The day after my mom left, Alessia sent me to London. And
this is where my tale unravels. In all honesty, I’ve been living/working
somewhat (entirely) illegally for the past 3 months or so because I didn’t have
visa. I only came over on a tourist visa with the intent of getting a work visa
but it never happened. So the plan was to send me to London so I could get
passport stamps to appear more legal. In actuality that wouldn’t have worked
anyway. The law is this: Within a six-month period you can stay ONLY 90 days.
Leaving and returning doesn’t start your 90 days back over, it just pauses the
counter while you’re gone. But since Italy is pretty lax on their passport
control we figured it wouldn’t be a big deal. And for Italy, it wasn’t. For
London it was. Which, let me just go off on a rant for a second and say, stupid
London, it wasn’t your business or your place to question the legality of my
time/employment in Italy. That being said, I know I was in the wrong. But
stupid London all the same. Alright, I’m done pouting so I can tell you what
happened now.
The fatal flaw was that I was sent to London, in the middle
of the night, by myself, with no luggage and no place to stay. I didn’t have a
place to stay because I didn’t need a place to stay since my boss put me on a
plane arriving at 11:45pm and departing at 6:10am. Yep, six hours in the middle
of the night is a little bit sketch. I’ll agree to that. So immigration/passport
control couldn’t figure out why I was coming if I was just to get back on a
plane and turn around. They didn’t believe my truthful answer of “meeting
friends who are studying abroad here.” So I came out with the deeper truth of
my quest for passport stamps. Needless to say, Paula, my immigration officer
didn’t like this and appeared very perturbed I was interrupting her midnight
reading of a John Grisham novel with my illegal problems. She said, “strictly
speaking, you can’t do that.” Well duh. But I said, “Yes, I know. I
understand.” Thinking she’d be satisfied with her scolding accompanied by a
disappointed look but agree it wasn’t England’s problem or responsibility. But
rather than, stamp my passport and send me on my way, she created more work for
herself, thus prolonging her Grisham intermission, and gave me a stamped paper
entitled “Notice of Detainment” and made me sit down and wait. I wish Paula
hadn’t been “strictly speaking”.
After several minutes I was escorted to a back area and into
an interrogation room (which was momentarily terrifying). Paul wall and I
shared our cozy room while she searched my bag and my person then questioned
me, writing down all my answers along the way. Paulie D left and sent me a
babysitter named Joan. Joan informed me she wasn’t with immigration at all but
a separate agency whose task was to look after detainees. Joan took my picture
and searched me again, tagged my bag, took it away and led me to a bigger room
with lots of airport gate seats but it had blankets and pillows and a TV and
there were seashells and seahorses painted on the walls. I got free food and
free drinks and several papers explaining to me why I was being detained and
furthermore, denied access to the UK. Apparently I was a high-risk person for
staying to work illegally. Alright, rub my nose in my mistakes.
So I was to be put back on the first flight to Italy, which
was already the flight I was scheduled to be on. Until then I had to spend the
night in the seashell prison. Just like America, not a whole lot to watch in
the middle of the night so I watched weird British reality TV. I know a lot
about the female weightlifters England is sending to the Olympics. About
halfway through that I was joined by a 27 year old Baptist, Brazilian,
classical composer. His name was William (in English) and we spent the night
talking about life, love, philosophy and everything else you can imagine. I was
grateful to have some company and glad it was someone mostly normal but I
really did spend the entire experience just laughing to myself, not believing
this was really happening. I hope it was the closest thing to jail I’ll ever
experience.
Shortly before my flight, Joan came for me. She escorted me
past everyone to the gate, past all of those people to the front of the line
and I was first to board the plane. Turns out Joan liked me a lot more than
Paula. Joan told me I can return to the UK at anytime, I’ll just have to be in
a different situation, aka not an illegal immigrant, and I might have to
explain what happened but it won’t keep me from entering. And as far as being
deported, it was up to the Italian police but Italy is much less strict than
the UK so I shouldn’t have any problems. After she made sure I was on the plane
and had given my passport to the pilot (that’s right, I wasn’t to be trusted
with it) we said goodbye and off the Italy I went.
Once we landed, everyone got up to gather their things as it
always happens on the planes but then it was requested that everyone return to
their seats. After that happened, there was an announcement over the intercom,
“Cathryn Nicole, please come to the front of the aircraft.” Yep. So that was
neat. First one on, first one off. I’m hoping everyone just thought I was a VIP
rather than a dangerous person/prisoner.
The flight attendant asked if I had all my belongings and I said
everything but my passport to which he replied, “Oh, he has it,” and pointed to
an Italian police officer. (Now was when my hopes of slipping through lax
Italian passport control, unnoticed, died.)
Once inside the police office, we figured out real quick
that I didn’t speak much Italian and they didn’t speak much English. When asked
why I was returning to Italy, I was glad I could truthfully reply that my trip
was only scheduled one day. I had to repeat this answer three times. With
boarding passes as proof we were able to move on to the next question, “What
did you tell to the London police when they ask why you come?”
“That I came only to get passport stamps.”
“But why did you go?”
“To get passport stamps.”
“But why?”
“Because UK is non Schenngean. For stamps.”
**Italian mumblings to each other**
“Ok, for us it is no problem you come in Italy.”
And with that, I was once again, escorted to the front of
the line, got an entry stamp and was set free!
Since I’m pretty sure the only reason I escaped deportation
was because of our communication barrier I talked to Alessia and told her the
whole story. We both decided it was better and smarter and safer for me to end
my time in Rome and return to the US. So that all happened last Monday/Tuesday
and here I sit, at the airport in Istanbul, awaiting my flight to New York. I
could have stayed until December and I would have been fine with that but my
heart is truly and really happy to be coming home now. And I’d told God that
the week before this happened. He is good and faithful as always and he didn’t
even have to deport me to make it happen.
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