16 years old, on my first international trip, and doing it solo. For a person who's never been particularly brave, it was a pretty big step. Fly to England by yourself, to stay with your dad's cousin and family in Cambridge for three weeks? It's not a chance an Anglophile like myself could have passed up but it is also pretty different from going away to summer camp or off to college (both of which I did, staying within 30 minutes of my house and both of which I had to be convinced to get out of the car the first day). So looking back, it's honestly surprising I even did it.
My parents asked me to write about what I remember of my first day there, when I was flagged by customs as a high security risk (or something like that), and detained for about four hours. It's a good question. I remember the days leading up to my flight being pretty nervous for it. I hadn't flown anywhere in quite a while, and I didn't love it as a kid. In reality, the flight turned out to be quite tame. I had the entire trio of seats in the middle to myself, so I was able to spread out and sleep for most of the flight. I was tired when I got there, but the jet lag wasn't horrible, as far as I remember. The real trouble came when I arrived, and went through customs.
My memory of customs is pretty blurry, honestly. I remember them looking through my passport, asking me why I was coming, where I was going, who was picking me up. I remember they asked me if I was coming "for holidays," whether I was coming specifically to watch Baby Miranda, and that they were surprised when I said I was taking a bus to Cambridge and not being picked up. Either my answers were insufficient or they just want extra background on minors, I'll never know. After a long flight, landing in a foreign country for the first time, you're a bit disoriented so I don't even remember specifically what I answered. I do remember that my parents assured my "customs would be no problem" and that all of a sudden I was told I was being "detained" and was led away.
They had to do a search of all my luggage, and asked me to tell them everything I had packed before they opened the bags. I remember feeling nervous about not being able to list everything I had packed, but honestly why they would have expected that of anyone is beyond me. Who has their whole packing list in their head? I had to have a mug shot taken and my fingerprints taken. Then I sat in a waiting room, eerily similar to a children's waiting room at a doctor's office, for about 3 hours as I waited for them to do whatever they were doing. I know they made a phone call to Jonathan at some point, but I wasn't able to make any calls. Of course, this was before I ever had smart phone, or even a cell phone. All I had was an iPod touch, which I wasn't allowed to have with me, so I had exactly no contact with anyone else. I think I had my camera bag with my wallet and passport and notebook, but I don't remember being allowed to have anything else with me. I was pretty nervous, especially considering my bus was long gone and I had no idea what was going to happen or why I was being detained, but there was another girl in the waiting room with me, a similar age to me, who was Russian. I remember feeling worse for her because she didn't speak English and the only thing she could say was "Russian, no English." I had no idea if I had somehow done something "wrong," or if they were going to let me into the country, or anything. When they finally let me through, the explanation given was simply "unaccompanied minors need more of a background check." But the papers I was given did not have a check in the box of "unaccompanied minor," and when my sister went to England a few years later, she was never detained despite also being an unaccompanied minor. So really, we'll never know what it was that got me detained. But after that, the trip could really only go uphill. I got my bus ticket switched and then made my way to Cambridge, where Jonathan met me at the bus stop. By then it was dark, and my first real look at Cambridge wouldn't be till the next day.
It may or may not surprise you to know that I had to look back at my memories of the day to remember most of the details of being detained. You would think it would be the sort of experience that would burn itself into my brain forever, but until mom asked me to write about it again, I hadn't given it a thought. In fact, I had almost forgotten that it was the 23rd, the day I flew to England, until we did our prayers for the day and read the selection from Psalm 139 that is assigned for the day in the Treasury of Daily Prayer. That morning, 9 years ago, we did Matins as a family and read this psalm. With all the nerves and excitement of the flight later that day, I remember finding such comfort in these verses.
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