passport control within about a minute, I was told, I had to perform an extra check. I was led into an office, where lots of Asian or Southamerican people sat and waited.

Still talking about August 2002! I had to wait nearly half an hour and I was really concerned about Gernot, who did not know, where I were and he had no choice to contact me. And, furthermore, I had all our trip tickets and hotel reservations. After all the waiting, an officer came and ask me lots of questions. Again and again the same questions.

• “Where are you from?”
• “How long will you stay?”
• “Where have you been the last 7 months?”
• “Who do you work for?”
• “What are you going to do in the United States?”

I swear, the whole process took at least a full hour - if not even more. After like hundreds of questions, I could guess, what the problem was: I was recognized as an illegal immigrant.

Fortunately, I could make sure that I’ve been in Germany before…

Since then, I am always having lots of trouble, when entering the United States. Even, if I tell the officers the story. They smile and go on with there checking routine. Today, at Chicago O’Hare, it was very hard:

As usual, I had to sit and wait in an extra room. After almost half an hour, an officer called me into an “interview” room. He then asked me several questions and checked nearly everyhing - except my clothing.

• “Why did you come to the United States?”
• “Where will you stay?”
• “How will you get to Miami?”
• “For how long will you stay?”
• “Who do you know in Miami?”
• “What friends do you have in the United States?”
• “What do you work?”
• “When has your passport been issued?”
• “Where has it been issued? At what kind of facility?”
• He completely examined my organizer in which I carry papers, documents, money, contacts, vcards, etc.
• He completely analyzed my wallet.
• He analyzed every single item within my bag.

After like an hour, I could go. As I asked him for the reason, he just told me, that every foreign visitor may be subject to extended checks. Yeah! But this simply cannot be a coincidence.

I have to admit, that all the people were very nice, friendly and respectful. They only did their job. But it’s really annoying… I really wanna know, how I can get rid of this. Maybe, I should talk to an embassy..?!

Well, however… I’m still at O’Hare waiting for my connecting flight to Miami.

Hi there!

I’m about to leave Nuremberg in a nearly cloud-free and beautiful sunrise, but also in very, very cold weather conditions. See, what’s weather’s like in Nuremberg (NUE) compared to Miami (MIA)

Weather Nuremberg 2009-02-18

Weather Miami 2009-02-18

Even though it’s late at night, 18°C seems to be quite okay. Almost 30°C on Thursday really gets me thrilled…

BTW: commenting on my posts did not work until yesterday. I guess, this was because there was a problem with the MyCaptcha plugin and the new theme. The captcha image just wasn’t displayed. Now it is and you might add comments, but they will be held for moderation.

Hi there!

It’s been a while, since I last was in the United States. Almost exactly 5 years, to be accurate.

In 2004, a friend of mine, Gernot, and I travelled about 4500 miles through the southeast. We started in Dallas, TX, went down to Clearwater, FL, up through the Blue Ridge Mountains and back to Dallas.

I guess, the most remarkable memory concerning that trip is the fact, we sank our rental car deeply in the swamp of Florida. We had left highway 19, followed a small road, took a turn right onto an even smaller road right into the woods and finally got stuck.

It was funny, even if was no fun at all

This year, I will arrive at Miami International Airport late at night local time on Wednesday, 2009-02-18. I’ll fetch my rental car and the first task will be to look for a Motel. I don’t have definite plans, except that I’m really looking forward to take some breakfasts at various Wafflehouses, that I plan to take lots and lots of pictures and that I wanna make a trip to Key West.

What I prepared so far:

• I’ve checked my tickets
• I’ve checked my authorization to travel to the US
• I’ve washed and dried lots of cloths
• I searched and found my US power plug converter
• I searched and found a huge map of Florida

I will keep you up to date