I had the pleasure to take a shot day trip to the UK on the Thursday holiday, Cologne to London. This time with passport controls was similar to last time. Since it was an intra EU flight about 98% went into the EU line leaving the rest of us in the non-EU line. There were already 3 people ahead of me, with 2 passport officers.
Another line opened which took the third (in the meantime at least 200 people had gone through the 'EU quickie' line and and it was empty, so one of the officers came to this side. I was next in line, meaning 2 persons were still with the passport officers since the 5 min I'd been there, and the 3rd got the new one.
A space finally opened, two desks side by side with the other occupied by an American visitor. Out of all of Europe, I still hold that the UK is the most difficult for an American to visit. The lady is flipping through my passport (remember that I have a UK work permit in there from before as well as various UK stamps since 2003), so I am inadvertently listening to the conversation 3 feet away from me because the hall is now silent except for this guy.
The fellow looked like a typical middle-aged American tourist, and he had left his American wife in the UK for three days while he went to Germany and she visited a friend. The officer was leading him through a detailed itinerary of what he had visited in Germany, where he stayed, how he travelled, then for the continuation on in the UK, more questions, what was the name of the hotel he was staying at that night, what was the address, etc. Ugh.
As she's reaching the end of my passport (I have the extra pages) she asks, "and how long will you be in the UK....no wait, you're a permanent resident?"
-Um, no, I work in Germany, and only today, I leave tonight.
"So you're here for business meetings then?"
-Yes.
I see her scribbling something on my card, KA-THUMP! goes the stamp and that was that.
I am absolutely amazed what 5 years of Germany permits seems to buy me in the eyes of the UK passport officer. Having been through some of those serious UK question marathons--recalling even when I had my 6 month work permit there--
'and what was your purpose to visit Belfast?'
um, it was a cheap weekend flight and sounded interesting
'and why did it sound interesting?'
(thinking...let's not dig this hole any deeper and involve politics) because Dublin is so expensive it's my only chance to say I went to visit Ireland.
I didn't think it would be possible to ever visit the UK as an American without the 20 questions, so I can thank the Germany work stickers for that. Although, I'm starting to get increased questions on the US side in the past 2 years I've noticed, including being sent to Agriculture for a bag scan in Philly last time, so the universe seems to balance out. :-/
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3 comments:
I would agree about London being tough for US citizens. My dh hated going there (where he went very frequently in the past 2 years often just for a day) because they always hassled him. Like why are you only here for a day.
He says there is a reason they are an island and the French building a tunnel to reach them, well that's self explanatory! :) I tend to agree sometimes.
Haven't been to the UK yet. I suppose it will be even more fun since my hubby goes to the EU line & I don't. My sister was there last year & said, yeah, it was 20 questions.
And about the US... yes! I had been to Europe once (in 2003) and it was pretty easy going back home. The only other time we flew home was last fall and they asked all sorts of questions and had us go to the stupid agriculture line and all that. I love how they still manage to freak you out even though you've done nothing wrong. I'm always waiting for them to say, "Hmmm. You look nervous." DUH! Who isn't when being grilled by uniformed folks who have power I'll never know?!
andrea: kinda makes germany look more pleasant. ;-)
dbunny: agriculture spotted my kinder eggs on their xray. not a problem to bring in chocolate, but i was impressed they recognized them.
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