And... maybe Amsterdam...?
So... plans have changed and it seems we may not be travelling to England after all... I've been kind of bummed out about that, as it was the part of the trip I was MOST looking forward to...
This kind of came about because Paul from Wargaming and Other Distractions (who has been posting lately about a recent Mordhiem campaign you should really go and check out!!) was kind enough to point out that the UK had had some very recent policy changes that we might need to look into regarding dual citizens and entry into the UK... The VERY short version of a long and ridiculous story ends with Amanda being Amanda and deciding to get to the bottom of it, which ended with her speaking to someone in the Home Office in the UK and after GIVING THEM HER NAME AND PHONE NUMBER explained the situation and they said, 'Oh, yeah, you are for sure a dual citizen and will need a British Passport to enter the UK from now on"...
Unfortunately, Amanda does NOT HAVE a British Passport and we weren't 100% sure she was going to be able to get one in time... so we decided to drop that leg of our planned journey...
We are still heading to Paris (for Amanda's conference!), and Amanda, not wanting to be short-changed on her vacation time, has decided we need to tack on a visit to AMSTERDAM!? (and a couple MORE days in France!)
In other news... I am finished school for the term, so hopefully there will be more hobby happenings and a bit more activity on this blog!
If you want to read about how school went, head on over to the Art Blog:
English Robin on a Brake Cable - a post on the Art Blog about a final project and things I've been up to for the last little bit!
(I have a couple more books about Canadian battlefields in the Great War inbound, but I'm not sure I'm going to make it to too many... Vimy, for sure, though!)
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Shame re Uk but most understandable. Lots to see otherwise.
ReplyDeleteAlan Tradgardland
Thanks Alan! Amanda has suggested we'll get to the UK one of these years. Might work out better as a dedicated trip to JUST the UK might mean more time to travel around and see more!
DeleteYes, it's tricky these days. My stepdaughters are American. One - named Amanda too! - Married a British chap. She visited a friend in Germany, went to return to the UK via Eurostar from Brussels and got turned away because she'd taken immigration advice from a less-than-competent solicitor. It was all sorted in the end, but we had three months of headaches dealing with it all.
ReplyDeleteOh, yikes! Like, was she not able to return to the UK for three months? Or was able to eventually get back in on some temporary allowance but couldn't travel for three months until getting a passport?
DeleteI feel like there were a lot of similar stories in some of the articles Paul had sent me! It's one thing to tell people visiting from abroad they need different documents to come for a visit, it a whole different level of ridiculous to tell people who live there and are returning, NOPE! YOU CAN'T COME BACK IN!
Sorry it worked out for you the same way it had for us - my UK passport is supposed to arrive tomorrow, a month and half too late to stop me having had to cancel our UK trip... (PK)
ReplyDeleteNo worries! Thanks for the heads up!! We'll get there someday... maybe..
DeleteYikes indeed! Seems it's all getting so complicated these days! :(
ReplyDeletewell... mostly just for British Dual Citizens... Everything else has been pretty straightforward and simple... mostly...
DeleteWell that is a bummer, but other the other hand, there is a lot to do in France! Plus Belgium and Amsterdam!
ReplyDeleteAnd thank the Lord for libraries!
There is a LOT to do/see in France. An overwhelming amount!
DeleteYeah, think about it, just for military history we have:
DeletePre-historical stuff
Celtic/Roman stuff
Early medieval stuff (castles)
Late medieval stuff (Hundred years war, Burgundy wars, castles)
Vauban fortresses
Franco-Prussian war sites
Great War sites
WWII sites
Yes. Overwhelming.
DeleteLOL I was just trying to explain Vauban fortresses to Amanda last night (and probably bored her to tears...) because I'd found one in the Netherlands that looked really cool... but it's a 4.5 hour journey from where we're staying... so probably going to give that one a miss...
For military history things I've been trying to stay a little focused on the Great War - outside of Paris, at least - otherwise I'd have never been able to make any decisions about where to go. (Although I did just track down a Pen & Sword Battleground Europe book about Boulogne-sur-Mer - which is about the Irish and Welsh Guards defence of - and ultimate evacuation from Boulogne in May1940... so that's beyond the Great War...)
I'd spent so long trying to figure out where we could go... like a month I'd been thinking about things and carefully selected two places to go... and then everything changed and Amanda decided we'd go to Amsterdam and spend MORE time in France, but wanted to REBOOK EVERYTHING over a weekend and said "so where else do you want to go!?" Like I just magically had a list of places I could just pull out of my ass for any occasion where I might have X days in France!? I mean, where do you even begin!? I briefly considered Normandy or Dieppe or other Canadian Great War battlefields around the Somme or Ypres...
