Hi! Well, I'm doing great with this blog, eh? I'm only about 3 weeks behind! Anyway, I'll do better...blah...blah. It takes so longggggg! First off I want to point out that you can "follow" this blog by clicking below. That way I can stop sending annoying emails every time I post something. So today we're here to talk about our time in central Europe. It was Ben's first time there, so he was pretty jazzed. We were kind of uncharacteristically (for me) winging our travel plans as I seemed to have used up all my planning energies just getting my self across the ocean! This resulted in some unsavory hostel accommodation and some wasted money on lots of last minute bookings. But that made it exciting, right?!
Anyway, it was nice to just show up and figure stuff out day by day. We stayed in the cheapest hostel we could find with "decent" ratings the first night. So bad! I woke up once to the owner arguing with a group of drunk German guys who had snuck people in at 3 am and then there were mosquitoes coming in an open vent right over my bed all night! Anyway, we moved to a much nicer hostel right next to the Vondel Park. We spent most of our time just exploring, and managing to do maybe one touristy thing a day. Highlights: The van Gogh Museum, canal-side picnics with cheap strong beers, walking through the Red light district trying not to make eye contact with the "ladies", the Condomerie, Ben trading one of his prints for a wooden tulip souvenir with some school girls. Lowlights: rain, wind and more rain...which we seemed to mind less after visiting a cafe...
Alright, fun time is over!
Now for what will hopefully remain at the Worst Part of the Trip Ever! (Gemma! Don't Click!) After a terrible, early morning Ryan Air flight from Berlin to Edinburgh, Ben and I were held by Immigration....in an ACTUAL Detention room...for over FOUR hours. That's right...we were Detainees. Literally. They made dossiers on us and everything. Holy shit ('scuse my french) was it the WORST! Here's what happened in a (big) nut shell. We made the "poor" decision to be withholding with the residency info and just say were visiting (which is exactly what I did on my way into Edinburgh the first time and had NO problem). But this agent was a total ass hole with a chip on his shoulder and when he saw "3 months" on our landing cards and the old musician's permits stamp in Ben's passport, he turned into "mean cop". This put us instantly in defense mode and Ben and I both started to try and explain what we were actually doing there. But because he was scary and we were nervous, we totally sounded like we were lying. We kept speaking over each other and bits of random info kept coming out as we tried to figure out what would be the "right" things to say. He we also convinced that Ben would continue to play music for money. He was very aggressive with his questioning "How much money do you have? You can't live off that. Aren't there "artists colonies" in America you can go to?"...etc...Overload.
He took our passports and made me go get our luggage to look for my sponsorship paperwork (and while doing so, didn't have Ben to help me lift the pack and I did a bad thing to my shoulder which STILL hurts now). But guess what! I accidentally threw out the paper work in Berlin! Woot! Go Me! Oh, he loved that. I gave him the contact info for SSW. We sat there at the immigration kiosks for about 30 minutes, assuming he was calling SSW.... Nope! Just starting our files. Then they took us to have our bags searched...because we had been in Amsterdam. They went through EVERY LITTLE THING...that took another 30 minutes. Oh, did I mention that we had gotten up at 6:30 am and it was now 11 am and we had not eaten or gone to the restroom yet?
We were then taken to the detainment room after our bags and phone were taken and stored and we were patted down. This is where we sat, for 4 agonizing hours, not knowing if we were BOTH going to get sent home or just Ben or what. The officers in charge of us detainees (3 all together) were actually very nice (...because they can't do anything that could be construed as "abuse"). They brought us coffee, food and water. But we were too nervous to eat. Ben and I were separately and extensively "interviewed" (interrogated) by Officer Stick Up His Bum to see if we would tell the same story. He had printed out the residency info from SSW to see if I got all the stats about my program right. He had been to the Hot Seats website to see if there were more gigs. He recorded all our answers. At the end I asked if he had called SSW. No. Can I go into my email and show you the certificate "I don't know if that will be necessary..." Everything was so vague. We were then, again separately, FINGER PRINTED.... and they took our pictures...of what? Our faces... or in other words...mugs? Yes, fucking mug shots. It felt like we were being arrested when at no point had we actually done anything wrong. You're allowed to stay in the UK for 6 damn months for no reason at all. We're here for 3 and BOTH have sponsorship numbers.....Can you tell I'm getting mad just writing this? So after 5 hours altogether he decided he had enough info to prove we were telling the truth...he never apologized for the evident stress of the situation or for detaining us for no legitimate reason. And...he never did call SSW to verify my story. Well that man can kiss my you know what!! Just before we were released he said "Mr. Belcher, I would suggest you let your wife do all the talking from now on." HaHaHa!
Oh! Before you go! I would like to draw your attention to 2 good things to support:
The fun one: The Two Man Gentlemen Band have a kickstarter fund raiser to make a vinyl album, if you contribute, you get an album! There's levels for all budgets. Its all explained HERE also, check out their facebook page for hilarious videos asking for donations!
The save-the-world One: Please go HERE to vote for Lucy Buck who is in a competition to get funding for a children's program in Africa. There's TWO Lucys! Make sure you vote for the right one! Just takes a few clicks! Thank you!!
Next time: the first 3 weeks of Aberdeenshire life and the Mega Yurt Event!
We close with my first meal of freedom after the immigration incident:
Oh and in case anyone was wondering, we DO have a load of post cards and we WILL send them out...eventually!
Bye Bye!
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