Passport Please
After two kilometers of walking we made it to the print shop. The sun was not up yet as it was only five in the morning. We went in and printed all the documents we needed to enter the country. We printed our medical insurance, plane tickets and where we would stay. We were so worried about getting to border control and something going wrong so we choose to get a little white folder so we knew we were as organised as we possibly could be.
As we got off the plane I started to feel so nervous about the passport control. We have been so fortunate as this was the first country we needed papers for. I was terrified we didn't have the right papers and if something was wrong I would be detained or something, my mind went to the worst places possible.
We approached the desk together, mainly because Alona wouldn't part with her new folder full of papers and everyone else was approaching the desk in groups of 4 or 5. We walked up to the tall desk terrified and were greeted by a young man who was maybe about twenty four.
‘Passports'. He told us blankly
The man took our passports and started studying them within an inch of his life. We stood in silence, he kept looking at them for around five minutes. Then he took out a magnifying glass and started reading every letter on the page. This was not helping my worry. After the magnifying incident he then took a UV light to all the pages in both our passports, another round with the magnifying glass to check out an error he thought he found. Time almost stood still and my body was washed with panic. He then started scanning them and checking them for the third time. My mind started to rattle: Was my passport even a real passport? Has he found an error?
As I tried to keep the most normal looking expression on my face he asked for our medical insurance. Alona proudly opened her beloved folder started shuffling through the documents for what was asked. She handed then over, he studied them like his life depended on it.
Terror now had a hold of my body, why was this passport control taking so long!
After a lifetime he gave us the papers back. He really must have thought we were up to something. It was ruthless. He then went to study my face against my passport as the last test. I stood stoned face and he lifted the passport and I tried not to laugh.
My passport is about 8 years older than Alona's and has no colour left on the front page, where as Alona's is new and has all the colour still in tact.
As he lifted the passport to make sure the check was final… I looked at the front cover through the glass and realized he was holding Alona's passport to make sure it was me. After he was happy with the check he let me though with Alona's passport in my hand, as Alona came through the gate equally as shocked we couldn't believe we had made it into a country that has been branded as having ‘the last dictator in Europe’ with the wrong passports.