(Athens, Greece) - You Can't Board! Part 2

So I thought it would be pretty simple. I took a ferry from Italy to Greece, I would now take one from Greece to Venice. I arrived to the port terminal from Athens on a bus after a day of looking at the Parthenon and the Temple of Athena, and walking around the city in general. I only spent a day in Athens. I arrived yesterday and spent the night, got up this morning to look around the city. After skimming the main sites I was on my way again enroute to Venice. So there I was at the port terminal after five hours of train/busing to get to Greece's west coast port. It was about 10pm. I bought my ticket and paid the port tax. I met some Canadian backpackers waiting to board the ship and since we all spoke English waited together and chatted. When the time came and we were passing through security, the officer said "Are you all group?"
"Yes," we said nonchalantly.
"Passports, please?"
The two Canadians whipped out their Canadian passports and I took out my Jordanian. He looks at mine again and says, "Are you together, friends?"
"Yes," we said again.
He looks at the two Canadians, "Friends before? You know him before?".
"We're friends, but we just met" the Canadians replied.
After a few minutes he says,"If you want you can go now because it's going to take time with him," the officer says to the Canadians in regards to me. The two Canadians walk out towards the ship. I got a really bad feeling. I'm thinking why does this guy not want witnesses for what he's about to do. I asked him what was going on and he just said he had to check something in a purposefully vague way. He asks me if I live in Jordan and I told him no I live in the United States. He says but you're Jordanian. I said yes (in my mind I'm thinking technically I'm Palestinian American), but yes I'm Jordanian. He says "Why do you come to Greece?" as if he wasn't going to believe anything I was about to say.
"Tourism, I wanted to see the Acropolis."
"For only one day, that is curious!"
I didn't react. I just shrugged my shoulders.
"You live in the United States?"
"YES!" and I pulled out my Green Card and handed it too him so that he would believe me.
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He takes my Green Card and starts looking at it. And then my passport. And then my Green Card. And then to my passport again. "Is there a problem?" I asked him.
"No I just have to check something."
"If you ask me what you want, maybe I can help you find it."
"Just wait, I do my job."
Again he starts fumbling through my passport. The whole time he looks really nervous like someone doing something they shouldn't be doing.
"Why you in Europe?"
"I'm a medical student. Medicine. I'm studying to be a doctor. I am doing a medical exchange in Barcelona."
"Medicine Student. Where do you go to school?"
"University of North Carolina. I worked at Val De'Bron Hospital in Barcelona for my exchange."
"How come you are in Europe?"
"I flew to Spai…..Espana"
"You flew from Jordan to Spain."
"No from New York to Spain."
"New York to Spain. So you live New York?"
"NO. I live in North Carolina where I go to school."
"You flew New York to Spain."
"Yes."
"You don't have stamp."
"I have a Schengan Visa" I pointed to my passport. "It is okay for Greece. Wait you mean an exit stamp from New York?"
"No you don't have stamp, you have different stamp." He shows me the stamp I got when I entered the EU on a connecting flight through Brussels, Belgium.
Oh my god dude! I connected through Brussels. I spent all of 60 minutes there. Seriously? I explained this to him, the whole time trying to keep track of where my Green Card and Passport was. He tells me to wait and motions in the directions of the seats, but I told him okay and stayed right there where I could see what he was doing with my documentation. Everything is running through my head like what is this guy doing? Is he copying my info so he can create forged documents to get into the States? Is he going to run off with my stuff? Am I going to be detained? I just have to keep watching my stuff. After 10 minutes he asks me to have a seat because he has to "check something. " A phrase I had gotten really tired of. I went over to the seats and picked the one that had a clear line of sight behind the desk so that both I could see and that he could know that I was watching him. WTF? I have no idea what's going on? Internally, my heart is pounding. My brain is racing. What should I do? I see him go over to the phone and make some phone calls. As I'm waiting, I see these two average guys on motorcycles pull up they are both dressed normally and both walk into the terminal. They immediately head over to the officer that has my stuff and swarm around him. I don' t know what I though of this but I suddenly got the idea to take out my phone and pretend like I was looking at it but instead try to take pictures of what was going on. As soon as I pulled my phone out to take pictures one of the plain clothed guys comes over to me and says stand up and put your bag on the desk. He pulls out some gloves and puts them over his hands. "Take everything out of your pockets and put it on the table." All my money, credit cards, everything I had was laid out in front of me. "Do you have anything illegal in here?" "Why are you in Greece?" He pulls out a copy I had made of my passport and green card that I had hid in my pack in case I lost my documentation. "Why do you have copies of this?" I explained it was in case I lost my stuff, but then I thought it would be a good idea to tell him I had copies online so that he wouldn't try anything funny (total bluff). He proceeds to take everything out of my bag and put it on the table. After finishing, he give me the pat down. Convinced that I wasn't going to blow up the ferry he tells me to put everything back in my bag. The other officer handed me my green card and passport and I quickly put them in my back pocket and buttoned it. They went outside to smoke and as soon as they were out of sight I pulled the green card back out to make sure it wasn't a copy. Ten minutes later as I was packing up my life back into my bag, the original officer walked over and says me its just a security procedure. I was totally silent but in my mind, I'm thinking how should I end this, should I tell him how jacked up this was or just let it slide? He told me his wife was detained in New York over the same stuff. He thanked me for being so calm during the process, which I very much was externally (not internally). I smiled at him and said, "It's funny but maybe in Spain or Italy, I would've expected this, but because Arabs and Greeks are so similar in culture, physical appearance, and even food, I totally didn't see it coming from Greece." I extended my hand to give him a hand shake (which is quite symbolic, because handshakes come from people showing they are unarmed). He shook my hand and I walked out toward the ferry.

Feeling home free, I went to board the ship. As I got to the entrance, one of the plain clothed guys from before had changed shirts and was now standing there checking people in. "Passport?" he says to me. Seriously? I'm thinking. This has got to be some kind of elaborate operation these guys are running. Meanwhile, as I'm standing there, five white guys roll right by me and board the ship without even getting asked who they were. "You saw me just in the terminal." I told him a lit frustrated but to make the point that I knew who he was. He let me pass after radioing in his walkie talkie. Unnerved, I finally walked onto the ship, and as I was rolling past this guy who was behind a desk inside the entrance to the ship, I heard him say "Passport, please?" This is where my breaking point was and just then he radioed the guy from outside who came in and told him to let me pass. I said thank you and the guy mentioned something about Greece. I told him that this was my first time but that if this is how it was going to be I didn't think I would ever be coming back. It was a total lie because the country was beautiful, but this was my form of venting and retaliation. I had to have it because in the end: I'm only human!