Of all the possibilities I've imagined,
not being allowed into the country was not one of them. After the 9hr
sleepless plane ride and the hour it took to arrive at the front of
the border line, the idea that I'd soon be sitting with the
other few questionable travelers was no where near my thoughts.
I'd decided ahead of time that I would
most definitely not speak of a whole 6 months in the UK (which is the
maximum time allowed), I would instead say three. I really should
have thought about it for longer.
It's been over a week now, so clearly I
didn't get sent home. I'd definitely say it was a somewhat traumatic
experience I had with immigration and not
entirely something I want to write about at this point. What's more, there's so
much to tell it would take too long. I would like to have some of it
in writing though, so let me try...
Let me tell you (whoever happens to
read this) now what you do not say to people standing between you and
your lifelong dream of traveling in another country – I don't care
how nice the girl interviewing you is.
Do not say you are staying for
three months unless you have strict plans.
Do not say you have no plans.
Do not say you have no return
ticket.
Do not say you are recently
unemployed.
Don't for any reason tell them the
small amount of money you have on you, but that you'll have more
when your car is sold soon.
Don't say you sold your car.
And heaven help you if you mention
a possibility of marriage.
They may ask lots of questions
depending on answers to the initial ones. Why are you here? How long?
You have a return ticket? How much money do you have? I didn't want
to lie if there's a potential to be questioned and caught in the lie
later, but by the time I was being questioned I wasn't really
thinking about how my answers sounded like I'd made plans to stay in
England forever and ever.
To be fair, I didn't quit my job and
sell my jeep for the sole purpose of coming to England. My reason was
just making changes that freed me up in general. It doesn't sound so
great, however, when you're entering into another country with no
return ticket. And there was no return ticket because I didn't yet
know what county we would be going back to the states from. I didn't
think it would be England.
It didn't seem so bad however until I
mentioned the possibility of getting married. That was the last
straw. The girl seemed very concerned and began telling me all I
needed to have that I clearly didn't. Basically she was telling me
that we could not legally get married the way we'd gone about it...so
I responded with “well, okay, we can't get married then. We weren't
going to have a ceremony anyway, so it's not a big deal.” But then
she said that it wasn't the marriage part as much as the no return
ticket that was the problem. I was told to have a seat and, “don't
worry, it won't take long, I just need to speak with my supervisor
and someone might have to question you a little more.” I had no
idea that I wouldn't be released for another 8.5 hours.
Mark and I were out of sync with our
flights, so he had flown in some hours earlier and had been waiting
for me on the other side. He didn't have a cell phone and wasn't
planning on buying internet until I was with him, so there was no way
for me to tell him that I'd been left sitting for 2.5 hours and
didn't know what was going on or when I'd be released.
Finally, infuriated, I asked a random
employee to find someone to talk to me. Not too long after, miss high
on power supervisor sat down next to me and asked with raised
eyebrows, “so what's your question?” as if I were really
interrupting her day. What isn't my question? What the fuck. I'm left
sitting without a word for over 2 hours and she wonders what I could
possibly have to ask her?! She told me that it wasn't the no return
ticket, but my plans to get married when I didn't have the proper
documentation that caused them to question my intentions for being
there. (Seriously, guys, get your stories straight.) I told her that
I didn't have “plans” to do anything but travel around, visit
Mark's family, and the rest was just a bonus if it had been able to
happen. She responded with “see, you're changing your intentions
again.” She was the worst person I spoke with that day, thankfully.
Apparently it's madness to intend to explore parts of the world
unless you're bound to a tour group. Stupid.
They were in contact with Mark
somewhere toward the beginning of this thing too, which helped ease
me.
A man named Chris was assigned to my
“case” and I am so thankful for him. He was clearly genuinely on
my side and frustrated for me. I found out in our last conversation
that his wife is American, so he was not at all for sending me home.
As horrible as the whole process was, being interrogated, thoroughly
searched, fingerprinted, photographed, locked up in a holding room,
and questioned some more, I feel it would have been a lot worse had
he not been there.
From what I gathered, there was a whole
room of people who I'd never met deciding whether or not I should be
sent back. There was even an immigration officer brought in
especially for my case. Chris had to question Mark several times,
call his mom, Betsy, and question her... So much... By the end Chris
said it was 50/50, but somehow the vote tipped in my favor. He said
there were even people ticked off that I was getting to stay?! What
the hell? I was told that I'm not allowed to get married over here
this trip though... Why would you tell someone they're not allowed to
get married when you've already told them it's impossible to do it
legally anyway because they went about it incorrectly? They didn't
explain and I didn't bother to ask, I was so sick of being there.
Mark spoke to a policeman, after they'd had me for 5 hours, who said that it's very unusual for anyone to be held for that long. I can't help but wonder how many truly sketchy people were allowed through while all their attention was focused on me.
It was quite possibly the longest day
of my life. I'm so happy to be typing about it from the kitchen table
in Churchhill Cottage located in Hessenford, Cornwall, UK.
