I found myself taking a sharp intake of breath - no! and grabbed for my passport to browse through the stamps which jog the memory of past holidays and adventures.
The passport stamp is a right of passage. You enter the line at passport control just after a long / short flight; you watch the officers as they ask passengers to come forward from the yellow line. The closer you get you hear the questions being asked. Where are you staying; how long for; first visit etc.
Sometimes passengers don't get smoothly through and are taken where??????
Then its you're turn and the official goes through the questions; prepares the stamp; finds a page and thump you have another entry stamp in your passport.
As I browsed through my passport I remembered a very wet hike on the Appalachian trail where not only was I wet through but my rucksack and passport was well and truly drenched. My passport now has a very crumpled look which I love.
The various stamps survived if in some cases a bit blurred and nonetheless a record of travel.
I love my passport travel stamps do you love yours?
yes, yes yes....some of them are so beautiful, I suppose passing through European countries' borders is easier without passports having to be stamped, but it seems a shame not to have a book with a complete record of travels over a period of years.
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