One Ignorant American In Line at Customs
I would like the record to show that when you get your US
passport in the mail, there is no instruction manual. There isn’t any sort of leaflet along with
the passport that tells you to please visit the YouTube Channel for the country
you are visiting to see what you will need at the customs desk. There is no PDF
to download that gives you information about what questions you will be asked,
or what documents you should carry. You get the passport and are basically told,
“good luck!”. Indeed!
I probably could have looked all of those things up ahead of
time, but honestly, it did not even occur to me to think about any of it. I
assumed that once I got to customs, they would tell me what I needed to know. I
assumed, wrongly, that if I intended to do no wrong, there would be no issue
getting into the UK on a US passport. Au contraire!
It’s not like I’ve never entered a foreign country before. I
traveled in Europe when I was in high school. I’ve traveled to Mexico and the
Caribbean and Canada, all requiring a passport and a trip through customs.
These trips did not adequately prepare me for the disdain I encountered upon
arrival at the Edinburgh Customs desk after disembarking my plane.
I would like to provide this short list of thing you can do
to prevent the inquisition:
1. Print
out your flight details. Even if the airlines you’re flying with has the fancy
new smart phone scanning technology, go old school! The use of phones is not
allowed in the Customs area (this is not something that any wants you to know
until you get there and all of your flight details are listed only on your
smart phone and you have to tell the customs agent that you can only show her
an email from your airlines with the flight details, which she will
begrudgingly write down), and you should have a piece of paper that shows
exactly when you are planning on leaving the country.
2. When
asked how much currency you’re carrying, do not give a precise amount. Just
say, enough for my needs. Really, they cannot force you to say how much
currency you’re carrying, unless you have more than 10,000 pound. Otherwise,
you do not have to declare an amount and they can ask you, but you do not have
to tell them. If they ask you how much you have, you can legally say, “less
than $10,000” and they can’t really hassle you about it.
3. The
only other thing I can think of is maybe put a change of clothing in your carry
on so that when you get off the plane you don’t look like you’ve been on a
plane for 10 hours. I did brush my hair and teeth, but I’m sure I looked
ragged. Not that I was the most raggedy person in that line, I’ll tell you.
4.
Actually, I’m not sure what to do when they start asking
questions that you are legally not required to answer. At the time, my feel was,
this lady, no matter how huge the bug is that is up her ass, has control over
whether or not I enter the country. So I played nice. Even when she called my
“story” about having a friend come to pick me up “half cocked”. Even when she
told me that she didn’t want to find me pan handling outside Marks and Spencer
the next day. Even after she made me sit on the Bench of Shame, while I waited
for every other person disembarking three different planes to go through
customs. Even when she said she’d put some sort of stamp on my passport
indicating that I was “trouble” (there is nothing on there that I could see
that said “trouble” in any language, but who knows?). I just smiled and said
yes ma’am and no ma’am. And finally, after
calling my friend who was indeed waiting outside the International Arrival Gate
with her two small children (one of whom was screaming now) to verify my
“story”, she admitted me to Scotland.
To be fair, her accent put her as a Brit, not a Scot. And
everyone I met after that seemed perfectly friendly. Maybe she knows something
I don’t, eh? I could have been starting international scandal and not even know
it!
