Interlude

You're probably expecting to be reading an enthusiastic and exciting blog about all the wonderful things I'm experiencing now that I'm in England. You're probably expecting to hear that my flatmates are great, my profs are even better, Bristol is beautiful, the boat club is shit hot, and the weather fine.

This is not that blog.

I'm back. I'm not in Manchester. I'm not even in England. I'm on the completely wrong fucking side of the fucking Atlantic Ocean. Let me walk you through the events of the past six days, so that you can better understand how completely fucked up the world is. At present, I feel that my life has become a microcosm of all that is wrong with society. Please, allow me to illustrate...

I left on Wednesday, feeling, well, it's hard to describe. If a mouse feels elated upon happening on a bit of cheese, I was that mouse. Except that I had been living on the brink of starvation for almost a year, and the cheese was a rich and tangy 7-year-old Vermont cheddar. And it was the size of the Empire State Building. Yeah, that sort of gets you in the ballpark of my emotional state. Hell, I don't need to tell you lot. If you've been reading my blog for the past year, you know how desperate I was to get out of the states and how much I was looking forward to seeing my old friends again. Moreover, this wan't some boon that just dropped out of the sky and landed in my life, like a lottery jackpot that I would feel compelled by conscience to share with the less fortunate. No, I earned this. I earned it all by myself. This was the fulfillment of a dream that cost me thousands of hours of hard work and emotional angst, and I did it. Well done, me. I bid farewell to my wonderful if slightly overbearing parents and shed only tears of joy as I boarded the plane bound for the green and pleasant land.

I arrived in Manchester at 6:05 on Thursday morning (local time). At 6:09, my life ended. For the four minutes it took me to walk from the plane to immigration control, my life was almost perfect. I didn't have everything I've ever wanted, but I had most of it, and the rest was not far off. I was really fucking tired, having slept only briefly the night before my departure (too much excitemtent) and even less on the plane. Nevertheless, I practically skipped to immigration. Here I was, and everthing was wonderful.

"Good morning, Miss. Passport please."

"Good morning. Here you are."

"Why are you entering the United Kingdom?"

"I am a postgraduate student at the University of Bristol. I'm starting my PhD this autumn."

(flips through pages of passport) "Where's your visa, then?"

"I don't need a visa. Here's my acceptance letter from the University demonstrating that I am enrolled in a full-time course, and here's my proof of financial means."

"That doesn't matter, Miss. You need a visa if you're entering the country for more than 6 months, student or no."

"Oh, well, here's my return plane ticket. I'm going home for the holidays in December, 3 months from now. I'll just be a tourist until then and get the visa at that time."

"That won't do, Miss. I have to put you on the next plane back to America. You can't enter the country."

"Sir, there must be some mistake," I pleaded, becoming panicky. "I lived in Manchester for over a year. I earned my MA from the University of Manchester. I never needed a visa."

"When was that, Miss?"

"I completed my course last autumn, in 2004."

"Ah, well, they've just changed the law. You need a visa now. I'm sending you back to America today. It was your responsibility to find that out. It's not our job to tell you."

"Where can I make a phone call?"

"You can't make a phone call. You have to leave the country."

"I got that bit, but before you send me off, I must make a phone call."

"Who do you need to call?"

"My friend who is meeting me at the airport, and my parents to tell them what's going on." (And the American Embassy, I thought to myself, but I didn't say that.)

"Well, you can't use a phone. You can't call the American Embassy or the Consulate General or anyone else. There's no right of appeal. (Was he telepathic? Or did he have a lot of experience throwing people out of England for no good reason?) You will leave the country today, and you can't use a phone. Go and sit in that room over there while I take care of the rest of the people in this queue."

"Have you got a rubbish bin back there," I asked, feeling the pressure building behind my ears. "I'm going to be sick."

"You can use that washroom over there."

I proceeded to throw up. Regretfully, I made it to the washroom on time. In retrospect, I shouldn't even have tried. This whole experience would have been marginally less traumatic if I'd at least had the satisfaction of barfing on the beaucratic bean-counting baboon with the broad Manc accent. After vomiting, I sat in the room and waited. And waited. I had no idea when the man would reappear, what would happen to me, or if I would ever be allowed in the country again. For the first time in my life I had thoughts of suicide. Everything I had worked for had been taken away from me in the space of a breath, my whole life, all my dreams and ambitions gone. The only thing the PhD didn't garuntee me was true love, and even that, I'm convinced, stands a far better chance of happening in England. I don't think I could ever love an American. It sounds wierd, but that's just the way it is. I sat and cried and cried and cried.

