I mentioned this to Annette the other night, and she encouraged me to blog it.
A while back, I went over to Australia on a work-related thing, but the only passport I could find was my EU passport. No sign of my NZ one. So I figured, who cares, I’ll use the other one. Which was fine, no problem. Off to Oz I go. However, when I tried to get back INTO NZ using this passport, there WAS a problem. No NZ passport, no entry visa. They had to issue me with a temporary 12-month visa, to get me back into the country. Which was interesting, and no big deal at the time. They did it, I’m back, and I have since found my NZ passport.
The other day I get a letter stating that I should be aware that my VISA has EXPIRED and that I should go do various LEGAL THINGS pretty much IMMEDIATELY, or face the terrible possibility of being Deported To My Country of Birth!
The horror!
I was planning to ignore this totally, in the hope that legal machinations actually proceeded to an amusingly advanced point before anyone noticed that my country of birth was, in fact, this one. And was even specified thus on the UK passport. I had high hopes of perhaps being arrested, taken to the airport, and then put on a flight to Timaru.
However, fun as that may be I have decided that I may write some letters and make some calls to cut that off. I really don’t need any red flags on my passport(s), in this day and age – it could cause trouble in future travelling.
What I might go do, however, is buy an “Overstayer” t-shirt.
February 7, 2005 at 7:54 pm
you REALLY don’t want to go to Timaru… My family lives there, it’s a bit of a nothing town.
February 7, 2005 at 8:19 pm
To clarify, I’ve never lived there (reading the other comment!) – my mum was born there and they moved back after I’d left home
February 9, 2005 at 12:10 am
Timaru is, of course, where I was born and spent the first 18 years of my life. I don’t mention it very often because (a) it’s shameful, and (b) I believe that if you say its name too often … you summon it, and it oozes from the corners and the darkness and from empty vessels … and it’s HUNGRY…
February 9, 2005 at 3:25 am
Heh I bet you probably went to school with someone related to me or something. Did your parents grow up there?
February 7, 2005 at 8:01 pm
LOL, back to little ol Timaru, funny how many of us are actually from there.
If you were real lucky, you could arrive on a banana boat 🙂
-P
February 7, 2005 at 8:57 pm
Thanks.
I’m now imagining Timaru as an independent sovereign state, in a dystopian future where everyone rides around on armoured dune buggies, wearing leather jackets.
Granted, some would say that it doesn’t have too far to go on that score.
February 9, 2005 at 12:12 am
Re: Thanks.
That’s far too cool for Timaru. Any dystopian future related to Timaru is more the kind you find in bad cheap 80’s sci-fi. All mullet haircuts, and lycra, and normal computer keyboards glued to plywood walls because it’s THE FUTURE.
February 9, 2005 at 12:42 am
Re: Thanks.
More like this?
February 8, 2005 at 12:10 pm
Gah, goddam overstayin’ furriners, comin’ here an’ takin’ all our jobs an’ leeching off th’ goddam hard-workin’ taxpayer!