Luis and I woke up at the crack of dawn to get the the United States Embassy as it opened. I kissed the sleepy kids goodbye until February (which was much more difficult than I thought- just wait till May...) and we left in a hurry.
Luis was not allowed into the Embassy with me, so he waited outside while I went through the process of getting a new passport. Once again, SuperHostDad really came through to lend me money to buy a new one. Luis is the man. The Embassy didn't take too long, and within and hour and half I had a new temporary passport that would expire a few weeks after my return to Spain. Perfect.
Right after, Luis and I headed to yet ANOTHER police station. Except this time, I had a nice middle aged balding Spanish man who was unbelievably helpful in allowing me to fill out a report for my stolen purse. Thank you whoever you are. You deserve a medal.
Luis then dropped me and my large hiking pack and small backpack off at Lizzy's apartment and said goodbye. Angela then drove Lizzy and I to the airport and we were off! We had a quick layover in Brussels, Belgium and continued onto Edinburgh without a problem.
NOW HERE IS WHERE S#IT HIT THE FAN.
When we arrived at the Edinburgh Airport, it was about 11:00 PM. I was so tired from the mentally exhausting night and morning before. We got to the immigration booth and the woman asked us for our passports and asked what we were doing to Scotland.
"We are here to WWOOF for a few months."
"WWOOF?"
"Yeah, it's volunteering on organic farms. Have you head of it?"
"Yes, I have. Do you have luggage?"
"Yes, we do..."
"Alright come with me please..."
She escorted Lizzy and I to another room where our luggage was waiting for us. She and her colleague requested to search our bags. Lizzy and I just figured it was a random search or something so we said sure.
Boy did they SEARCH! Lucky for me, my purse was stolen, but the security officer literally read Lizzy's diary in his search through her things. It was pretty unbelievable. So we just stood and answered questions while they went through all of our things.
Finally, they escorted us back to the Immigration booths and let us sit in a small room. There was an electric heater there too keep us warm as the building was not well insulated. To add to the cold, the light in the room was broken. So we had to sit with the door open to let a little bit of light into the room. Kind of sketchy.
At this point, no one had spoken to us yet about what was going on. It was about midnight and there was no one in the Airport. They obviously had no more flights for the night.
Finally, the original Immigration Officer woman came into our dark cold room.
"Ladies, I cannot allow you entry into Scotland."
Lizzy and I literally just looked at each other. Lizzy was speechless. I just looked at the woman.
"Um, why?"
"You do not have the proper Visa to be here."
"We don't need a Visa, we can stay here for 3 months without one."
"Yes, but only if you are traveling and not working."
"But we aren't working, we are volunteering."
"Volunteering is considered working by the U.K. government. You need a Work Visa, which takes 3 months to get."
"But we aren't making money. We are volunteering in return for room and board. There is not fiscal exchange."
"It doesn't matter. Volunteering is working. You need a Work Visa."
"Okay, so what happens now?"
"My colleague is coming to speak to you now about it. Good luck," she said and she left.
12:00 AM: Her colleague returned. A tall Scot with the stupidest mullet I have ever seen. Like I mean this thing had no business in the front or party in the back- it was just straight disgusting. As soon as he walked in, I requested that we leave the creepy dark cold room. He was kind enough to lead us to the benches in front of the immigration booths to sit on. Still cold, but at least I could see his face. Which on second thought only made the mullet that much worse.
"Ladies, what happens now is we deport you."
Lizzy started crying at this point.
"What do you mean deport us? Deport us to where? The U.S.?"
"No, legally, we have to send you back from where you came. That means Brussels."
"Wait, so you are sending us to Brussels? But we aren't allowed back in the Schengen Area, our three months are up!"
"That's not our problem. You are Brussels problem. They were the last people to send you here, so we legally have to send you back there."
"Oh my God."
"But first, we need to interview you and take your fingerprints."
At the sound of "fingerprints" Lizzy snaps up, "Uh, say what?
"It is protocol to take fingerprints of you because you were refused entry."
"But we're teachers... Will this show up on a back ground check back in the United States? Will we not be able to get jobs because of this??" Lizzy asked.
"Everything should be fine. We just need your fingerprints and we need to interview you separately in order to make sure your statements are the same."
At this point, I remembered my family was coming. "But we have plans to come back here over the holidays. Will we be allowed entry then as a limited time visitor?"
"If you have documents stating where you are staying and flights in and out of London, I don't see how that would be a problem. Every entry is looked at separately. As long as you two tell the truth, everything should be fine."
I was so cried out from the night before, I told Lizzy she needed to take the reigns on this one. I was so angry I had to get myself in check before I pulled a Deanna and said something snarky to the wrong person. We both calmed ourselves down and went in to have our fingerprints done.
1:00 AM: When he told me fingerprints, I assumed it would be the electronic way I had done it twice before as a teacher. Scotland is a bit behind on the times I suppose, because I felt like a hardened criminal as they inked each of my fingers and pressed them into the paper. Then they took my photograph (I prefer to think of it as a mugshot). And then we got interrogated! Yay!
We were each interviewed separately to tell our version of events. At one point, Lizzy's Interrogator tried to tell her we were living in Spain illegally and we weren't allowed to go back there. Lizzy then put her in her place. "We have spoken to the Spanish Consulate in the United States, the American Embassy in Spain and Immigration in Madrid. They all agree that we are allowed to live in Spain for three months without a Visa as an Au Pair. Go look it up." She did. And we were right. Take that!
2:00 AM: Finally, after the Immigration Officer had done her research, they emerged to ask if we had a place to stay for the night. We told them about the hostel we had booked. They said we could go spend the night in Edinburgh, but we had to return by 1pm the next day for our 4pm flight back to Brussels. They took our passports from us and pointed us in the direction of the bus. We took a bus to our hostel.
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