[The Life of Shaun #415] Thank you, (b)log!

I have spent this week faithfully procrastinating finishing filling out my application for British citizenship, for which I am applying next month. The infamous Section 2 requires that you document, account for and tally all time spent outside of the UK since arriving on your settlement visa. Everyone who applies before you warns you to keep track of your travels; everybody ignores this advice and has to piece together half a decade of their lives from the careless, random stamping of listless immigration officers.

I fit things together as best I could from the stamps and visas in my passport, but had numerous holes where dates and destinations should have been. I am very thankful for starting this list and archiving it to the internet because every time I travelled I blogged something about it and Google handily stored and sorted all the entries by year and month. So thank you all for receiving, if not reading, these; you've saved me a lot of pain tonight and I owe you a drink when I see you next.

My travelling doesn't seem as prolific listed out on paper (or in Excel, to be accurate) as it does in experience. I suppose lists are never particularly impressive to behold, and this does omit intraborder travelling, but it still seems mediocre somehow. I suppose that is justification enough for taking more trips! Or perhaps I should just use a bigger font.

The stats, for those who're counting, near as I could figure:

- 34 trips abroad (including two planned ones between now and submitting my application)
- 6.8 trips/year
- One trip every 1.75 months
- A total of 208 days (or 11.4% of my British existence) out of the country

Cheers,
Shaun

Country Visited	Reason	Departure	Return	Days Absent
France	Holiday	19-Nov-2005	22-Nov-2005	3
USA	Visiting relatives	17-Mar-2006	2-Apr-2006	16
Spain	Holiday	21-Apr-2006	24-Apr-2006	3
Italy	Holiday	11-May-2006	14-May-2006	3
Sweden	Holiday	14-Jul-2006	16-Jul-2006	2
Ireland	Holiday	8-Sep-2006	11-Sep-2006	3
Bulgaria	Holiday	13-Oct-2006	16-Oct-2006	3
USA	Visiting relatives	22-Dec-2006	7-Jan-2007	16
Poland	Holiday	10-Feb-2007	17-Feb-2007	7
USA	Visiting relatives	6-Apr-2007	23-Apr-2007	17
France	Holiday	19-May-2007	21-May-2007	2
China	Holiday	9-Jun-2007	17-Jun-2007	8
Greece	Holiday	22-Jun-2007	2-Jul-2007	10
Germany	Holiday	30-Nov-2007	2-Dec-2007	2
Portugal	Holiday	28-Dec-2007	1-Jan-2008	4
Turkey	Holiday	31-Jan-2008	3-Feb-2008	3
USA	Visiting relatives	3-Mar-2008	9-Mar-2008	6
France	Holiday	18-Jul-2008	20-Jul-2008	2
Hungary	Holiday	15-Aug-2008	18-Aug-2008	3
France	Holiday	29-Aug-2008	31-Aug-2008	2
Israel	Holiday	19-Sep-2008	28-Sep-2008	9
USA	Visiting relatives	19-Dec-2008	5-Jan-2009	17
Italy	Holiday	6-Mar-2009	9-Mar-2009	3
Spain	Holiday	19-Mar-2009	22-Mar-2009	3
USA	Visiting relatives	27-Jun-2009	13-Jul-2009	16
Estonia	Holiday	11-Sep-2009	13-Sep-2009	2
Germany	Holiday	16-Oct-2009	19-Oct-2009	3
Spain	Holiday	6-Nov-2009	8-Nov-2009	2
Germany	Holiday	25-Dec-2009	28-Dec-2009	3
Germany	Holiday	22-Jan-2010	24-Jan-2010	2
Thailand, Cambodia, New Zealand, Australia	Holiday	19-Feb-2010	9-Mar-2010	18
Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore, Macau, China	Holiday	25-Jun-2010	5-Jul-2010	10
Greece	Holiday	30-Jul-2010	2-Aug-2010	3
Germany	Holiday	13-Aug-2010	15-Aug-2010	2
				208

Shaun H. Coley
Shadwell, Tower Hamlets
London, UK

http://www.nocirc.org
http://shaunism.blogspot.com

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