We were having a conversation in French, and I was wondering how I'd express the same idea in German:
En arrivant à l'aéroport, on est passés par je ne sais combien de contrôles de sécurité tous plus rigoureux les uns que les autres.
- {Literally}: After arriving at the airport, we went through I-do-not-know-how-many security checks, each more strict than the next.
This colloquial hyperbolic expression comes in the form of "je ne sais combien/quel/etc {interrogative pronoun}"; and in the case of "je ne sais combien (de)", it is used to refer to the extraordinary, staggering amount/number of something -- so much so that literally "I don't know how much / how many X" there are in total.
How is this idea commonly/idiomatically expressed in German?
I wonder if "... von was-weiß-ich-wie-viel-X" without "nicht" works?