To be completely honest, I didn’t even know if this trip was going to happen. I mean it was planned and booked and everything, I just didn’t know if I’d clear customs. Legally speaking I shouldn’t have, because last year I outstayed my visa by six months, which should have barred me from entering back the EU. As an American you’re allowed 90 days every year. I was about to start my 241st. So, just to be careful, before I left I took the extra precaution of getting myself a new passport so they wouldn’t see my old stamps. In the end it was probably a fool’s errand, being that everything these days, especially your passport, is digitally stamped, but I took it anyways because I’ve screwed myself too many times in the past because I forgot to cross my Is or dot my Ts. 😉
Unfortunately, the cheapest flight I found to Europe was Via Manchester. England has one of, if not the strictest, set of rules when it comes to crossing borders. The whole time on the plane over and the whole time I stood in line customs, I sweated the fact that they could simply tell me “no,” wave their finger, and send me packing back home. To my luck they let me pass and I sent up a little prayer.
Now if England isn’t the worst place to fly into, then Germany definitely is, with those strict, bureaucratic, robot Germans and their crazy rules. After I got out of the plane in Dusseldorf, I picked out the line of the Jungfrau with whom I thought I had the best chances. And my luck again paid off because she let me pass too.
So I was good. At least at that point, and at that point my plan was to fly home in two months time, maybe three. It didn’t turn out that way though. It never does.
***
(Muenster)
For the next month, Muenster became my home. Those were some times…