How Long Are You Planning to Stay in Our Country?

The rest of my time in France was filled with driving through beautiful autumnal countryside of rolling hills and pastures, visiting very sobering cemeteries and taking photographs of the places where my grandfather had been.

As it's difficult to put this moving experience into words I will let my photographs and my grandfather's speak for me.

On my way back to London I had to change trains (and train stations) in Paris. At the Gare du Nord before boarding the Eurostar to London one must pass through the UK border control. I was already sweating from the 10 minute hike between Parisian stations when I started getting grilled about why I was visiting the UK. The agent started flipping through my passport and saw all the entry and exit stamps I've acquired since the summer. And I start sweating a little more...

• When did you first arrive in the UK?
• How long did you stay in March?
• What is your occupation?
• How much money do you have with you?
• How much money is in your bank account?
• Whose flat is this in London you wrote down?
• What does your partner do?

All the while she's madly scribbling notes on the back the landing card I had filled out. Did I say something wrong? I know I haven't been in the UK longer than the allotted 6 months. I know I've done no work paid or unpaid while here. I haven't broken the law. I have an airplane ticket to take me back to NY on November 21.

Still, the agent was suspicious and not entirely satisfied with my answers. She let me back into the UK for 6 months, but she stamped my passport with a special stamp with a code number that can allow another agent to pull up her remarks the next time I try to enter the country.

Now I understand a little about what visitors to the United States go through when they fly into our cities. How everyone has to be fingerprinted when visiting America; how Latinos or Arabs must feel when they get singled out try to pass legally through our borders. It's not pleasant.