To the Empire

So, we had our flight to Bratislava from Edinburgh booked. We took a bus from Austria, and arrived at some point in the middle of the night; our flight was at 6.30 or something ridiculous. For those who have never been to Bratislava airport, it's quite a nice airport, fairly modern...clean, tidy, but it's main issue is that it is extremely tiny. That's actually not normally a bad thing, but when you've got hours to kill and everything is closed, at least exploring the airport can normally occupy a little of your time. But the public part of this airport takes all of 10 minutes to get around completely.

Bratislava airport at night

Our Ryanair plane

Aside from that, we had a fairly non-interesting flight with Ryanair. We got on the plane, the plane took off, flew for a bit, then landed. When it came time for customs, I had to line up in the peasants' (aka non-European passport holders') line, and my girlfriend, being an Austrian, went through the much faster EU line. While crawling through the extremely slow and boring line, I was trying to connect to the wifi with my phone, so I could talk to my girlfriend, or browse the internet, or literally anything even remotely interesting. I had no luck with the wifi but did manage to get to the front of the line eventually.

Now, being a non-EU citizen, I had to fill out a card on arrival, with the purpose of my visit, my intended period of stay, an address where I was staying and so on. If you've ever travelled to a foreign country, then you know the type of thing. I am not the most organised of people, and where possible, I tend to let my girlfriend organise the details of our travels, because she'll;
a) get around to it (I tend to put things off);
b) remember whatever it is that's been organised (I'll forget the date and time of a flight I've booked before I've even left the room).
And so, as a result, I actually had no idea what the address of the hostel we were staying at was. I had no idea what it was called. I did recall that it costed about £8, because that was ridiculously cheap, and that it was fairly close to the city centre. I left that blank on the card, while trying to connect to the wifi to ask my girlfriend about it.

So, I get to the front and begin my conversation with the immigration officer. Of course, she notices that I haven't got an address that I'll be staying at, so she asks me about it.
"I'm afraid I don't know the address, my girlfriend has all the details."
"Where is she now?"
"She's Austrian, so she went through the EU line...I know that it's a hostel, and it costs about £8 a night."

After convincing her that it was all good, she asked what my purpose was and whether I had an onward ticket booked. She also seemed perturbed that I had written "~2 months" under the question about my intended period of stay. I explained that I was having a short holiday with my girlfriend, and then she would fly back to Austria, and I would go to London, to apply for a working holiday visa from the Latvian embassy. If I got it, then I'd be off to Latvia, if not, then I had enough money in my New Zealand account for a flight back to New Zealand. She wasn't impressed. I then tried to persuade her that I understood the seriousness of over-staying, by telling her about the time that I was deported from Germany (which I'll write about another time). With hindsight I realise, of course, that this was a terrible approach to take, even after explaining that in the end, it was proved that the deportation was a mistake on the German bureaucrat's part, and that the decision was reversed. But in the end, she allowed me in to the UK despite my ambiguously filled out arrival card, my vague answers to her questions and my admission of being deported from another EU country (although the decision had been reversed).

What would I have done if I hadn't been allowed in? I'm not sure, to be honest. I would've desperately found a way to contact my girlfriend, as a first point of action, so she'd know what was going on. Aside from that, not sure. But I was allowed in, and so my UK adventure could begin...

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UK travels - a background

I'm going to begin writing about my recent trip around the UK for 3 months, mostly hitchhiking and couchsurfing. There are some good stories, crazy adventures, high points, low points and everything in-between. First, let's travel back to the end of 2016.

My working holiday
visa for Germany

My working holiday visa for Germany had run out in September of 2016. I'd had a working holiday visa the year before, for Austria, and after it had expired, you were entitled to stay in the Schengen for an extra 90 days, as a visa-free tourist. What I learnt the hard way, after getting deported (which is a story for another time), is that after the visa had finished, one was supposed to leave the Schengen for any amount of time, then re-enter and the visa-free period begins on whatever date your arrival stamp states.

My passport with the exit
stamp from Croatia

Now, I wasn't sure if that also applied for the German working holiday visa, but I wasn't taking any chances. I'd booked a bus to Zagreb for a few days. to ensure I had at least the entry stamp. Upon returning into the Schengen, I was once again a legal visa-free tourist in the Schengen.

I'd been meaning to apply for a new working holiday visa for a while, but I'd lazy and disorganised and left it too long. It's not as simple as one might think; despite being young enough to be eligible for several visas all around Europe, it's not just a matter of sending in an application, waiting a few days and boom, you're done (although, to be fair, the German one is easy, you can just walk into an Ausländeramt (foreigner's office) and get it then and there apparently. I got mine at a German embassy and it only took a couple of days).

For example, not all the visas were available to me, despite being eligible for them. Let me explain; I was eligible to apply for the UK working holiday visa. Ignoring the fact that I was less keen to apply for that (as although it's in Europe and not too far from Austria and therefore my girlfriend, I'd still have to fly or go by boat to get back to the mainland), I would only be able to apply through the UK embassy in New Zealand. Now, I don't need to point out how ridiculous it would be to travel all the way home (when we came to Europe last time, the whole journey took around 50 hours!) simply to apply and then come back, and it meant that, effectively, the UK visa was unavailable to me. It was unavailable to me in the same way that Lamborghini ownership is currently unavailable to me; on paper, it isn't, but it's basically impossible. And other visas were out-of-reach for various reasons, including the same, or I didn't have enough money e.t.c..

So, basically, I settled on applying for a Latvian working holiday visa. It didn't require a large amount of savings (I only needed proof that I had the equivalent of around €600, as opposed to some other countries, that require €1800+), despite being quite far from Austria it was at least on the mainland, I could apply from an overseas embassy (in this case, London, so I could also leave the Schengen to avoid overstaying),  and lastly, although I think the number of visas issued every year is limited to a certain amount, it seems unlikely that the quota would be used up. To be honest, I've never heard of a single New Zealander ever applying for a Latvian working holiday visa, although I'm sure there must have been at least one by now.

I would definitely have to leave Europe in very early January, so my girlfriend and I had made a plan to fly to the UK together just before New Years. We looked online for some cheap flights from Vienna or Bratislava, and found some tickets that were cheap one way (for me), as well as return (for her). They flew into Edinburgh, and I happened to know that a very good friend of mine, who I met in working in Milford Sound, was living in the Highlands. I messaged him and, as his flatmate was away for most of the time Lisa would be in the UK, he was happy to host us for New Years and a bit afterwards.

And so, we were set. We'd fly to Edinburgh, spend a night there, then a night or two in Glasgow, then off to Fort William. Seems pretty straight-forward, but in fairly typical fashion, I almost managed to get myself refused entry into the UK. But that's a story for another blog post.

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