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Leaving the EU

December 21, 2018

 

Yesterday we flowed fluid around Dubrovnik. Another slow town traversed only on foot with no cars or bikes made walking a joy. A truly beautiful place. But with the winter cold still threatening to freeze us in our tracks we decided to make an epic drive south. 11hrs and three countries later (Bosnia, Montenegro, Albania), we arrived at the Greek border early this morning (coming to sleep on a mountain). Borders are strange places to traverse – Bosnia, Montenegro and Albania are not in the EU which means longer queues, more thorough inspections, passports & van documents checked and checked again. Then pulled over by other police and checked again. Our van insurance isn’t valid there so we had to buy some at the police station at the border, and even though we drove through the night their minimum policy for a van was 15 days at €77. Lesson learned. Our mobile phone plans aren’t valid outside the EU so to use maps GPS we had to buy expensive phone data bolt ons. Why are we leaving the EU? I still cannot fathom how Brexit benefits anybody except a few elite politicians and business crooks waiting like vultures to pick over the dead carcass of our endeavours; they will harvest endless pots of money from the ensuing chaos, the rest of us (and that is 95% of us) will not benefit from their scandalous profiteering any more than we benefit from the great ‘wealth trickle down effect’ lie. Travelling through these countries late at night with little sleep the mind wants to worry about bandits and robberies, about unscrupulous people who might take what is ours – and this is the trick, the sleight of hand of these Brexit politicians, to make us fear that an unknown foreigner might steal what is already being taken through legitimate channels as we crash out of the EU and into the arms of Donald Trump. Being an island means we don’t have to ‘build a wall’ just pull up the drawbridge and slowly devour ourselves from the inside out. Maybe being an island is part of the problem – it allows for isolation and ‘small island mentality’ too easily. We haven’t adapted our travel plans around a possible Brexit because nobody knows what it will mean. But one thing we are learning on a tiny, individual scale is how beautiful this vast continent is, how generous and welcoming the people are, how important it is to experience new places, and how much easier life is when you’re part of something bigger that works to have your best interests at heart.

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