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Hi folks,
funny you bring this up just now - me and 2 colleagues just spent a
while in custody of Swiss border police at Basle train station for
carrying our suspicious explosive and radioactive Dewar device to the
SLS by train. In retrospect the whole story of being supervised by a
Swiss version of Sandra Bullock in uniform while doing a frantic phone
call back to the institute in Germany is funny, however, I wouldn't
really like to know what they'd have done if a troup of our Indian
students would have been caught by them - might have ended in a free
flight back home.
With Switzerland it seems to be a catch-22 situation. They told us we
need some official customs paper (a carnet ATA) to prove that our stuff
is of no commercial value - however that doesn't prove it is not
dangerous. When I brought up the option of a letter from my boss here at
the institute they just laughed at me saying that all of them police
officers are multi-millionaires and their name would be Napoleon. I am
still looking for a way to prove that protein crystals (not the Dewar)
are not dangerous.
More experienced colleagues here are asking me why I hadn't just been
hiding the Dewar in a rucksack. However, I don't think this is a valid
answer to the problem. If we want to promote a science community in
Europe (or in the world, if you like) than we must be provided with
means of travelling legally and with our specimen being save.
I wonder if anyone has a firm and solid solution?
Cheers,
Wulf
