It was a sunny day, my second weekend starting. The Thalys train took off from Brussels-Zuid (Zuid just means South in French) station around 7:40AM. I realised in a few minutes that I am going at a speed, which I have never travelled in land before! I could see the cars in the freeway are been overtaken like a bus overtakes a pedestrian (Later found out that, the train use to go at 200-300 kmph, and this is not the fastest around here)! In less than 90 mins, covering 310 kms non-stop, I was in Gare du Nord station, around 9.I got down the train and was walking towards the central platform, one of the police officers from the group who were randomly checking, stopped me and announced: ‘Passport, please!’
Once I showed my passport, he started asking an immigration officers’ regular questions, and at last asked,
‘Do you have your hotel address where you are going to stay?’
‘He got me’, I thought, and politely replied with a smile,
‘I have come here for a weekend, yet to see if I could get an accommodation somewhere’
The smile returned with my passport, and I am cleared for being in Paris!
* * * * * * *
Paris was something I would have loved to visit while I was in London, given that I had the permission to enter France without any more paper work. But they needed an extra visa, and that means I have to skip my working time, which was not possible in my 3 months stay.
Now, when the Belgium trip was finalised (that is, once I realised that I can’t say no to this trip, but only can decrease the term from a proposed 3 months to 6 weeks), my first place in my mind was Paris! The biggest hurdle for me was the ‘white card’, which came in the middle. If it were a business visa, I could travel around freely in Schengen countries, but I heard it is not possible if I am going in Work permit unless I get my white card. I am here in Work permit as per company rules, and as I mentioned it takes minimum 4 weeks for getting a white card. So again, I was thinking I will have to plan some travel inside Belgium and come back.
Then one day, out of curiosity, I went in to the government sites for reading the condition of how they define the importance of White card. It was a pleasant surprise for me to see that white card is required to roam around in Schengen countries only if my visa is Single Entry! Then I realised that many of us have single entry visas and that is why it became a general rule that the person travelling on Work Permit can’t travel out of Belgium unless he gets the White card! It was a Tuesday and I had no doubts that I am going to Paris at the earliest.
Booked my tickets on Friday evening after checking and making sure that no deal is on and I will have to pay the same amount if I am going next weekend or the weekend after that. The only unplanned part was, as I mentioned to the policeman, the accommodation.
