Police

I was walking on the street with my backpack. It was at midnight, I was going back to the apartment that I rented in Spain. Then, a police car came by and the police asked me to stop.

I was just wondering what was going on. The police asked me to show my ID and I showed him, he quickly checked and let me go.

The next day, I talked to a friend from Spain and asked him whether it’s common. Well, he didn’t really know why but anyway, I wasn’t in any trouble.

Well, that made me think of my first trip in Europe. Back then, it was my first time traveling alone and I had a travel book with me. A chapter of that book indicated that there were fake police officers on the street in some countries. I read that chapter several times and I kept telling myself to not panic if I face these problems.

Thankfully, I haven’t met any fake police officers. Well, perhaps I saw some of them and I just didn’t notice. However, I did see some police officers while traveling. They just checked my ID and I didn’t have any troubles. I was glad that I read that book before my first trip, so I understand that it’s better to learn that something might happen in some countries. Hence, before going to some countries, I would check the uniform of police officers and learn whether there are some “SOP” before they ask someone to show their IDs. In particular, some gestures might be quite rude and it’s better to avoid some problems during a trip. And, you don’t want to make the real police angry. 

Recently, I read some posts and some people demonstrated that they met fake police officers and lost some money.