Vatican City

Last week I was playing quizzo with my cousins and one of the questions was “What is the smallest country in the world?” As I have an odd aptitude for obscure information, I knew the answer was “Vatican City.”

I have never been to Vatican City but think about how cool a place must be where you can just hop in and out of two different countries. I’m in Vatican City, now I’m in Italy, now I’m in Vatican City, now I’m in Italy. Like do you just tell your parents — oh I’m popping by a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT COUNTRY, I’ll be back in a half hour.

I grew up in a country where this is not feasible. Borders involve lots of questions. Border guards make me nervous even when I don’t have any reason to be. A real life experience involved me being called into a side room at the Toronto airport and being questioned about the contents of my bag. I was asked if I was bringing any food products back into the United States. Now my guess is that they were looking for something along the lines of produce or something that could bring bugs. I however took it rather literally and rattled off that I had “a granola bar, a bag of Miky Buttons, and a box of caramel cookies from that tower.” At this point, I get a raised eyebrow from the officer. “The tower?” “Yeah you know, the Eiffel Tower (false, I’ve never been to Paris). I mean the “Space Needle” (we were not in Seattle). I mean the tall one in Toronto — there is a picture of it on the box!” (Correct answer for what would have been a much calmer exchange is CN Tower.)