Immigration sucks (and other travel related BS)

[Asilynne]

I know there's a couple of people on here that had to deal with immigration before...

So Ben came back to the US on the K-1 visa (finally!) back in the end of May. His visa says K1, the stamp in his passport says K1, but for some reason the immigration guy that checked him in wrote F1 on his I94 form x.x F1 is a student visa and we weren't sure if he was in the government system as F1 or K1 so we had to get it fixed.

We went to the Social Security office first and that's where we discovered it, so she sent us to the USCIS office (where we had to make an appointment) and got there today for our 10am appointment, waited in line only to be told in 2 mins that we had to get it fixed at the airport.

So after running around to different info kiosks before finding the right one we were stuck waiting at the airport for 3 hours for them to change one little letter! I HATE BUREAUCRACY!! lol And that was something that's supposed to be easy *looks at Ben's stack of Adjustment of Status paperwork and cries*

Anyone else have any crazy immigration mishap stories? Or crazy travel stories in general?

[ChobiChibi]

There was the time I went on tour to Bavaria, Germany, and someone's luggage got lost. She was like THE worst person ever on the trip to have this happen to her (she had some kind of mental health issues, which are obviously not her fault, but made the whole situation a million times worse in her mind) so despite the fact one of the teachers took her out and bought her a load of new clothes and stuff to last the week, she still spent most of it crying about it.

She got her luggage back the day before we left >_>

There was the time we flew to Italy, one of the guys thought it would be fun to grin at one of the guards so he got frisk searched. So did the other guy that laughed about it XP

I smashed a clarinet up on a plane once. The same tour the bridge on my bf's cello snapped in two...

But no immigration problems. They let me into America once, y'know XD

BUT I FEEL FOR YOU ON THE PAPERWORK THING. I've got mountains of financial shit to sort out for my MA, so had a fun time at the bank yesterday when I'd lost one statement >_> Oh and my Criminal Records Bureau check... That was full of lols due to my numerous changes of address. People always, always direct you somewhere else, and then that person tells you to go somewhere else, til eventually the chain stops. Yep. Frustrating isn't the word.

[Asilynne]

But no immigration problems. They let me into America once, y'know XD

COME BACK HERE AGAIN FOR THE WEDDING XD <3

BUT I FEEL FOR YOU ON THE PAPERWORK THING. I've got mountains of financial shit to sort out for my MA, so had a fun time at the bank yesterday when I'd lost one statement >_> Oh and my Criminal Records Bureau check... That was full of lols due to my numerous changes of address. People always, always direct you somewhere else, and then that person tells you to go somewhere else, til eventually the chain stops. Yep. Frustrating isn't the word.

OMG THIS. This is what happened today @.@ But at least that part of it is fixed lol

[ChobiChibi]

I can't afford to D: I'm going to be a poor and humble student in the middle of my studies, otherwise I would. You should set up some kind of live stream, post the time of your wedding in many different time zones so we can arrange to watch! The ultimate digital wedding! XD

I'm waiting on the certificate that tells me whether I'm a criminal/pedophile or not (I'm not sure on either count), the letter from the tax man that hopefully contains a significant refund (after they told me they couldn't process it because I didn't SIGN the letter I sent them >_> I had no idea it was to confirm my address) and now to find out whether my loan application has been successful or not. And once the loan one comes through, I then have to co-ordinate the payment of my fees between said bank and the University, assuming I'm successful in that loan and don't have to apply to a different bank.

Why is adult life so complicated? D:

[Heald]

One time our country elected a socialist leader back in 1997, and he let 30 million immigrants into the country over 10 years despite the fact that our infrastructure nor our welfare system was not designed for such massive increases in immigration.

Needless to say our country is fucked.

But that's a funny immigration story, haha, I'm laughing so hard at how left-wing morons continue to fuck up our society.

[DarkestLight]

There was one time I had to go to a different country, and they got my passage wrong, so I got all turned around, but they wouldn 't let me leave the station. Then they said it was cleared, and all my paperwork was good to go, but by then I was good, I didn't want to leave. Then some fuck pulled me out.

And that's my story of traveling to the United States of America via Birth canal. Bitches still have my passport AND I NEVER GOT MY MANGO SMOOTHIE!

[Lady Vulpix]

I hate bureaucracy too!

As for immigration stories... I had to fill in a form stating the names, addresses and jobs of all my family members just to be allowed to spend a few hours inside an airport in Canada.

And when I went to Indianapolis for Brian and Becky's wedding, I had to spend over 2 hours at the immigration line in Atlanta. To make things worse, the yoghurt I ate on the plane was giving my stomach trouble, and my blood pressure began to drop for standing for so long. I finally knelt down because I couldn't keep standing anymore, and then a woman from the airport staff approached me and asked me if I was OK. I said "no, I've been standing in this line for 2 hours and my airplane breakfast did not agree with me. I'm not OK." Then she said "oh" and left. Then I was put in the slowest line and I watched everyone else pass while I was still stuck in the same place for about 15 minutes. Finally, when I reached the window, the man behind it looked like he was half asleep, even dozing off every now and then, which would explain why his line was so slow. But when I told him I was there for a wedding he woke up and asked me for the invitation. -_- It was a good thing I had it in my carry-on luggage. He checked it, said it was OK and finally let me go.

