Arriving on the island of Al-Amarja is, to say the least, an experience.  There are very few commercial flights in or out of D'Aubbaine International Airport, and those tend to be oddly scheduled (at best).  Add the new and improved joys of airport security, and a simple little plane trip to a Mediterranean island becomes something out of a Franz Kafka nightmare.<br/><br/>Yet once in the air, everything seems perfectly normal.  The stewardi are their usual calm and genial selves, the other passengers are the grab bag of global life that one finds on international flights, and the food is crummy.  Shortly after the Captain announces that the plane is now on final approach, the flight attendants pass out customs forms and a cheerful little pamphlet entitled 'Welcome to the Edge'.<br/><br/>Somewhere behind you, a man with a peculiar accent laughs and loudly explains to someone sitting next to him that he used to be<em>afraid</em>to go through Customs and Immigration.  "Thanks to Al Quaeda for making those form nazis look relaxed and well-adjusted," he chortles.  "It's still bloody unpleasant, but they've not changed a bit while everyone else has gotten much nastier.  Why, I heard about this one chap, took a blue-ringed octopus upside the head during his interview!  Expired on the spot, poor man.  Then there was this other poor slob who surrendered his passport.  He's still there..."<br/><br/>He keeps going on, drunkenly, at length and volume.  Some people's children...<br/><br/>The plane banks, and through the window you catch your first view of the island.  It's a pleasant little (extinct) volcanic rock jutting out of calm blue seas.  There's a small cluster of shining civilization on the easternmost tip and a larger civic sprawl on the western side...that would be your destination: the Edge, so called because it's at the top of a cliff.  A moment later you also catch sight of the airport terminal.<br/><br/>Oh, boy...the Terminal.<br/><br/>Described as the ugliest impossibility in architecture, the D'Aubainne International Terminal definitely stands out.  It's an upside-down seven-layer wedding cake balanced precariously on the smallest layer...and you'll have to go in there!  How it stays up is a mystery known but to whatever gods you wish to invoke (and theoretically the architect as well).<br/><br/>Someone further back in Coach breaks out into hysterical sobbing.<br/><br/>The plane lands and stops some distance away from the Terminal.  Passengers disembark to find a bus parked and waiting to take them to the Terminal.  There are a number of soldiers in baby blue body armor with sub-machineguns at the ready providing something like an honor guard on the brief walk between gangplank and bus.  The word 'Peace' is stenciled on the back of the armor in bright yellow letters.<br/><br/>Oh.  They're the Peace Force: cops, not soldiers.<br/><br/>A short bus ride deposits you in the very crowded ground level of the terminal, which centers on a large bank of elevators.  Looks like all the traffic in or out has to come through here.  There are even more Peace Officers here.  According to a clearly visible guide, it looks like Customs and Immigration is on the fourth floor.  Guess that's where you go.