I mentioned that I am home for Christmas. This means that I am at my parents' house with my own family, having made it to England without a full passport.
After the initial assurances that my passport would be ready for me well before our travel, I eventually received an email from the lady working on my case that it emphatically would not be ready. I would have to travel up to Düsseldorf to obtain an Emergency Travel Document (ETD) from the British Consulate in person.
Actually, I was supposed to have gone to Munich, because that’s where British citizens living in Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg are catered for (or “processed”, I suppose). But, since Heidelberg is so much closer to Düsseldorf than to the Munich mother-ship, I went there instead.
It was an early start, but the weather was good and I made swift process along the Autobahns. Having left at around six o’clock in the morning I arrived just after nine, after battling through the Düsseldorf rush-hour traffic and finding a parking spot.
My application was ready just after eleven, having hit a slight hitch with the payment of €113 for the pleasure via credit card (the simple form didn’t allow for any security details, nor did they ask me in person, so their charge was initially rejected by Mastercard.) However, by five past eleven, I had the receipt in my hands, only to learn that it would take an hour to produce the card and that that would therefore run into their lunchbreak, so could I return at two o’clock…
A little bit of discussion ensured with the result that I could return at half past one, leaving me with just around two hours to kill for lunch. So I walked into town.
I find Düsseldorf strangely appealing. It has an interesting mix of the swank and the shabby, the artistic and the heavy industry. The Rhein is naturally a key feature of the city, but they still had to make something of it, which they have done, overall successfully.
I wouldn't mind going back, as long as it's not for anything to do with passports...