An American woman, who was in the queue behind me and who overheard the whole conversation, was very sympathetic. She came over to me and explained that she had been married to a British citizen for 24 years, and then one day they changed the immigration laws and wouldn't let her into the country. Her husband, who was with her at the time, of course got in, but she was deported to New York City. She gave me a hug, told me that all Englishmen with the notable exception of her husband are total bastards, assured me it would all come out all right in the end, and then gave me all the kleenex in her handbag and the name and phone number of a friend she has in the Consulate's General office in NY. All the other people in the queue, fellow passengers from my flight, wished me well and good luck as they cleared through, and gave lots of dirty looks to my detaining officer. The moral here is that most people are quite nice when it comes down to it, but give someone with a small ego and an even smaller penis a bit of authority, and watch him use it for the sole pleasure of tormenting idealistic academic virgins. Bastard.

3 hours of agony later, Bastard Beaurocrat returned. He was slightly less assholian this time round. He said that since I'd been through an ordeal he'd let me stay for one night and ship me out tomorrow (how generous of you, you fucking control freak!), if I promised to come back to the airport in the morning like a good girl. ("But just in case you're tempted to run, I'm confiscating your passport. You can have it back when you return tomorrow.") He also offered to ring my friend and my folks for me (he still wouldn't let me near a phone), an offer which I accepted, and he gave me this piece of advice: "I've got you on a flight tomorrow at noon. When you come back, the airline is going to ask you for your return ticket. Don't give it them. We at Immigration have told the airline they have to take you out of the country. They don't have a choice. They won't want to incur the cost themselves, so they'll ask for your return ticket, and they'll just change the date and send you back on your own money. You are under NO OBLIGATION to surrender that ticket. Whatever you do, don't give it them. They must put you on a plane, they've got no choice. When you get home, apply for the visa. It won't take long, and you've got all the proper documents here already. You'll be back in England shortly, and I'm sure you'll want to use that ticket to get home for Christmas. However much they bully you, hold firm and hold onto it. Good luck." He was wierdly paternal about the whole thing. Perhaps that, like Lazarus Long, he's a sucker for a crying female.

I got my bags and checked them at left luggage. There was no point in dragging them all over fucking manchester since I was only there for one night. I was supposed to be staying with my friend, Mel, while I was in town. The deal was I would phone her from the airport to let her know I landed, and then take the bus to Withington where she would meet me and take me back to her place. I phoned her, but she didn't answer. I got on the bus anyway. I got to Withington and phoned again. No answer. I left a second message.

By this time I was completely wrung out, physically and emotionally. It was almost 11 am, I had been awake for days, I had suffered the most crushing disappointment in my entire life, and I had nowhere to go. I began phoning everyone I knew in the city of Manchester. A: not in. J: in, but had his brother up from Cambridge and there was no room at the inn. S: answered phone, but was at Uni, not in room, and wouldn't be back to room until evening. I couldn't wait that long. Mel: still not answering. All my other friends have graduated. That was it. Maybe it was my imagination, but no one seemed especially sorry or sympathetic either. I thought I had friends. Maybe I didn't. Maybe it was like high school all over again, where people pretended to be my friends and then hung me out to dry. Why is this happening?

I got back on the bus and went downtown. I knew there was a youth hostel in the northern quarter of the city between Arndale and Picadilly Station, but I didn't have the exact address on me. The Manchester tourist office in St. Peter's Square, however, is full of really nice, really helpful people. They've never let me down. Just for good measure, because not enough had gone wrong that morning, my asshole bus driver went right past St. Peter's and on to Picadilly, even though I rang the bell. I asked him why he didn't stop, and he said he was in a hurry to get to Picadilly. Crying, shattered, exhausted, and carrying a giant backpack and my over-laden computer bag, I hoofed it 6 blocks back to St. Peter's. (In the grand scheme of things, being let off one stop past your destination and being forced to walk a few extra blocks is not normally a big deal, but on that morning, in my weary state of defeat and falling over, nautious body, it really fucking pissed me off. After being dicked about by Immigration and abandoned by all my so-called friends, I just didn't need to be dicked about by jerkoff bus drivers, too. I mean for fucks sake, could anything else go wrong? There's a question one should never ask. Talk about holding a target up for Fate.) Not only did the lovely gentleman in the tourist office give me the address of the hotel and a map to direct me (though I didn't need it), he phoned over for me and made sure they had a female bed available for the night, which they did.

