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I just got back into the UK on Wednesday morning, after spending two weeks in Ohio with my American fiance, who I hadn't seen in 12 months. And being as we've both had an awful load of shit to deal with lately, the trip was something I was determined to enjoy.
In fact, it wasn't even the best trip I've had, and I could barely relax at all, but I did try. I was made redundant from my job 2 weeks before coming out, dropped by my tattoo apprenticeship who are refusing to pay me, and then my mum got really sick. I mean, we knew that it was likely not to be as serious as we feared, but we were fearing ovarian cancer at one point. I almost collapsed with relief the day I phoned home and my mum told me the tests showed it was a uterine fibroid. Still fucking nasty, but its not going to kill her and its going to be treated relatively easily. She has even named it ("Bob").
So a little Rabbit (me) was travelling from London to Ohio and had to stop in Atlanta. This little Rabbit was not only under a huge amount of stress but also suffers from anxiety disorder. What followed did NOT help at all.
Customs is old hat for me. I travel on a visa waiver, and usually I have to reassure the customs officer that I WILL be returning to the UK at the end of my trip. Why is that? You see, when a foreigner enters the US (or most foreign countries for that matter) they ask you some important questions, usually including the following:
-What is the purpose of your visit?
-How long will you be here?
-What is your occupation?
Now, when I was much younger and newly engaged, I made the mistake of gushing happily to a customs officer about how I was visiting my fiance and he assumed that I was trying to sneak in to get married. We will be getting married at some point, but we will be going down the legal route by applying for a K1 Visa when the time is right- its a fiance visa, basically, that lets the foreign fiance come into the US, marry the American citizen, and then stay there.
You cannot do this on a Visa Waiver (what you normally fill out on the plane, or rather, fill out online prior to travel). Tourists can use the waiver, and when I'm just visiting, so can I. But the guy freaked out for a moment, until he realised I was going back to work a couple of days after returning to the UK. In 2 weeks.
So here we go, even if you are visiting an American lover, if you can prove you ARE leaving in a reasonable time and that you have a job or other commitment to return for, you are good.
Bunny got made redundant a month ago......
So I wasn't too worried when I approached the officer and handed her my passport, and I certainly wasn't too surprised to discover she was grim and surly, although I was disappointed. Atlanta's staff, in my experience, are friendlier than Cincinatti's (last year I had the most hilarious guy
). No biggie. I say good afternoon, and she starts doing her stuff.
Ah, problem. She's hispanic or something, and English is obviously not her first language. She asks me to repeat myself several times, as my accent appears to confuse her. She comes off quite frosty too. I have a bad feeling...
And then we come to the questions.
"What is the purpose of your visit?"
"I'm visiting my boyfriend, he lives in Ohio, I'm connecting to there," I say. I tend to say boyfriend as "legally" we're not engaged, as in, we don't have a date set.
The expression she gives me is not promising. She is suspicious and looking at me like I'm a criminal. She goes through the regular finger-printing and photo stuff and asks me "What is your job?"
I say "I've actually just been made redundant."
"Wha?"
"I've just been made redundant. I was laid-off."
She asks me to repeat again, and I do.
I elaborate after she asks what my job was. "I worked for a clothing store. They just had to close down a lot of stores in the UK and mine was one of them, I was laid off 2 weeks ago. So I'm just looking for another job now."
Another hard look. "What you do when you go back?"
"Well, I'll just keep looking for another job until I find one."
She then asks me how long I'm staying, and I tell her 2 weeks. I even show her my itinerary showing the date of my flight home.
And she doesn't believe me. She takes my passport, puts it in a zip-lock folder and tells me to go through some big menacing doors, where I find a bunch of foreign men who look like illegals, and some surly-looking men in uniforms. I'm surprised I didn't shit myself. I was terrified.
An officer comes over, asks me to repeat basically everything I've already been ask, I hand over my passport and itinerary and he directs me to sit down. I was absolutely terrified now. That woman had asked me if Bear and I will get married and I told her we will when both have saved enough money to apply for the K1 Visa, because we know its very expensive. I know why she has sent me here, and I'm having horrible visions of being putting in handcuffs and deported.
