DAY 8 of “Chancellor Watch” – German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder has said he's in favor of a grand coalition government between his Social Democrats and Merkel’s conservative Christian Democrats. Yet, he is not willing to give up the leadership of Chancellor just yet. Neither is Merkel prepared to back down on that point either, as she continues to say she deserves the post since she received the most votes. Further discussions to be delayed until after next Sunday’s vote in Dresden due to the death of a local candidate just prior to the election halted all voting in that district, including Chancellor (see blog post for 9/15 for details). So, is Dresden destined to become “Florida” in this election?
Call me crazy, but I LOVE to get stamps in my passport as I enter and exit various countries. Fortunately, travel in Asia afforded me multiple opportunities for ample “passport stampage”. So many stamps have been received to date that I have had extra pages inserted into the passport already on a previous occasion; I’ll need to do that again, most likely this week, as I am running out of room once again.
Now a different scenario plays out in Europe. With the receipt of a German resident visa and this thing called an “EU zone” which is supposed to allow for freer movement between EU countries, I simply show my passport to an EU immigration official, he/she looks at my document, checks the computer for whatever it is they are checking for, and then hands me my passport back…with no passport stamp. Bah humbug!
Now, I am primarily speaking about air travel here, as there are no passport stamps at all for rail and/or car travel. A recent train trip from Germany to Paris resulted in no one even asking to look at a passport, let alone receipt of a passport stamp.
So far, the only exception to this rule has been in the UK, where entry into Britain will result in receipt of a passport stamp, but no stamp is received upon exit. Not sure why the rules are different for the UK, but they are…
Again, why should I care? I don’t really know except that I simply like the look of a nice thick passport. Yea…it’s kinda dumb.
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4 comments:
There actually is a reason why immigration to some EU countries is stricter than other... The EU countries have different levels of integration: A lot of the EU countries (excluding UK, Denmark and some others) have signed what they call the "Schengen Agreement". The principle is that all countries part of the Schengen Agreement collaborate from a police perspective and the once you have entered the Schengen zone there are no more borders. If you leave the Schengen Zone - e.g. to go to the UK or Switzerland - normal immigration practice occurs... making sense? As you can see, we are not yet the United States of Europe... long way to go for that to happen. Stef
Stef - thanks for the explanation. I knew there had to be a reason but had not yet figured it out.
For those of us who are bad travelers but dream of it constantly (ok-maybe it is just me), I would love to see a passport with stamps on it. Just know that there are some out there who are jealous of your stamps! Heehee!
Thanks, Tammy!
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