The people at the hostel were great. They said they had been told to expect an exhaused woman travelling alone, who appeared to be at the end of a tether. They recognized me the instant I walked in. They gave me my key, showed me to my room, gave me a compimentary towel, told me there was tea, coffee, and toast availabe 24 hours a day in the kitchen at no charge, I could borrow a DVD from the front desk and crash out in the TV lounge if I liked, and if I wished to check my email, they'd be happy to gve me 30 minutes on the computer at no cost. They held on to my computer behind the front desk for safe keeping for me, and were perfectly obliging when I requested that someone wake me up the following morning at half six so I could be to the airport on time. I have rarely received better service from hotels that charge 5 times as much. If you EVER need a place to stay in Machester, do yourself a favor and check in to The Hatters. Tell them I sent you.

After a shower and a shave and feeling a tad more human, I went 'round to the newsagent and bought a couple phone cards. I then spent the entire afternoon alternating between calling home, crying, calling Bristol, wandering aimlessly around downtown trying to stay awake and kill time between phone calls, and eating the worst turkey sandwich I've ever eaten in my life. Back home, my parents were kicking ass and taking names, doing everything they could to fix my situation. By the end of the day I had 2 United States congressmen and a team of 6 lawyers in Chicago working on my case, all hammering the British Consul for answers and to try and arrange it so the visa could be issued without me having to return to America. I'm here, so it obviously didn't work. The University of Bristol even called the Immigration officer who chucked me out and begged him to let me stay, but to no avail. It's that small penis control freak thing; it just can't be fucking budged.

Crashed out, slept all night, woke up, got to the airport. Begin day 2 of life in mass trasit hell.

Waited in a rediculous queue at ticketing. Showed the chickiedoo the papers Bastard Beaurocrat had given me. She looked confused. She called a supervisor. A matronly, brown-clad supervisor appeared. She rang up Immigration and said they'd arrive shortly with my passport, and then they could check me in to my flight.

More waiting.

Customs guy shows up, give my passport to matron in brown, who says "Ah! Here we are. All I need now is your return ticket."

"Um, no."

"Excuse me?"

"No."

"No what?"

"No, you can't have my return ticket."

"Perhaps I didn't make myself clear," said the bitch in brown. "I need to change the date on your return ticket to today so we can fly you home."

"You made yourself perfectly clear. No allow me to make myself equally clear. You can't have my return ticket. I was very specifically instructed by Immigration NOT to relinquish my return ticket under any circumstances. As it was explained to me, you have been instructed to return me to the United States. You have no choice in the matter. I am being deported against my will, and I am under no obligation to pay for it."

"I don't know who told you that, but..."

"A Mr. Steve Whitfield, the Immigration officer who refused my entry yesterday. Is he here? I would like to speak with him."

The Immigration officer who delivered my passport was standing a few feet away, watching the proceedings and looking uncomfortable. He spoke:

"No, Mr. Whitfield doesn't work today. You need to give this lady your ticket."

Well that fucking blew it. I have no trouble standing up to an airline, but pissing off an Immigration officer didn't seem like a smart idea. In retrospect, I should have refused to fork over the ticket and told him he'd have to physically remove it from my posession if he wanted it, but I was exhausted and stressed and frankly terrified, and I caved. $700 down the crapper.

After checking me in to my flight and printing my boarding pass, the Lying Spineless Immigration Officer said he would escort me to security, where he would return my passport to me. We arrived at security and were informed that security was closed, and we should wait a moment. The LSIO wasn't keen on waiting around, and his manner suggested that he viewed me as a complete waste of his time, so he told me to wait where i was, and when I cleared security and got to the gate, to have the gate attendant ring immigration and he would bring my passport to me then.

So I waited.

