A decade ago, I applied for a work visa in Britain and used it to work and travel for several months. This is that story. To begin at the beginning, go here. You can pick up a hard copy here or download the PDF here.
They weren’t as trusting. In fact, they made me get out of the bus and stand outside the border patrol office for thirty minutes while they called other customs officials as well as friends, distant relatives, and whoever else they felt could tell them whether or not to let me in the country. They finally let me pass, but not without a lengthy lecture to let me know in no uncertain terms that an American passport is worth a lot of money on the black market and is very useful for getting in and out of many, many nations such as Slovenia and that I should have my head checked if I was going to go around with a passport like this with smudged ink all over the place and a picture that was either falling out or had recently been replaced by a phony one and expect to get into any more countries, especially Slovenia. I nodded politely, put my tail between my legs, and headed back on the bus to the scowls of many Italians and Croatians, including my not-so-good friend the bus driver, who now considered me evil in addition to rude and mentally incompetent.