Thankfully, the guy who has my passport is a nice guy, who sees a young English lady who looks younger than she is, and also looks kinda geeky (I was wearing a Kingdom Hearts t-shirt) appears to have taken pity on me, and realises what has happened. He doesn't keep me waiting more than 15 minutes, takes my Bear's phone number and speaks to his dad for a few minutes. Once confirming who I am, how long I'm staying etc (it really helps that my future father-in-law loves saying my full name XD I have a pretty middle name) he smiles at me, and says "ok, [Rabbit] you wanna talk to him?" and lets me speak to dad-in-law.
After i finish talking to him, he hands me back my passport and things and says "Did we scare you hon?"
I nod and squeak "Yes, you did." ^^;; (I was sweating too).
"Sorry about that. I work with these guys everyday so I know they're not scary really!"
He then tells me to have a lovely time seeing my fiance and to enjoy myself.
So he was super nice, and I was thankful, because I was only seconds away from a proper panic attack (in fact, I'm still astounded that I didn't panic!).
But am I wrong in thinking the female officer could have done something differently? I understand she was only doing her job, but I've been questioned about my relationship before and I've not been detained over it in the past (we've been together 8 years also, if I was gonna try sneaking in illegally, wouldn't I have tried that by now?). She was kinda rude and surly, and made me feel like I was a criminal, that I had done something wrong when I hadn't.
And while I understand that Spanish is widely spoken in America, I also understand that English is the official language and it was not her first language. Surely it was not appropriate to have her waving in English travellers when she was having trouble understanding me? She asked me to repeat myself quite a few times.
Not to be racist or anything about her ethnicity, I don't care about that, its just i think the language problem might have contributed to me almost shitting a brick needlessly <.<
In fact, it wasn't even the best trip I've had, and I could barely relax at all, but I did try. I was made redundant from my job 2 weeks before coming out, dropped by my tattoo apprenticeship who are refusing to pay me, and then my mum got really sick. I mean, we knew that it was likely not to be as serious as we feared, but we were fearing ovarian cancer at one point. I almost collapsed with relief the day I phoned home and my mum told me the tests showed it was a uterine fibroid. Still fucking nasty, but its not going to kill her and its going to be treated relatively easily. She has even named it ("Bob").
So a little Rabbit (me) was travelling from London to Ohio and had to stop in Atlanta. This little Rabbit was not only under a huge amount of stress but also suffers from anxiety disorder. What followed did NOT help at all.
Customs is old hat for me. I travel on a visa waiver, and usually I have to reassure the customs officer that I WILL be returning to the UK at the end of my trip. Why is that? You see, when a foreigner enters the US (or most foreign countries for that matter) they ask you some important questions, usually including the following:
-What is the purpose of your visit?
-How long will you be here?
-What is your occupation?
Now, when I was much younger and newly engaged, I made the mistake of gushing happily to a customs officer about how I was visiting my fiance and he assumed that I was trying to sneak in to get married. We will be getting married at some point, but we will be going down the legal route by applying for a K1 Visa when the time is right- its a fiance visa, basically, that lets the foreign fiance come into the US, marry the American citizen, and then stay there.
You cannot do this on a Visa Waiver (what you normally fill out on the plane, or rather, fill out online prior to travel). Tourists can use the waiver, and when I'm just visiting, so can I. But the guy freaked out for a moment, until he realised I was going back to work a couple of days after returning to the UK. In 2 weeks.
So here we go, even if you are visiting an American lover, if you can prove you ARE leaving in a reasonable time and that you have a job or other commitment to return for, you are good.
Bunny got made redundant a month ago......
So I wasn't too worried when I approached the officer and handed her my passport, and I certainly wasn't too surprised to discover she was grim and surly, although I was disappointed. Atlanta's staff, in my experience, are friendlier than Cincinatti's (last year I had the most hilarious guy
). No biggie. I say good afternoon, and she starts doing her stuff. Ah, problem. She's hispanic or something, and English is obviously not her first language. She asks me to repeat myself several times, as my accent appears to confuse her. She comes off quite frosty too. I have a bad feeling...
