Nida campsite. Up in reasonable time, though George was much earlier. Nice and sunny, but a rain squall came a little while later to ensure our tent was wet before we took it down. Quite a few people came up to us to talk about varioous things; a friendly place. Anyway, off at about 10am. On the main road, stopped at a cafe and then on to the border with the Russian "enclave" Kaliningrad.
Through the Lithuanian boerder control with no trouble. In the Russian control, George and Katherine had their passports and visas processed rapidly, with migrations cards issued. When I presented my passport, the official took it off to anoither office, with no explanation at all. OK, they seemed to speak only Russian so communication was not easy. So I waited. In a while, asked not to stand in front of the window where one presents passports. Sat at the side and waited. Eventually, someone told us we could wait inside as it was less cold. So we did, on a row of 3 seats. Waited and waited; had lunch; eventually an apparently more senior offical told us the problem was I had a new passport, and true it was issued earlier this year. Why having a new passpot was a problem was not mentioned, but clearly it was. So waited on. All contact so far had been a trifle frosty, but suddenly 3 of them with my passport came and were all smiles and explained (again) the delay becuase a new passport. I was taken to the window, conputer work the other side, entry stamp and migration card, and we through. This all took nearly 4 hours, but alls well that ends well.
Through the Lithuanian boerder control with no trouble. In the Russian control, George and Katherine had their passports and visas processed rapidly, with migrations cards issued. When I presented my passport, the official took it off to anoither office, with no explanation at all. OK, they seemed to speak only Russian so communication was not easy. So I waited. In a while, asked not to stand in front of the window where one presents passports. Sat at the side and waited. Eventually, someone told us we could wait inside as it was less cold. So we did, on a row of 3 seats. Waited and waited; had lunch; eventually an apparently more senior offical told us the problem was I had a new passport, and true it was issued earlier this year. Why having a new passpot was a problem was not mentioned, but clearly it was. So waited on. All contact so far had been a trifle frosty, but suddenly 3 of them with my passport came and were all smiles and explained (again) the delay becuase a new passport. I was taken to the window, conputer work the other side, entry stamp and migration card, and we through. This all took nearly 4 hours, but alls well that ends well.
Whilst waiting we were entertained with hundreds of martins who had built their nests under the border control canopy. They were busy feeding their babies and fledglings. We also enjoyed the sniffer dogs. One was very interested in one of my small front bags and I had to open it. It contained food and in particular chocolate. I'm afraid the dog didn't get any.
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