Reflections of an Immigrant

Yesterday we went to London to deal with the dreaded American passport dilemma. We have seven people in our family. Four members have two passports each. Let's do the math, shall we?

3 + 2(4)= 11 passports to renew, all at different times unfortunately

We are planning a trip to the US in April, and we've been working quite hard trying to get our permanent residency established and our two American-born children's passports back in order to go. That has required A LOT of paperwork--including letters from every school and doctor's surgery they've ever been to, with records of attendance and appointments. Considering they've been to six schools between them over the last six years, that was not the matter of a simple phone call.

So in the midst of all this we realized that the American passport of Second Eldest Daughter, who was born in the UK, had expired. Hence an urgently-booked trip to the American Embassy in London to deal with it.

Cue the 4am wakeup to make a 9:30 appointment in London, and then the endless bureaucracy of getting into the American Embassy, which is on par with Fort Knox, and understandably so. We queued in the line for non-US visas for ten minutes just to get in the building before we realized we were in the wrong line.

Then many more lines, for security, to enter the Citizen Services area, to register in the Citizen Services area, to pay for the passport, to pay for the courier envelope, to hand in the application, and finally, finally, the last line to approve the application. Two hours later we emerged, blinking and dazed, into Grosvenor Square.

But I will say everyone was very efficient and friendly, far more so than the last time we had to go to the Embassy in London (we usually go to the far smaller Consulate in Edinburgh), which was in November 2001, and let me say, it felt like you were entering a maximum-security prison, and you were a prisoner. Understandably.

And despite the many hoops we've had to jump through lately, not to mention the many cheques we've had to write, I'm very grateful that we have the opportunity to live in the UK as US citizens, especially when I consider the state of immigration today.

Two days after the Brexit vote my husband and I were sitting in the visa office in Solihull with about 20 other immigrants applying for permanent residency. We all sat there quietly with our applications on our laps--hundreds of pages of paperwork showing the jobs we've had, the taxes we've paid, the fact that we are not eligible for any government benefits, such as child benefit, while employed in the UK--while a large-screen TV blared experts' opinions on the Brexit vote and the immigration 'problem'.

It was incredibly poignant and sad to sit there with polite, gainfully employed non-UK citizens who have added so much to this country and listen to people on TV describing how we're all a problem. The immigration system isn't perfect in any country, and of course it can be abused. But it is a wonderful, wonderful thing for many people, including me.

The last thing I will mention is that all the people working in the visa office, some of them immigrants themselves, were incredibly polite, friendly, and efficient. It made the laborious process much, much more pleasant!

On Traveling with Toddlers

I'm not sure I even need to write this post. Anyone who has traveled with toddlers will know it all already. And yet if you don't, or if you've forgotten [or more likely blanked it out for sanity's sake], then here goes.

My husband and I decided to take a trip to Newcastle for half-term.

We thought we were being sensible; the demands of his job as vicar mean he doesn't really relax unless he is out of the village. We knew a long trip would be tiring and expensive, so we booked two nights in a hotel in the centre of Newcastle within walking distance of Pizza Express--very important. We had two family rooms, with our older children in one and our younger children and us in the other. We planned to do a family-friendly attraction the next day, either the Life Centre or the Beamish Museum. The following day we would do some shopping, since there aren't many shopping options in West Cumbria.

Doesn't that all sound sensible and good? On paper, yes. In reality... Toddler Girl is in the stage of life where if she is unrestrained she is all over the place. She is running down a busy city street. She is trying to take some stranger's drink from their table at a restaurant. She has no sense of danger, of cars, of strangers, of cracks in the pavement that will send her sprawling. And if she is restrained, sensibly, in a stroller? She is straining at the straps as if we had wrestled her into a straitjacket. She is screaming at the top of her lungs. Unless we give her juice or bananas or, in desperation, lollipops. I brought many lollipops with us to Newcastle. They are all gone.

And then there are the sleeping arrangements. Family rooms at a budget hotel are small. The bathroom was barely big enough to stand up in, and the door was made of barely-frosted glass, with the toilet directly in front of it. Try sitting on the toilet with three people a few feet away, able to watch your every movement, and two of them quite interested in your every movement, as it happens. TMI? That was the nature of the whole trip.

Toddler went to bed at 8pm, at which point the three of us remaining in the room had to be completely silent in the dark. We didn't even breathe loudly. Eventually I gave up reading my Kindle and went to bed around 9pm. And then in the middle of the night... Toddler Girl's every movement had me tensing in bed, wide-eyed and awake. At 3am she, in her sleep, shouted 'MOM!' several times. I jumped out of bed, wild-eyed, my heart pounding. At 4am I thought it was morning until I checked the time and realised I had two or three more hours of this unbearable is-she-about-to-wake-up tension. Finally she did wake up, and then the chasing her around city streets began. At 1pm we called it a day and I took her home.

The upside to all this is that I appreciate the comforts of home so much more. I closed the door to our house and watched Toddler Girl toddle off with a huge sigh of relief. I didn't have to chase her! There were no zooming cars or menacing strangers to worry about. We have unlimited Peppa Pig. She slept in a separate room. And our village is so quiet and peaceful and clean. [Despite the troubles with dog poo, which is another post entirely.] While we walked around the centre of Newcastle trash blew into our toddler's face. Drunks staggered from doorways when we walked home from dinner. Not exactly what you're looking for in a holiday getaway.

So we have decided no more city breaks with children until the youngest child is at least 3, maybe 4. I haven't even got into the other stress of our trip, which is having a 16-year-old and a 1-year-old on the same holiday is a recipe for someone to be unhappy, probably several someones. It is impossible to please the kind of age range we have in our family right now. And the attractions we had chosen were so expensive we would have spent upward of £100 to get everyone in. So no more holidays, ever! That's what I'm thinking right now, although of course we are all home today and everyone is complaining about being bored. You just can't win sometimes.