The great Welsh adventure

Bore da!

To be fair, it's actually evening right now, but I only know the word for "morning" and have to get by with what I can.

I'm nearing the end of the third day of my great Welsh adventure, and given the fact that I haven't actually done anything yet that sounds too terribly adventurous, it's nevertheless already been a bit of one. The journey over was itself somewhat harrowing. The international flight was as all international flights are, meaning long and uncomfortable. I had the luxury of no one sitting in the seat next to me, which meant I could lie down in a remarkably uncomfortable little ball while trying to sleep, covered up with the three-foot-by-three-foot blue tissue paper that is as close to a blanket as airlines seem capable.

Immigration at Heathrow, however, threw me for a loop. I've gone in and out of I-don't-even-know-how-many countries, but this was the first time I'd ever been seriously concerned that I was going to be sent home. The immigration officer apparently took his job extremely seriously: not only did he ask me the usual "how long?" and "business or pleasure?" questions, but then elaborated upon those and launched a full-fledged interrogation into my exact reasons for wanting to go to Wales. He wanted out of me the names, phone numbers, and addresses of damn near every Welsh person and their cousin; wanted to know how I'd met Frances, my contact and the woman I'm working with; wanted to know when I'd been to Wales, and why, and for how long, and then wanted to know my specific itinerary for the last time I was there (I presume because he thought I was making the whole thing up, and thus wouldn't be able to name any Welsh towns); wanted to know exactly, and I do mean EXACTLY, what I would be doing in Wales--as in he wanted me to account for every hour of every day of the six weeks I would be here, apparently because he doesn't think there's enough in Wales to keep an American occupied for so long; he wanted to know about the semester I spent in London, including the address where I stayed and information about the professor who led the study group; he even wanted to know how much money I had...when I told him how much I had on my debit card, he asked about cash. Well, officer, I haven't even been officially allowed into the country yet so I'm afraid I only have a left-over twenty-pound note from the fall, but I hear Britain has invented this brand-spankin'-new device that's a sort of automatic bank teller, and if I feed it my debit card it will spout out British pounds in return, to my heart's delight.

The man even had the gall to point out, as if it were evidence of my guilt (guilt of what, I'm still not entirely sure), that I was becoming rather flustered. Clearly that couldn't be because I'd just gotten off an eight-hour flight, my internal clock thought it was 2am, and I was being grilled for information that I couldn't see had any bearing on the situation at hand (the situation being that I'm an American who wants to learn Welsh, not a terrorist after the Queen--but to an Englishman perhaps that's only slightly less of a crime?). Finally he said he was going to let me in..."with a warning." I crossed into the United Kingdom feeling vaguely uncomfortable about all the CCTV cameras, of which there are said to be more in London and in higher density than anywhere else in the world. The immigration officer was so fervent about his duty to Queen and Country that I was mildly paranoid they'd watch me all the way to Wales just to try to catch me in the lie.

I suppose the people of England can sleep easily at night knowing the good men of immigration and border control are keeping their country safe from an invading onslaught of Welsh enthusiasts. The Welsh might lose a little sleep over the racism.

Turns out--and I only found this out later, after I told Frances about the ordeal--that I'm not the first Wales-bound traveler to be accosted at immigration. Earlier this year two Argentinian women, who had been raised in largely Welsh-speaking Patagonia and wanted to visit the country of their ancestors, were actually turned away at immigration, after being detained for twenty-four hours or so, and a couple more girls the year before. The English apparently suspect that the Welsh are running some sort of black market trade in cheap au pair labor and have dedicated the full resources at their disposal to stop this illegal industry. There is, of course, no such thing as an au pair Welsh black market, but it's hardly the first time the English have gotten themselves into a tither concerning the Welsh.

The good news is that three days later, immigration has yet to come pounding on my door so I'm hoping they've either decided I was telling the truth about my intentions or they found something productive to do with their time.

In any case, officially arriving in the United Kingdom with the immigration officer's reluctant blessing was followed by a train to Heathrow central terminal, a train to Paddington Station, and then another train into Port Talbot, where Frances picked me up. The ensuing three days, my first three living in Wales, have been absolutely stuffed with amazing conversations, sights, and experiences, most of which seem completely commonplace but were actually quite exciting. I'll have to get to those later, however, as it's very nearly dinnertime, and (with Frances cooking, anyway) that's an event worth being on time to.