It’s not what you know; it’s who you know. It’s a business adage we all recognize, if not actually subscribe to. It emphasizes the advantage of close connections to those in power as more important than “mere” knowledge and skill, and that making friends in high places is never a bad thing when you’re trying to make a buck.
It may be even more important when you’re travelling in foreign countries. Let’s just say, for instance, you’re a motorcyclist at the border of a former Eastern Bloc country — just for fun, let’s say it’s Montenegro — and the customs guard is rushing through a rapid-fire spittle of far too many consonants and not nearly enough vowels. The only word you catch might have sounded something like “insurance” but you can’t be sure. The only thing you can be sure of is that he is pointing across the road — with some emphasis! — to a building that looks too dilapidated to be a garage, let alone a place