It was also quite frustrating when I went to get my tourist visa for the USA back in 2006, but I don't want to bore everyone with a wall of text. At least they finally gave it to me, and let me in when I arrived even though they interrogated me as if I were a criminal or something. Unlike the poor guy who was sent back on the same day he arrived after being locked in a bathroom for hours (or at least that's what he said, and he was crying). Or the guy who said he was there to attend his brother's wedding and was sent back because he had a passport from an Arab country.

[Magmar]

When I traveled to London, my roommate had accidentally brought a gram's worth of a particularly illegal plant in one of his many concealed jacket pockets. We made it through the U.S. airport security, flew to London, made it through customs, ran amok for a week, and discovered it just before screening to get to our boarding area for our flight home. He had to chuck it out of course, right near a pret a manger haha

[Mikachu Yukitatsu]

Well one of the few good things about the EU is that nowadays it's relatively easy to travel inside our continent. When I lived in the substitute family we visited some European countries with no trouble. Or at least I saw it like that, I was a child back then though. Also now, if it weren't for my mental situation and the protective politics of Finnish health care I would travel the world and visit all the places I wanted.

[Drago]

Last year, my fiancée and I were in USA, and we were supposed to fly from D.C. to New York in the morning, and go to a Giants game that night. It was our only Continental flight in the whole itinerary, and... man, fuck Continental.

We woke up at 4 AM, and caught a shuttle to Dulles airport an hour later. Got our luggage checked, in the terminal, 9 AM flight due to board in ten minutes, done deal. Then, we get an announcement: our flight has been cancelled, and we have to book seats on the next one. First, we never found out why the flight had been cancelled, there were rumblings spreading around that the flight crew didn't turn up. Second, like I said, it was our responsibility to book onto the next flight. So an entire planeload of people lined up, as the two people at the counter veeerrrryyy slowly took care of the bookings. Not sure whether everyone was able to re-book, but we did, at least.

So we had to hang around Dulles airport for four hours. And man, emphasis on the DULL: not much happening at that airport. Not the worst I've ever been to (that dubious honour belongs to Charles De Gaulle, a horrendous place we spent the night in, moving from area to area to avoid the homeless French folk)

Finally, our flight leaves for Newark, New Jersey, at 1 PM. My intention, once we've dropped off our luggage and gotten our bearings, is to hit a sporting goods store and grab some Giants' gear: gotta fit in with the crowd, y'know?

We arrive at Newark, and wait at the luggage carousel. After a few minutes, the carousel stops moving. Takes about twenty minutes for a staff member to climb in, and remove a suitcase that had been blocking it. Could have done that myself, frankly. After a while, the carousel stops again. This time however, nobody else is waiting around, and there are no suitcases left. Fan-fucking-tastic. We go to the luggage enquiry office (conveniently located right nearby), and they give us good news and bad news: the good, our luggage did arrive at Newark. The bad, it went to another terminal.

We catch the airport train to the terminal it ended up in, and hit a multi-level area. We ask a staff member where the lost luggage area is, she says it's on the bottom floor. We head down there, search to no avail, and ask another staff member, who tells us it's actually on the second floor. Fortunately, she was right. We get to the lost luggage area. The staff member there is having a conversation with someone else behind the counter with her in French. ...This is clearly not a work conversation, and they are paying no attention to us.

By now, I am contemplating searching my head for every French phrase I know, and shouting it with some degree of malice, but my fiancée has a much cooler head, and finally, after five minutes of this dapper dandy chat, gets her attention. Hurrah! We receive our luggage, two hours after we'd arrived at the airport.

Now, it's time to book a shuttle! For those of you who haven't picked up on this yet, I'm majorly pissed off by the concept that we will have to head into NYC to check into our hotel, and then back out to New Jersey in order to get to our football game. New York Giants my fucking ass - Jersey Giants, more like.

The shuttle, of course, takes an hour to arrive, and at long last, we're on our way into New York. ...In peak hour. It takes the shuttle two hours to get to Manhattan. We arrive at our beloved hotel from the year prior, drop off our stuff, leap into a sporting goods store to grab some gear, and head down to the subway. Unfortunately, we're a little out of practice, so we go through the gates at the wrong side. We head back on up, cross the road, and go back down, but our tickets won't work (five minute delay until we can use them again), time we don't have, so we buy new tickets. After catching three different trains, we arrive at the stadium at about 8:30 pm.

Once again, the tl;dr version - FUCK CONTINENTAL.

[Telume]

Dealing with it is a pain when you're leaving the country. And if you're a permanent resident? Hoooo boy.

Luckily for me, I'm already a citizen but that doesn't stop them from making you wait some time to get back into the country.

And this is just me but, I'm too lazy to go renew my passport. Domestic travel or bust!