>we (my niece anita, our friend marta, myself) stayed in brest-litovsk at
>the belarus - poland border, and finding the times of the moscow- warsaw
>express trains inconvenient, decided to take a late afternoon local train
>("electrichka") from brest to warsaw. at the polish control point anita and
>marta went out to have a smoke, the customs guys came through and without
>exception *all* our fellow travellers opened their sacks of vodka bottles
>and put a bottle into the customs guys' bag. when they got to me i tried to
>explain that i had no vodka to give them. problyem. anita and marta came
>back, there was much discussion & they sent for the officer, who took our
>passports and after a long pause asked in english "why are you travelling
>business class?"
while marta and i were smoking in the doorway of the train, watching the scene, quite amazed at how the polish customs levies duty (it's certainly alot different that at Frankfurt/Oder!), the same officer had come by and also asked us for cigarettes or alcohol - marta offered him a cigarette and he said in english, "no thank you, i don't smoke." the vodka, which got collected into big blue plastic garbage sacks, was contained in all kinds of bottles, many those big 2-liter plastic bottles that otherwise hold drinks made by coca-cola corp.
anita