And then we come to the questions.
"What is the purpose of your visit?"
"I'm visiting my boyfriend, he lives in Ohio, I'm connecting to there," I say. I tend to say boyfriend as "legally" we're not engaged, as in, we don't have a date set.
The expression she gives me is not promising. She is suspicious and looking at me like I'm a criminal. She goes through the regular finger-printing and photo stuff and asks me "What is your job?"
I say "I've actually just been made redundant."
"Wha?"
"I've just been made redundant. I was laid-off."
She asks me to repeat again, and I do.
I elaborate after she asks what my job was. "I worked for a clothing store. They just had to close down a lot of stores in the UK and mine was one of them, I was laid off 2 weeks ago. So I'm just looking for another job now."
Another hard look. "What you do when you go back?"
"Well, I'll just keep looking for another job until I find one."
She then asks me how long I'm staying, and I tell her 2 weeks. I even show her my itinerary showing the date of my flight home.
And she doesn't believe me. She takes my passport, puts it in a zip-lock folder and tells me to go through some big menacing doors, where I find a bunch of foreign men who look like illegals, and some surly-looking men in uniforms. I'm surprised I didn't shit myself. I was terrified.
An officer comes over, asks me to repeat basically everything I've already been ask, I hand over my passport and itinerary and he directs me to sit down. I was absolutely terrified now. That woman had asked me if Bear and I will get married and I told her we will when both have saved enough money to apply for the K1 Visa, because we know its very expensive. I know why she has sent me here, and I'm having horrible visions of being putting in handcuffs and deported.
Thankfully, the guy who has my passport is a nice guy, who sees a young English lady who looks younger than she is, and also looks kinda geeky (I was wearing a Kingdom Hearts t-shirt) appears to have taken pity on me, and realises what has happened. He doesn't keep me waiting more than 15 minutes, takes my Bear's phone number and speaks to his dad for a few minutes. Once confirming who I am, how long I'm staying etc (it really helps that my future father-in-law loves saying my full name XD I have a pretty middle name) he smiles at me, and says "ok, [Rabbit] you wanna talk to him?" and lets me speak to dad-in-law.
After i finish talking to him, he hands me back my passport and things and says "Did we scare you hon?"
I nod and squeak "Yes, you did." ^^;; (I was sweating too).
"Sorry about that. I work with these guys everyday so I know they're not scary really!"
He then tells me to have a lovely time seeing my fiance and to enjoy myself.
So he was super nice, and I was thankful, because I was only seconds away from a proper panic attack (in fact, I'm still astounded that I didn't panic!).
But am I wrong in thinking the female officer could have done something differently? I understand she was only doing her job, but I've been questioned about my relationship before and I've not been detained over it in the past (we've been together 8 years also, if I was gonna try sneaking in illegally, wouldn't I have tried that by now?). She was kinda rude and surly, and made me feel like I was a criminal, that I had done something wrong when I hadn't.
And while I understand that Spanish is widely spoken in America, I also understand that English is the official language and it was not her first language. Surely it was not appropriate to have her waving in English travellers when she was having trouble understanding me? She asked me to repeat myself quite a few times.
Not to be racist or anything about her ethnicity, I don't care about that, its just i think the language problem might have contributed to me almost shitting a brick needlessly <.<
had the guy quizzing me over how much was in my bank account, and declaring incredulously how i expected to survive in america on £300 for a couple of weeks (was staying at my friends house so no hotel expenses), and kept repeating again and again how he expected me to be on my return flight - and they would be looking for me specifically. i was utterly terrified, and i wasn't even visiting my boyfriend! i was visiting a long time friend, and we were going to wrestlemania! was definitely because i was a single female flying alone with no "obvious" ties to the uk (was still looking for work but wanted to have a blast while i still could). i understand WHY they detained me, but being lectured by a disapproving scary older guy, being threatened with being sent home there and then, and being treated like i was breaking written and unwritten laws didn't do my already skyrocketing stress levels any favors.
Japan didn't want her
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