Hit A Roadblock…no, TWO
Monday, October 29th, 2007So Russia has decided you can only apply for visas in your country of origin. And they are only valid for ninety days from when they are issued.
How on earth does one travel through Russia when one has been on the road for six months prior to arriving there? It’s sounding like it would be easier to go to the moon.
There remains one fact in their favour. Those Russian Rules change quite frequently, so it might all be OK by the time we want to pour our tourist-rubles into their local economy. (I’m an optimist).
And the second roadblock. Schengen visas.
These things are meant to be a great idea, making border crossings quick and easy, eliminating the need for individual country visas. In fact, they are so good you don’t even have to apply for one or pay money or get stamps or anything. All you have to do is enter the Schengen area and make sure you’re out again within ninety days. Oh, and don’t come back for another ninety days.
So our plan to mooch around through Europe for as long as our money lasted isn’t going to work so well. Not when you consider Belgium, France, Germany, Luxembourg, Monaco, The Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Italy, Austria, Greece, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden are all Schengen countries. And by the time we get there Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia and Switzerland will all be in on it too. We’d better hurry – if we go before 2011, we’ll still be able to go to Romania outside of the ninety day restriction.
So that puts paid to one of our possibilities – Rob work in Poland (the joys of possessing a British passport) while the rest of us use our ninety visa-free days, pop over to Germany for the weekend and come back for another Polish ninety days….and so on until he’s finished the school year. Now the way things stand we would have to go to the moon Turkey and stay there for ninety days before we could go back to Poland. By then school would be out for the summer! Time to start investigating other visa options, I suppose.
Reading “We’re Going On A Bear Hunt” hundreds of times over the last decade has left its mark. We don’t give up easily.
“We’re going on a bear hunt. We’re going to catch a big one. What a beautiful day. We’re not scared. Uh-oh. Grass. Long wavy grass. Can’t go over it. Can’t go under it. Oh no, we’ll have to go through it.”
We’regoing on a bear hunt. We’re going to catch a big one. What a beautiful day. We’re not scared. Uh-oh. The Schengen Visa. The awfully short visa. Can’t go without out. Can’t overstay it. Oh no, we’ll have to work round it.
And we will.
It's pumpkin soup and freshly-baked bread for dinner tonight.
I wonder what we'll be eating in a year's time.
We'll just be beginning our adventure into the food of other cultures and hopefully there will be some culinary ... 
rayres