More and more people were piling up behind me as they came from ticketing and found security closed. I decided to wax clever and get a cup of tea so i could sit down in the cafe' and watch the proceedings from a comfy chair. 20 minutes later the mob waiting to clear security was huge. I got up to throw my cup away, and saw a plastic shopping bag sitting on the table behind me. A woman had been sitting there when I sat down, but she was gone now. I figured she had just forgotten her bag, and I watched it for a few minutes. When she didn't return, I felt obligated to report it. I approaced a nearby security officer who was keeping an eye on the restless chickens and said, "I'm sure it's nothing, but a woman forgot her shopping bag. It's been sitting on that table for some time." 60 seconds later they hollered "EVACUATE!"

It wasn't the stampede I expected. In fact, people were very reluctant to leave. They directed us to the train/bus terminal near the airport, where we sat around with our thumbs up our butts wondering if we should try and steal a seat on that last train that's still sitting at the platform and get the hell out of dodge, or if we should sit and wait and hope we can still get on a plane sometime that day. Then the train left. We were trapped. We learned from a few people who had internet on their mobiles and series of Chinese whispers that an Arab man had lept a security barrier on the tarmak and thrown a suitcase under an airplane. All roadways into the airport were blocked. No busses or trains were allowed in, and no one would tell us officially what the fuck was going on. I joined the queue for a pay phone and let my folks know that it looked as though there was a fair chance I wouldn't be getting on a plane that day. They were thriled. Meanwhile, I'm wodering if I'll ever see my passport again, what with all the hullaballoo and whatnot.

Two hours later they announced that customs and airline personell were to return to work, so whatever it was was over. I cleared security (which wasn't easy, since I still didn't have my passport back), and got to the gate. I got a BMI person to ring immigration, and the LSIO showed up with my passport. I headed for a payphone.

Now, while all this has been taking place, my parents have been working with lawyers and congressional staffers and all sorts of people to get my visa application going. They had nearly completed the online portion, but they needed my passport number, and since it was a Friday, and because of the time change, I needed to get them that number asap, before close of business, because that was the only way i would be able to get an appoint with the Consulate General on Monday. Otherwise, I would have to wait until Monday to MAKE the appt, and I would lose a lot of time. Hence, the mad dash to the payphone before they began boarding.

The LSIO sees me take off in the wrong direction and comes charging after me. He grabs my arm and spins me around.

"Where are you going?! Your gate's that way!"

"Let go of me! I'm going to that pay phone right over there, because it's essential that I make a phone call before I board the plane, because you assholes wouldn't let me near a telephone yesterday! Now LET GO OF ME!"

(I no longer cared about pissing off Immigration.)

He followed me to the phone, having no good reason to deny me making a call at my own expense, then followed me back to the gate again. Good grief. Where the fuck would I have gone?

7 hours on a cramped plane with bad movies and worse food, and I was in Washington DC. They called out the connecting flights for the passengers on board and told them what terminal and gate they should seek out. They did not call out my connection. This is not a good sign.

I cleared customs and checked the departures screen for my flight to Detroit. Different terminal, naturally. I arrive at terminal G and go to the gate for my flight just to confirm that I am, in fact, on the passenger list. They tell me I'm not.

Bear in mind that I am holing in my hand a BOARDING CARD for the 9:30 flight to Detroit, but the idiot behind the desk insists that I was booked for the 5:45 flight, which has already departed, and since it was my fault I missed my connection (terrorist threats and evacuations clearly being my fault), they are under no obligation to book me on a later flight. I try and explain that I AM booked for the 9:30 and here's my boarding card, but this has little effect. He tells me to go to customer service. Let me rephrase that. He tells me to go to customer "service."

At this point I am exhaused to tears, but I explain the situation to the woman calmly and politely. She looks at her omnipotent computer screen, the screen of all knowledge that is in no way alterable, the screen which is harder than the hardest stone, because whatever is on the screen is Truth, and it is sacrilidge punishable by death to suggest it might be wrong. (You know the screen I'm talking about.) She looks at her omniscient screen and declares in a pure and ringing voice which reverberates from the heavens, "The best I can do is to put you on standby, but the flight is nearly full and there's a long line ahead of you, so I doubt you'll get on. And since it's not our fault you missed your connection, we don't have to provide you with a hotel for the night."