Ultimately, I couldn't decide quick enough on any different places, so we're just spending more time at the places we were originally planning to visit in France - Vimy (+1 Day), Boulogne-sur-Mer (+2-3 days), and Paris (+1-2 days) - (and added a sidequest to Carcassonne for a couple of days!). Which is all fine... I mean, there is SO MUCH HISTORY in Paris alone - and I think we have ten or eleven days there in total, now... (though, I'm sure a couple days will just be spent walking around looking for INVADER art!)
Well, if you have a car, France is not that big by Canadian/Western US standards. You probably could see all the major WWI/WWII battlefields if you skipped museums? Not sure the utility of that, but you could.
DeleteI think the Hotel de Invalides has some models of the fortresses, so maybe that would suffice...
Had to look up the invader art, but with 1000 pieces in Paris, I think that might chew up some time! (maybe when Amanda is busy?).
How is your French btw?
This is what I realized while looking at where things are and where we could get to... that things WERE actually all VERY close together! Like, distances that I have no problem riding, by bike, in a day. We are not renting a car and not bringing bicycles, tho... so...
DeleteHotel de Invalides is near the top of the list for places to go. I'm especially excited about the Musée des Plans-Reliefs. large dioramas or models of buildings is one of my favourite thing in museums... and it's an entire museum of model buildings and sites...
I'm sure we'll both be on the look out for invader art the days we're together... but, yeah, the days while Amanda's at the conference might entirely be me wandering around looking at street art and looking for invader mosaics....
Je ne parle pas le beau français...? Mais, un petit peu...? Oui, je n'ai pas des bananes...? I took French in elementary and high school. I did not excel at it (having no practical use for it!). I was going to pick up an audiobook and do some brushing up over the next month or so.
As an army reservist in the 90s some genius thought it would be funny to post me, anglophone reservist, to a regular force French unit for RV92 (large divisional exercise the Canadian Forces used to do every few years). The only French I learned then was how to curse. (the most popular being tabarnac or 'oly fuck hostie)
Amanda's not bad and sussing out the general meaning of written stuff, but absolutely cannot speak it and I doubt she'd have any idea what anyone was saying if it was spoken to her. She's made good use of google translate to communicate with AirB&B and VRBO (or.. whatever..) property owners... my one worry is that we might show up and they will think Amanda actually understands French and be in for a shock!
Maybe you can rent bikes for the day if the weather is nice. Hard to plan on weather though! Just look at D-Day.
DeleteWith a few years of French, I am sure you can negotiate the various issues that come up like "where is the bathroom" or "we have a reservation". Stores you just point and say "duex". In Paris the only time we had trouble was with people who were recent immigrants who did not learn English in school (and maybe no French either), and that was with just a few days of a language CD.
That’s a great pity about the passport. I’m afraid Britain is becoming very uselessly bureaucratic and filled with middle class people in compliance giving incorrect advice. No wonder we can’t get anything done!
ReplyDeleteIf you are interested in WW2 and have a day to spare, go to the Overloon Museum. You can get there by train from Amsterdam but it involves a 40 minute walk from the nearest station to the site. They have an incredible collection of WW2 armoured vehicles including a Panther, Churchill along with a gallery of German paratroop uniforms.
Holy Mackerel! I just googled the Overloon Museum... that place looks INCREDIBLE!!! Wow! Might be a hard sell for Amanda... but it's going on the list of things to do! Thanks!
DeleteNot wanting to start a domestic but why don’t you go to different places for the day? Places like Haarlem and Delft are very quaint, easy to get to by train and language is not a problem. Almost everyone speaks English very well.
ReplyDeleteOverloon is really a full day from 8am to 6pm so not for the vaguely interested. There is also Arnhem which has an excellent museum on the battle.
I guess the short and simplified version of a long and complex explanation is... the point of the trip was to actually spend some time together...?
DeleteThere is also Waterloo. Another excellent museum.
ReplyDeleteThe world seems to be set on making international travel less appealing each passing year. It makes me value the EU freedom of movement more (since I'm already in the system). I've spent far too much time and resources trying to deal with issues stemming from dual citizenships in the family. Canada required me to renew my passport to enter the country a long time ago and now they're going to raise the fees significantly I hear. That's going to get costly on account of the children. As if the tickets wasn't enough.
ReplyDelete