When you're down on yer luck,
an' ya ain't got a buck,
in London, you're a goner.
-Gary P. Nunn, "London Homesick Blues"
As my dear reader has likely seen, if they follow my blog, I left Ukraine for Warsaw in the early days after Russia's invasion, just as a few million others did. The difference between me and most of them is that I am not a Ukrainian citizen (Texas has a city called Odessa, but it doesn't make us Ukraine). Why is this important? Well, because I could not claim refugee status. As a US citizen I was, by definition, entering Poland as a tourist (or so their border protection office listed me; I'm curious what kind of "tourist" arrives from a warzone, but I digress) from the moment I crossed the border, and that had certain ramifications. The most important of these ramifications is that I only had 90 days visa-free before I had to move on.
I didn't think of this as much of a problem, since I did not plan on staying in Poland any longer than was necessary to regroup and get back on my feet anyway. So, while my girlfriend looked for which country in Europe was the easiest for Ukrainians to settle in (she opted for Germany), I contented myself with knowing "I get 90 days visa-free in most of Europe so it's no problem." Well, I didn't find out until May 20th that the visa-free stay an American is entitled to under immigration laws isn't "90 days in that country and 90 days in this one," but it's "90-days in the entire Schengen area combined." In other words, by May 29, I had to be out of the Schengen Zone.
Well, there are not many places that are...
- close enough to Ukraine to easily get back there when the war ends
- cheap enough to fly to that I can afford to get there on the income from online lessons
- cheap enough to live in that I can survive there on the above-mentioned income
- outside of Schengen, and
- open to Americans without the need for a visa.
I started to opt for Romania, but didn't like the notion of starting yet another "90-days-then-GTFO" clock. In the end, my friends were telling me Kharkiv was... I won't say "safe" if I'm using the definition of "safe" that I used before the war, but let's say "safe-ish," in that the utilities were back on, the metro will be re-opening soon and the ATM's usually work. Besides, the stack of Ukrainian Hryvnias that I stupidly didn't exchange before crossing the border would actually be useful there, so money would be less of an issue. I made the decision that believe it or not, going back to Kharkiv was my best option.
Apparently, Ukrainian border protection had a different view. As I went to Warsaw Central Train Station on May 26th to buy my ticket back to Kharkiv, I was told that they could not sell a ticket to Ukraine to a non-Ukrainian citizen, even one with a Ukraine Residence Permit, since Martial Law had just been extended to August 23.
This meant I now had two and a half days to vacate the Schengen Zone and my destination was no longer available. To add to this, plane tickets to Romania were no longer available and the train from Warsaw to Timisoara, Romania (the city I chose for its low cost of living) took two days and required an overnight stay in Budapest, since I would arrive there in the afternoon and the next train out was the following morning. Frankly speaking I wasn't sure if I'd even make it out of Schengen before my 90 day clock ran out. PLUS, I also would have had to be on the train on Sunday, thus missing my busiest day of work (and losing another $283 for doing so).
Not an option.
With the clock running out and the walls closing in, I opted for the first place I could find that actually had planes still going to it which did not have overnight layovers that would have put me out of a day's work: London. London, where I at least know a few people who I taught with during the horrid Beijing years.
After a horrific experience with Wizzair (absolutely NEVER fly this airline, and avoid at all costs any interaction with the so-called "help desk" at Chopin International Airport) I set my feet on my Scottish/Irish/British assorted ancestors' native soil for the first time at 19:10 local time on 28 May, 2022.
Ah, Heathrow Airport...
Well, no. Not exactly.
The airport I landed at was Luton, and looking out the plane window and seeing cows and tractors was a bit jarring for someone whose head had been filled with talk of how busy and bustling London is supposed to be. A three hour wait before the baggage carousel finally delivered my suitcase was a fine "welcome to Britain" moment, but I chalked that up to further incompetence on the part of Wizzair.
When all was said and done, I found myself crashing on the couch of an old friend from the Beijing days for a few days, which is about all I can afford to spend here in a city as bloody expensive as London. Tickets from London to Timis are, for whatever reason, cheaper and more accessible than plane tickets from Warsaw to Timis, so I have my ticket to Romania booked for this coming Saturday. Meanwhile, I avoided an overstay in the Schengen Zone, and now I have a week catching up with old drinking buddies (who now live in quaint little townhouses with their doting little wives and fawning over their kids; I find myself thinking of Hank Williams Jr's All My Rowdy Friends Have Settled Down), explore the English countryside, perhaps pick up a few clients and, if I can find a day when I'm not hungover from spending the night out with the above-mentioned drinking buddies, perhaps see a bit of London. And as an unexpected benefit, I'll be here for the Queen's "Platinum Jubilee," an event I didn't even know about until I landed.
I must say, I always did plan to drop in and visit London one day, and it seems I chose the right time.
...But "I'm on the run from the country I ran to while escaping a war and this was the only country I could get to" isn't what I had in mind for the manner of my arrival.