I sigh and sit down. I am done. I have no more fight in me. I'm at the end of my rope. I cry. Again. I sprain a tear duct. I remeber that I should call home and let my folks know what's going on. I have no more change. I try to call collect. The metal voice on the phone tells me that I cannot make a collect call to that number. That's it. No explanation, no alternatives. I go to the ATM to get cash, then beg a bartender to give me change. I reach my mom, tell her not to leave for the airport until I call again and confirm that they'll actually let me on the plane. Fuckers. I begin to remember stories my mom used to tell me about travel mishaps she's had. I think about the time when i was a kid and they tried to throw my whole family off a train into a slum in Indiana, and how mom told the conductor he'd have to carry her off because she wouldn't cooperate, and then she told us kids (I was maybe 6 or 7 at the time) how to go limp and be dead weight for the guards, like she used to do back in the 60s at Vietnam protest rallies when she was being arrested. I remembered the time my luggage got lost when I came home for Christmas from college, and how mom spent 2 entire days on the phone yelling at airline staff, writing down names, insisting on talking to mangers, threatening to call the president of the airline, demanding compensation, and finally getting them to track down and return my luggage. I wondered what she would do if she were stuck in this dumpy, old-school terminal with crappy, over-priced food and obstinate airline employees. She wouldn't be sitting, hugging her computer and crying, that's for sure.

I began to feel a glow of anger come to life in the center of my body. It warmed me and gave me energy. I ate a spotty banana to feed the anger and nourish it (I hate spotty bananas. I gathered myself together, heaved my pack on my back and summoned what strength I had left to make one last trudge to customer "service." I knew in my heart that this was it. I would either get on that plane or die on the desk, a grizzly monument to the American transportation industry. I fling velvet rope barriers aside as i slog my way to the counter.

No one is there. It is empty. THere is a tattered sign on the counter which reads "Customer service is closed. If you require assistance, please go to the cusotmer service desk opposite gate D7."

Now, let's see if you're paying attention. Do you remember where I am? Go back a few paragraphs, to where I arrive in Washington. That's right, I'm in terminal G. They want me to go to customer service in another TERMINAL! Fuckers. Now I'm pissed. I'm pissed like you have never seen me pissed before. If I had been holding an automatic weapon, I would have sprayed the concourse like sprinkling a lawn. I begin ranting aloud. The people around me look completely uninterested. I storm off to where the inter-terminal shuttles are, swinging my computer bag back and forth in front of me to clear a path. I get on the shuttle to terminal D and demand that the drive leave now, without waiting for anyone else to board. To my amazement, he does. It's the Axel Foley theory of getting shit done: say it with enough authority, and people will do what you tell them.

By the time the shuttle deposits me at terminal D, I'm having an out-of-body experience. I'm so bone-weary and so blindly angry that I'm no longer expering the things I'm doing. I'm just watching from somewhere behind. It's like I can't keep up with my own rage. I watch myself charge down the concourse of terminal D toward gate 7. I see that my lips are so tightly pursed they look like my ass. I see myslef completely disregard the other people in line at customer "service" and march right up to the counter, where I spit at the young man, "Look I know this isn't your fault personally, but i've been treated like shit by this airline and you're the one who's going to make it all OK. Got that? (looks frightened, nods) Good. Here's what's happned..." I tell him everything, right down to the sign on the desk in the other terminal. I conclude with "and what I need you to do is to get me back to Detroit tonight. I don't care if you have to drive me there yourself. I don't care if you have to invent and construct a transporter and beam me there, you will get me to Detroit. The easiest way for you to do that, though, is to simply get me a seat on the 9:30 plane, and I don't care if you have to bump the copilot to do it!" He says it's no problem, prints me off a new boarding card with a new seat asingnment (it's not in the cockpit, thankfully), and informs me that there's no reason why they couldn't have done that at the gate for me. I am defused, disarmed, deflated.

Clutching my boarding pass in my sweaty hand, I return to terminal G, where the monitor above my gate now reads "Flight Delayed. Estimated departure time 10:30." I swear to god i'm not making this up.

I landed in Detroit about midnight, where I met my parents and cried some more. They took me home and put me in bed, and here I am.

Stay tuned for part 2: The Frantic Trip to Chicago to Apply in Person for a Visa!