So, on the way back to England mom and I were held up by a snotty little customs agent (SLCA) who asked to see my student visa. I don’t have a student visa, because I’m only here for 6 weeks. So then he wanted to see proof that I’m a student. The only thing we have is a letter with Notre Dame letterhead on it that says we’re studying here for the summer that we had to present to customs at the airport when we landed. They did not inform us that we had to keep this crappy little letter (seriously, I could have faked this letter with Photoshop and Microsoft Word) with us whenever we leave the country in order to get back into the country. Also, the SLCA decided to jabber at me about how when you’re studying for a year, you get a student visa because you’re expected to travel a lot, whereas when you’re here for the summer you’re really just supposed to study and not travel around Europe. He said the whole point was to be studying, not traveling. Which is exactly the opposite of the entire point. Why on earth would students from the U.S., whose system of universities/colleges/law schools/medical schools is unrivaled in all the world, choose to fly over here and stay in a country where everything is twice as expensive as it is in the states just to take a few classes and not see anything? I can take classes in the U.S. I am here to see England, Scotland, France, Germany, Italy, etc etc etc. I was about to tell the SLCA just exactly all of these things, only probably in a snottier way of my own, but then he acted like by not demanding to see Mom’s airline ticket home that he was doing us a HUGE favor and being SO nice, when really he was being snotty and condescending (two things that I VERY MUCH HATE) and the only reason I didn’t reach under the glass and slap the snotty little smirk off his snotty little face is because a body-cavity search is not high on my list of Things to Do in Paris.
That is all I have to say about returning from Paris.
