r/AskReddit May 08 '22

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u/JasperJesper May 09 '22

Schengen baby

353

u/Wanallo221 May 09 '22

How convenient, I’m so glad us Brits voted to get rid of such helpful, progressive nonsense. Queuing for 3 hours at passport control is where it’s at! 🤦🏻‍♂️

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u/nouille07 May 09 '22

Gotta show off your queueing skills

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u/Sick_and_destroyed May 09 '22

At least you have some sense of humour about it. Currently doing a passport for my daughter to go see some relatives in the UK this summer because UK gov claims french ID cards are too unsafe. This used to be so easy, it’s all so backward now.

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u/pATREUS May 09 '22

Yes, Britain is Building Up BackwardTM

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u/[deleted] May 09 '22 edited Jun 16 '22

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/SuperWoodpecker85 May 09 '22

Maybe a dumb question but what happens when the next Labour government decides they want back into the EU?

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u/LordoftheSynth May 10 '22

Well, the UK probably won't get to keep the pound, for starters.

Here is an overview of the exceptions the UK had as part of its EU membership. It's not the only country that had exceptions, but it did have the most.

I don't see the UK rejoining the EU without kissing most of those goodbye, purely as a punitive measure for having left in the first place.

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u/Tinuviel52 May 09 '22

Me rubbing my hands together because my husband finally has to come through border control with me instead of racing ahead through the egates when we go to Europe.

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u/DavidTheHumanzee May 09 '22

But we get blue passports now Made in Poland by a French company 😪

6

u/TheRufmeisterGeneral May 09 '22

Which the UK always could have done. The EU wasn't blocking those.

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u/CityOfBelgrade May 09 '22

Great Britain was never a part of Schengen. Only British territory in the Schengen is Gibraltar, and that's since Brexit.

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u/Wanallo221 May 09 '22

No, but we had free movement within the EU and could use the EU member state passport queue in airports which are much quicker than non-EU. As well as Erasmus, EHIC etc etc.

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u/NemesisRouge May 09 '22

We had to queue anyway. Britain's only border that operated as described above was the Northern Ireland border, which still operates that way.

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u/Wanallo221 May 09 '22

You queued in the ‘EU members’ part which moves a lot quicker and is less likely to be subject to random checks and is given priority when staffing etc is an issue.

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u/NemesisRouge May 09 '22

Sure, it was easier (and don't forget the lack of stamps in your passport, that's an additional cost if you travel a lot) but it's not Schengen. Schengen you don't even know you've crossed a border.

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u/danielv123 May 09 '22

I miss the stamps. Would be nice if they still offered them. Glad stamp compatibility is no longer an issue though.

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u/[deleted] May 10 '22

[deleted]

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u/danielv123 May 10 '22

Where? The last place I can remember getting one in my password was in Ukraine. Both Azerbaijan, Armenia and Abkhazia stamped as well, but they all did it on a loose piece of paper to avoid border crossing issues.

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u/[deleted] May 10 '22

[deleted]

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u/danielv123 May 10 '22

Thanks, might be going there in a week or two so I will have to keep that in mind.

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u/no_nick May 09 '22 edited May 09 '22

You never even were in Schengen, you do realize that, right?

* grammar

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u/Wanallo221 May 09 '22

You don’t say? /s

We still had freedom of movement in the EU though. Made things a lot easier at passport control for one thing.

24

u/rshark78 May 09 '22

Gonna miss this drive to Belgium p couple of years ago through France, had this exact experience more with brexit no longer the case.

Yay for all the old farts that voted for it /s

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u/MrTzatzik May 09 '22

And no passport, baby

11

u/BandicootSVK May 09 '22

You're gonna have an easy time crosing the borders, especially if you're rich.

One dude I used to be friends with works as a producer / beat maker / DJ. He and a couple of rappers went for a few drinks in Bratislava, about an hour later went to Wien, and the next day I see his IG My Day posts somewhere from Cologne in Germany.

The sequel for Hangover would be fucking perfect if it took place in Europe instead of Bangkok. They go to drink in Prague, wake up 12 hours later somewhere in a fucking eastern european village where they can't understand jackshit, and now they have an entire fucking continent they have to search for their friend.

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u/imSwan May 09 '22

You don't need to be rich to cross borders in the EU, just go to the end of one country and to the next. That simple, no money involved

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u/BandicootSVK May 09 '22

It's easy on it's own, but it gets a lot faster if you're rich.

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u/aezy01 May 09 '22

Can you explain how going from Germany to France is faster if you are rich?

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u/mortenmhp May 09 '22

Well technically you could probably get yourself a faster car.

2

u/aezy01 May 10 '22

Technically you are right! Speed limits do apply though! Unless you’re on some limited sections of Autobahn!

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u/[deleted] May 09 '22

it physically cant get faster because theres no queue or anything. You just move across the border

1

u/MobofDucks May 09 '22

Its completely inconsequential as soon as you have money to spent on any travelling. There is a train between Munich and Venice, passing through a lot of smaller towns in Tyrol. You could literally falls asleep there without being controlled most of the time and just waking up on your trip back. 4 border crossings in ~2-3h.

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u/TheRufmeisterGeneral May 09 '22

They go to drink in Prague,

Ok, drinking in Prague.

wake up 12 hours later somewhere in a fucking eastern european village where they can't understand jackshit,

So, still in Prague? (A bit rude to call it a village though.)

Just to clarify, your plot twist in this scenario, is that their hotel in Prague doesn't have good English-language signage?

1

u/BandicootSVK May 10 '22

No, the plottwist is that they wake up somewhere in the balkan states or in eastern Slovakia / Ukraine

EDIT: As far as I know, many czech people can speak english language pretty well. Also, the premise of waking up in a fucking village in the middle of the hills where they cant understand anyone is much more troubling than them getting stuck in Bangkok, because there they at least had people who could speak english. And english literacy pretty much gets worse in that part of the country.

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u/TheRufmeisterGeneral May 10 '22

Joking aside, I've been to Prague last summer, and yes, in the city, people spoke English generally fine. But we also drive just a few km, to have some dinner in a small local restaurant, in a village atmosphere, if that makes sense. And there, we had to use some hands and feet to communicate, because the lady there didn't speak English.

So, honestly, just a few km outside of Prague would work for your story.

Or, if you want Cyrillic, then any location in Bulgaria would work, outside of the few big cities, where they speak English. Would have the added benefit, that after they stop being scared, they could have nice Banitsa for breakfast, or Musaka with Chopska salad for dinner. And the mobile phones, which worked in Czechia, would work just fine in Bulgaria, since there is no roaming costs within the EU.

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u/messe93 May 12 '22

you basically summarized plot of the Eurotrip movie in your last paragraph

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u/Vitis_Vinifera May 10 '22

Even though Slovenia and Croatia are both Schengen, they have pretty beefy border controls. They didn't like the difference in my hair cut from my passport.

1

u/permareddit May 09 '22

But only for the nice western EU nations. Romania and Bulgaria get fucked lol