Departure and Arrival

So now that you know we are here, I can tell you a bit about the trip!  Our flight was scheduled to leave at 8:40 pm on Tuesday, 18 September.  We arrived at the airport at around 6:00 pm, and said goodbye to my parents at the curb.  We had already checked in online, so all that needed to be done was check our big bags, of which we had five.  That was mostly painless, and we made our way to security, which was a bit stressful, because we each had a rolling bag and a secondary bag (backpack, laptop bag, etc.)  Getting a family of four through security is not a cake walk!

Waiting in the Houston airport to board the plane! Please excuse my appearance!

After this, we could breathe for a while.  We found a spot to chill out and charge our cell phones, and realized that we would probably be bored for a while.  The flight was delayed at least 30 minutes (but I am pretty sure it ended up being a bit longer than that).  We met a nice couple from College Station that was going to Portugal (via London) for their one-year anniversary; they were fooled by our kids’ British accents–we had passed them earlier in the terminal and Will was speaking loudly–they thought we were British folks who’d picked up a cowboy hat as a souvenir for our son! Ha!

Finally it was time to board the plane.  We thought they would board people with kids first, but they didn’t.  Boo.  The plane was fairly comfortable, until I tried to go to sleep.  Then it became quite uncomfortable.  I really wish I could have been up in first class in those beds.  That would have been nice.  But they did offer lots of movies to choose from, and the food was actually pretty tasty.

Scott and Will just before landing in London.

Claire and I just before landing.

London out the plane window!

We landed in London at Heathrow airport at 12:00 pm local time, 6:00 am Texas time.  The only one of our family who got any real sleep was Claire.  We were all pretty tired and I know Scott and I were ready for a shower!  Unfortunately, it was time to go through immigration.  That process took about 2 hours, and we were finally through the border at around 2:00 pm.  We exchanged some currency and then picked up our luggage on the baggage carousel.  That made our total number of bags to haul around a whopping 13.  Thirteen!!!  We quickly found a place to park all our stuff and began deciding what it was we were going to do next.  We knew we had to get ourselves to Oxford, but how?

Letting all of y’all know that we made it!!

We decided to take the Airline bus to Oxford, which turned out to be great.  Not near as expensive as the train, and pretty comfortable and peaceful.  We got into Oxford right around 5:00 pm, right at a high traffic time of day.  It was fun to watch the hustle and bustle of the city, and to see for the first time the beautiful old buildings of the City Centre.  The bus took us to the Gloucester Green bus station, and then again, here we were with 13 bags and 2 little kids.

The 13 Bags!! Actually, I don’t think all of them are even in this picture!

Scott decided to take another bus to the hotel we were staying in for the first night.  We had to ask the bus driver permission to load the bus with our bags, because local buses do not usually carry luggage; thankfully, he agreed to take us where we needed to go.  Now, the hotel was about a block and a half away from where we were to be let off.  Again, thankfully, there were a couple of gentlemen on the bus who were willing to help us get the luggage off quickly.  Then came the really interesting part…how were we to get 13 pieces of luggage down the street?  At a high traffic time of day on one of Oxford’s busiest streets?  With two little kids?  Scott ran down to the hotel with as much luggage as he could carry and I was left on the street with the remaining bags and the children.  I began pushing the bags down the street pseudo-leap-frog style.  I’m sure there were 100+ Oxonians looking at me thinking, “that woman is INSANE!”  Well, I certainly felt like it.  I haven’t been that embarrassed in quite some time.  Thankfully, Scott was back relatively quickly with a woman from the hotel who had graciously offered to help us get the rest of the bags down to the hotel.

I have never been so glad to be at a hotel.  I was soooo ready to take a shower and rest.  That night we walked a few blocks to the nearby Summertown shops and picked up a few groceries to have our first English meal together.  And guess what??  We found peanut butter!!!  WOO HOO!!!  That will make life easier 🙂

Some of our groceries. Notice the “Scottish Strawberries!”

The Epic Tale of the Visas

When we finally got home from Florida after that horrifyingly long drive (did I mention that it poured buckets of rain on us for the last hour and a half?), I put signs on the doors that said something like, “UPS Person, We drove ALL NIGHT to get this package.  If we do not answer the door on the first try, please wait!  Thank you!!!” Then I fell into bed and didn’t wake up again until I heard the slam of the metal gate right outside our bedroom window.  Scott got up and met the guy at the door.  Yay!  Our package was received.  But what did it say inside?

Inside this package was decision of the UK Border Agency on whether or not we would be allowed in the country.  Inside this package was our reason to rejoice or to dread.

