The good news is that I'm no longer afraid to fly. The planes were big and roomy, the food wasn't terrible, and there was minimal turbulence. I can safely say that I think I'm OK to fly internationally....that is, if I ever dare to try it again.
So, what went wrong? I'm not really sure. I got off the plane, waited in line for Customs and Immigration for about an hour and kept changing my form - for some reason I thought it would matter that I listed "Town" as Sacramento instead of California. Come to find out, nothing really mattered. They hated me at first sight. When asked why I was coming to London, I told them the truth - I was coming to volunteer at the Sundance Film Festival. I didn't think anything about it, because that's what I was doing there. Long story short, apparently I needed a work Visa, I couldn't change my initial reason for admittance, and I was held in their slimy immigration pen for 18 hours until being put on a plane and sent back home.
The only funny part of the entire adventure was that in between a way-too-intrusive search and being fingerprinted like a common criminal, I passed by the boy band One Direction in the hallway, which made me giggle.
I was held in a pen, my stuff was all locked up, I was in the same clothes for three days, and I was crying the entire time. At the end, a special agent had to walk me onto the plane, hand my passport to the airline staff (I felt like "Dead Man Walking") and then I wasn't able to get my passport until we were landing. I took this picture when I finally got my phone back so that you can see what a great time I had. Lovely, no?
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