Considering that this blog was founded on all issues immigrant, I think I have a well-formed opinion when it comes to different countries and their attitudes towards the dreaded FOREIGNER (myself included).
C’est La Visa was my premiere post on this site. It drew attention to my plight when I merely wanted to attended my friend’s wedding in beautiful France. The experience of obtaining that golden ticket (aka Shengen visa) was stressful to say the least.
This then is another stressful visa related incident...
If you want to cut costs on your flight you’ve got to fly via...so that’s exactly what I do. Instead of begrudging the stopover in Libya on the way from London to Johannesburg, I embraced the opportunity to say that I had been to Tripoli (airport). Just hanging out in the airport was an adventure (watch this space).
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| I didn't take this photo, but I could've, cause Ive been there! |
So faced with a stopover in Madrid on my way back to London from Johannesburg I was (sadly) excited that I would be able to add another exotic (airport) destination to my list.
I can now say that the airport in Madrid is very cool, well the architecture anyway...
The way that FOREIGNERS who genuinely do not anticipate the need for a transit visa are treated, is not so cool.
Having made it to the airport on time, having not been delayed by forces of nature spewing ash into the sky or unheard of amounts of snow not being dumped on the runway (it was May after all), I stupidly felt a false sense of calm as we transferred from one flight to the next. I didn’t even think twice when we submissively joined the herd of travellers following neon signs pointing to the customs queue. As my EU passport holder boyfriend joined the sparkly shiny queue of fellow EU citizens, I obliviously joined the rest of the world.
I waved from a distance as his passport was quickly stamped and he headed behind the great gates of admission.
Feeling awfully well travelled, I was keen to show off my great appreciation for all things cultural. The customs official must have thought I was quite special as I insisted on greeting and thanking him in his own language and smiling profusely. When he asked to see my visa I proudly showed him my UK Ancestral Visa, I was headed back to London after all. He was not impressed.
He then asked to use my pen I had so wisely brought with me! If I have learnt anything on all my travels, it is that there are always forms to be filled in, but not always the necessary pens to do so. Unfortunately my Spanish didn’t extend to “May I borrow your pen”, so I just stood there smiling at him until in a humph he took a pen from his colleague and scribbled an alternate, inferior gate number onto a scrap piece of paper.
Despite this rejection I still thanked him profusely in Spanish and headed sheepishly back past the rest of the world, some of whom unwittingly awaited the same fate.
At this point I was very grateful for the architectural splendour that is Madrid airport. This can be attributed to the playful use of glass as opposed to brick or any other non translucent building material. The distinct advantage of using glass is the amount of natural light that flows so generously into the airport building. And of course it provided the opportunity for me to hysterically gesture to my now quite worried EU passport holder boyfriend that he should continue to the gate and that I would meet him there.
I proceeded to the security point allocated to criminals, vagrants and smiling idiots without a transit visa. At this point I was no longer smiling and no longer thanking anyone in Spanish.
I arrived in a deserted part of the airport at a gate with no one else around and no indication that I was in the right place, quite worrying. Slowly, further potential criminals, vagrants and most likely fellow non transit visa holders arrived at the indiscriminate gate. Apparently Nigerian and Brazilian Nationals need transit visas too.
Eventually we made our way through the gate of the vanquished and walked down the ramp toward nothing, no plane. At the end of the tunnel we were left standing on the runway, waiting for a bus. If the whole point of the exercise was to ensure that non visa holding scum would not set so much as a toe on Spanish ground, then they failed, our toes touched that tarmac.
The bus arrived and duly delivered us to the back entrance of the plane. If you weren’t aware that plane’s have back entrances, it is because you are not a criminal/ non transit visa holder.
Luckily EU passport holding boyfriend had boarded the plane and was about to start fighting with the air steward who had just closed the front door. It would have been very romantic if he had refused to board the plane without me, but a bit too slapstick/ ‘Carry On’ esque for my liking.
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| "I'm afriad she's on the plane you just got off Sir!" |
My cousins and I were trading these travel nightmare stories over Christmas which provided many laughs. The funniest story had to be my decidedly law abiding citizen of a cousin being escorted by security onto a plane after a very near arrest.
It turns out the bad experiences make for the best stories.