I am going to back up a bit, in case I failed to cover this in previous posts…the kids and I applied for General Visitor’s Visas, which grant you “leave to enter” the UK for a period of up to six months.  We would not be allowed to come in under Scott’s Student Visa because his course of study is less than 12 months for this first year.  If his course had been 12 months instead of 9, we would have been included, no problem.  Unfortunately, this is not the case.  It is a problem that is new to the University as the law concerning this came into effect in the last year or so, and this is the first term it would be affecting families such as ours.  So we are guinea pigs.  So, in effect, we were asking to enter the country strictly as visitors, not planning to reside, work, or go to school here, and planning to leave the country when our time has expired.

The package contained both good and bad news.  Scott’s visa was granted, as it should have been, and a neat little visa was put into his passport.  The kids and I, on the other hand, were denied entry.  They had two reasons for this denial.  The first was that because we had written in our application that “we” were going to be looking for a flat, instead of “my husband is going to be looking for a flat,” it seemed as though I was trying to set up residence in the UK.  Hmm.  The second reason was that since our kids are school age, it appeared that we may be trying to enter them into school here, which would not be acceptable as visitors, because we would be using public funds.

To say that this news was distressing would be the world’s biggest understatement.  This came five days before we were set to fly out.  What could we possibly do in five days??

Immediately I began thinking that my worst fears had been confirmed, that Scott would be going alone to the UK, and I would be left in the US alone with the kids.  Yes, I have a place to stay at my parents’ house, but for nine months without my husband, their father?  And what about school—they already missed almost a month of instruction if I send them public school, and I don’t see how I can home-school them and not work.

We had already paid for our flights (mistake!!), so if we didn’t go, we would lose almost $1500 (tickets were non-transferable and non-refundable).  If we did go, we might be denied entry and have to pay about $2000 more to return home.  Now that we had a “denial” on our record, there was a good chance we would not be allowed entry.  What to do?

The next few days that were supposed to be my last hurrah spent with family and close friends were instead mostly terrible.  Don’t get me wrong, I had some good moments…playing Apples to Apples with my parents, brother and sister-in-law, eating delicious green-chile enchiladas and catching up with my “second parents” Ruth Anne and Dick, and getting a pedicure with my mom, grandma and Claire come to mind 🙂  However, the pit in my stomach of worry would not go away completely, and I played out so many different scenarios in my mind that it like to drove me crazy.  We had to discuss and re-discuss all of our options many times and with many different people.  We talked to all the world travelers we knew to get their advice on our situation.  Most of the advice was optimistic, but cautious.  “Well, I think you should be able to go, but I can’t give you a definitive answer…” was mostly what was heard.  We appreciated everyone’s input and it did help us to make a final decision on the matter.  However, we ultimately called an immigration advisor in the UK to give us a professional opinion.

We talked to a nice young woman who sounded a LOT like Joanne Froggatt (Anna) from Downton Abbey, by the way.  She was very helpful and suggested bringing along some documentation we hadn’t thought of.  Basically, we had to ensure that we would leave the UK within 6 months if we were to be granted leave to enter.  The documentaion that she suggested is probably what helped our case the most in the long run.  So, I am very very glad we decided to call.

As you all know, we are here in the UK, so we made it through the border, with only our egos bruised.

Side note:  If anyone is reading this who is in a similar situation, I DO NOT suggest you follow the same path.  We almost didn’t get through, and I would hate to think that anyone followed my specific example and failed to be granted entry.  Make sure you have ALL your documentation sorted out before you apply for your visa.  If you are only planning on being in the UK for 6 months or less and you are an American citizen, you do not need a visa–your passport and proof that you will leave should be enough to get you through the border.  This is where I made my mistake.  Because of these new immigration laws, we were thoroughly confused and ended up applying for a visa when there was actually no need for it.

Amazingly, if I hadn’t applied for a visa, I would have been turned away at the border anyway, because I wouldn’t have had the proof I needed to show I intended to leave the UK.  So ultimately, everything worked out as it should have–God had a plan in it from the beginning.

Tuesday, September 18th, no one in my family got much sleep.  I was up almost all night on the plane, fitfully trying to find a comfortable spot, and in Texas, my mother was tossing and turning in her bed.  Both of us spent the night in prayer…prayer for our family’s safe entry into the UK, and prayer for a woman we had never met.  As Mom said, “I’ve never prayed so hard for someone I’ve never met as I did for that border agent.”  Our prayers were answered.  We are here!