On Friday we went to Systembolaget to get some of their finest cheap wine. While I was in the checkout line, Kostia went to the front of the store to wait. The cashier said something in Swedish I didn’t understand. I said, “Sorry?” She said, “Do you have your ID?” I didn’t. You rarely need your passport in Sweden (unlike in Russia), and I’ve never been carded for alcohol in Europe before. “Kostia!” I shouted. “Do you have your passport on you?” He came over to the cash register. He didn’t have his passport either. “I’m thirty,” I said. (You’re supposed to be 20 to buy alcohol.) “OK, OK,” said the cashier. We got our wine. I no longer mind the fact that I look younger than my age, but I would have been pissed off if we couldn’t buy the wine.
2 comments
25 September 2006 at 7:38 pm
W. Shedd
You angry baby-faced wino! :-)
I guess Sweden doesn’t have that post-soviet “we need to check your papers” mentality. When I mention how annoying it is to have to show your passport in order to buy … say train tickets … in Russia, Katja will tell me it is to stop terrorists or something. What, like they have a special “T” for terrorist on their passport?
26 September 2006 at 7:16 am
Anonymous
:)
I’d like to continue tickets off-top… The only reason of showing our passport when you buy train tickets in Russia is to stop ticket speculions. I’ve resently bought a ticket for my girlfriend without any passport – cashier only asked me the # of her passport and her full name. But you need your passport and the ticket to get into the train. This system started nearly 12 years ago and speculators disappeared.
Terrorist fighting is the second reason, but it is “younger”.
Vadik