American Girl In An English World

Normally, this is not always the case. Sometimes being an international means that the line at the passport check takes longer.

However, Leeds-Bradford Airport decided to bless me.

Walking off my (super delayed and full) flight from Berlin, we managed to arrive at the same time as another flight, meaning that there were loads of people in line waiting to pass through.

Naturally there are the familiar signs ‘UK/EU Citizens’ on the left and ‘All Other Passports’ on the right. As usual, I start shuffling to the right, clutching my USA passport and UK Landing Card I filled out on the plane.

But lo and behold. While there are 200+ people in the UK/EU line…

MY LINE IS EMPTY.

So, I walked past 200+ tired and cranky people who were in the UK/EU line because no one in my flight (or the other) was international. Of course, my passport guy had to stop checking in UK/EU people because I was priority (seeing as how he finally had an international to check in).

Pretty sure I felt daggers being thrown into my back.

A big smile was plastered all over my face.

Felt like a celebrity (haha, kidding!)

:D

Meaning that at Dublin airport while all my friends skipped to the EU border patrol line, I was the only one that had to do the walk of shame [by myself, seriously, was no one on the plane a true international?!] to the ‘NON EU’ line.

They guy was so used to not having people come to his line, because he was texting away and I stood there awkwardly until he raised his head and I got his attention.

And I had to go to the check-in desk to get my boarding pass stamped, even though I didn’t have any check-in bags.

The up-side? I got my first visa stamp! (My friends do not get one since Ireland is part of the EU)

Hard life.