On 29 May 2014, I had to say goodbye to a dear friend of mine, one who had travelled the length and breadth of the globe with me for the previous 10 years, one who opened gates and granted me privileged access to the riches the world has to offer. For at the end of May, my 10 year Irish passport expired, and I had to hand it in to the Irish Embassy here in Vienna, where it was exchanged for a new one. They gave me the old thing back, but it was maimed at the edges, and stamped all over that it was now useless. My old passport, reference number p131248 was retired, and I would never travel with it again. I was always proud of this old, torn, stained passport as in the space of a few golden years in 2006-2010, we filled up all but three of its pages. Looking through the now defunct p131248, I realised that each stamp brought back some sort of a memory, and that much of my best travel stories occurred at borders, and at these borders is obviously where I used this old passport the most. Therefore the biography of my passport is a study in crossing borders and gaining access to new territories, and these events can often be as interesting as what is contained within the actual country of origin or destination. I thus present here, (in random order, just like they occur on the pages of my passport) a selection of border stories from my days with p131248. They do not attempt to describe the country we were exiting or entering, but merely different experiences in the ceremonial exchanging of one’s existence in one sovereign territory for another.
Curves of Indifference 