By Anita Graafland
We’ve not had any submissions on people crossing borders and with the Newcastle border force now merely telling me to keep driving instead of rummaging through the boot of my car, my post-Brexit border experiences have become bland and predictable.
However, a family funeral recently took me on a two-day trip to Amsterdam from the UK. As I was visiting friends between Cornwall and Herne Hill for a variety of reasons, I decided to park my car at Reading station and take a flight from Heathrow to Amsterdam. When I arrived at Schiphol Airport and needed to get to the funeral quickly, I was caught out by long queues of people being prevented from even taking the escalator down to the passport control area. I walked up to the security guard and asked what was going on, in Dutch of course. They waved me through because I had a Dutch passport and I ended up in an area packed to the rafters with people waiting in the All Passports queue, while I myself was directed to the electronic self-check area. It took me only a minute to make it through, while I heard someone shouting “UK passports to All Passports, please”. In Amsterdam, then, I came face-to-face with the consequences of Brexit for my UK friends, whereas I was able to go through the fast lane as a European citizen when returning to Heathrow. So what has really happened to improve life for normal people since the vote?
Cultural assumptions
We don’t really have a feature for cultural differences in our newsletter (should we?), but I thought I’d share this with you. Having spent roughly five months of the year in this country on average since I was 18, I thought I had a good grasp of the differences between our cultures, but I was caught out twice while on my journey from Amsterdam back home to Cornwall this week.
The first time was when I needed to get a sizeable amount from a cash machine. There were two machines and one of them apologised for not having 20-pound notes. It wasn’t until it started spewing 10-pound notes that I realised that my Dutch cultural assumption of cash machines offering 50-euro notes had taken over. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a 50-pound note, so have no idea why I didn’t register. It’s simply that the 50-euro note is more commonly used in Holland than are tens or twenties. Caught out!
And on my way from Reading to Cornwall I stopped off at a friend’s in Taunton for a cup of tea and a chat. Or so I thought. Turned out that my friend had assumed they were feeding me as it was close to 5.00 pm when I arrived, whereas no Dutch person would expect to be fed unless this was expressly agreed in advance. In fact, I don’t think my parents ever had anyone over for dinner. Visits ended when it was time for dinner or happened well after dinner, and many visitors to Holland would comment on how they were asked to leave when dinner time rolled around. Again, caught out by my own deep-seated cultural assumptions!
