Notes from England - Guinness: Nectar of the Gods; Immigration and Visas

On Wednesday, Helen and I hopped on a ferry at Holyhead in Wales and took it to Dublin. Our destination: The Guinness Storehouse. We were going to see how that beautiful black brew is made...and what better place to do it than Dublin...where it originates and where it seems to be treated like a local celebrity.

The Storehouse was incredible. It told you anything you could possibly want to know about Guinness and the making thereof...its rich history and even plenty of things you would never have asked. For instance...the man behind the beer, Arthur Guinness himself, after being accused of using more than his legal ration of water for his brewery, threatened to defend the source of his water to the death. Irish, beer & fighting...could it be any more stereotypical?

Anyhoo, one of the very coolest things about the trip was that upon arrival, you are given a map to the facilities, which is shaped like a giant pint glass, I might add...and you're also given a souvenir: a clear plastic 'rock'...with a liquid puddle of real Guinness inside. Attached to the backside of the rock is a black plastic ring. When you make it to the top floor of 'the pint', which it the 'Gravity Bar', you pop off the black ring and give it to one of the bartenders. You are then given a complimentary pint of Guinness. Mmm...yum.

It was the one and only time I've found myself drinking beer at 2 o'clock in the afternoon...but hey, I was in Ireland. This sort of thing has to be fairly regular. (I'm allowed to say that - I'm roughly half-Irish.)

The true purpose of our trip, however, was not to visit 'the source of enlightenment'. No, I had legal reasons for fleeing the UK. See, I got a fiance visa last September, if you remember. This is necessary to be able to be wed to Helen. When I was approved for the visa, instead of making it active from that date through six months (1 September-1 March) Dominic, the man helping us at the British Consulate in Chicago post-dated it to be active from 1 December.

Dominic said he was allowed to post-date visas for up to three months, and he did so. His reasoning was that it would allow us to have extra time for wedding planning if needs be. While his intentions may have been good, it truly caused a problem for us when things changed and I moved in October instead of on 1 December as planned.

I had to enter on a visitor's visa, (since the fiance visa couldn't be active until 1 December) just as I always did when coming to see Helen. This visa is good for six months, as is the fiance visa, so I'm covered well through the wedding. The trouble is that I was instructed that I had to enter on the visitor's visa, then on or after 1 December I had to leave the UK and re-enter on the fiance visa.

Fine...we bit the bullet and went to Dublin. Dublin, if you were not aware, is not part of the United Kingdom...which consists of England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland. As Dublin is part of Southern Ireland, we were good.

So upon reaching port, my passport was stamped showing that I had entered Ireland and, in effect, left the UK. However, upon returning to Holyhead Port at Wales, there was an absurd absence of any sort of passport control whatsoever.

This is disconcerting for numerous reasons. Primarily...my fiance visa never got stamped by anyone. This is a problem...because so far as we can tell, it must stamped, I.E., activated, for the marriage to be legal.

Secondly, what's wrong with this picture: the world is crying about terrorism and indecent people sneaking in over the borders...and in Wales they're just letting them walk right in! I actually asked several people to look at my passport...to show me someone who could stamp it...and the person simply doesn't exist. Not at Holyhead.

So...Ireland wants to make sure no nasty people from the UK get into their country without being tracked and checked...but the UK doesn't give a rip when roles are reversed.

Don't get me wrong...Wales and the UK certainly aren't alone. They are not special in this regard. The US has its own problems with their borders. But this seems to me to be a gaping hole that could easily be filled.

Your thoughts?