The now doomed nightmare trip to summit

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Part 1 to this trip found here https://www.twitlonger.com/show/n_1sroerv

Hello, I'm Pipsqueak a summit invited player who unfortunately could not make it across the US border.

I'll start by following up from where we left of the previous twitlonger

The guy was fine and I did not get sick. Hurray!

That's where the good news end

I basically did nothing from that twitlonger > Monday the 12th. I looked up travel guidelines/requirements, what documents i had to sign and got all that sorted but that's about all I did.

Then on the 12th I go get a Covid-19 test, it comes back negative so I pack my bags and head out to the airport

The English fluency isn't very high even at the airports so I figured if it took 5 hours at an airport I know I might as well go the night before and get it all sorted well before the flight

This was a mistake because for some reason they only allow baggage check-ins 2 hours before the flight, oh well I thought and stayed the rest of the night there and checked it all in early in the morning

Something troubled me a little though, the check in took an abnormally long time, they said nothing to me for the duration but the clerk had to make a call and overall the whole process took around 30 minutes. My anxiety was already through the roof but they kinda just shrugged and let me through.

So it turns out that at 4 AM that night my ESTA application status got updated from Approved to Expired. I had no way of learning about this information because my phone carrier can't handle me being in Mexico and doesn't let me buy any mobile data so for the absolute majority of this trip I have had no internet on my phone (yes for 2 weeks, it's been great!)

I had it printed out physically with the approved message so I guess that's why they let me through anyway but I definitely don't think they should have. This was a ticking time-bomb to say the least.

Regardless I board my flight at 9 AM Tuesday the 13th.

I fly to Mexico city and upon arriving there I get told they can't print my boarding pass for some reason, they can't figure out why. They then asked me to check my ESTA application online to make sure everything is alright but I uhh, again, have no internet so that's not really possible for me at the time

I end up calling the BTS hospitality manager who's helped me on the trip so far and explain the situation, because thankfully even without internet I can still make calls. They check my ESTA and confirm that the status updated to Expired.

Now there's like 10 minutes until the flight departs so there's no way we can fill it in fast enough to catch it. Regardless I give them all the relevant details and they help me fill it in remotely. Now I just have to wait for it to be approved and we're good right?

Well one thing caught my attention, the fact that my baggage was now somewhere at the airport. I ask where I should go and get told to go to Baggage Claim 5, then I ask for directions and get sent outside security for some stupid reason, there I ask for directions again and get told to go through security again so I do and once on the other side I ask for directions and get sent to Baggage Claim 6-11 and then get promptly sent outside security again.

Once again I make it through security and ask for directions and find my way to Baggage claim 5. Worth noting that I am abridging this because I got sent totally wrong directions a couple times wasting at least another hour but I don't remember the specifics so the point is that it took for fucking ever. Eventually though I get to baggage claim 5 and talk to the personnel there, they make a call and ask me what it looks like, thankfully given the last incident I've taken pictures so I show him them and they tell me to wait for 15 minutes and it'll arrive there. Cool, just gotta wait now. (All in all this was at least 2 hours or so)

I get it and by this point my ESTA has been approved so I get booked another flight

This time I get denied at the check-in because of frankly the most asinine bullshit i've seen in a while. So the rule as it was written everywhere I saw it was that I have to not have been to any country in a fairly long list, Sweden included, in the past 14 days. By this point it had been 15 days since I left Europe but I technically arrived early early in the morning to Mexico 14 days ago.

What I get told is that actually, it's not from when you left those countries, it's from when you arrived at Mexico.

Okay fine I guess

Then I get told it's not actually been 14 days yet because they only count from 00:00 each day, not actual 24 hour intervals so even though I arrived at 5 AM in the morning on the 30th I actually arrived on the 1st according to them.

But actually It's not 14 days in Mexico, it's "more than 14 days" so I have to be here for 15 days before I can fly.

I take this information to BTS and spend a long time back and forth finding people to argue with about how this information is not available anywhere + a whole bunch of other bullshit that took about 6-7 hours or so.

At this point I haven't eaten since midnight the day before at the airport so It'd been about 22 hours with no food so I go get something to eat, I get asked if I can book a flight back to Tijuana so I do so and make my way to there again, basically having wasted the entire 2 days. I arrive at midnight and get to where I've been staying the past 2 weeks try to sleep some at 1:30 AM. Tomorrow morning they want to try if I can cross the border on the ground.

I wake up at 8 AM today completely and utterly exhausted but I make my way over to the border. Once there I unfortunately meet a US border patrol agent power tripped to hell and back being as rude/trying to make my experience as awful as possible. Expected tbh but w/e we can deal

I tell him I've been in Mexico for 2 weeks, got flight information to prove it, an Approved ESTA, Negative coved test, Health Attestation. Everything.

I get led into a side room where he talks to a supervisor and gives my story, they ask if I can prove that I have stayed for 2 weeks and he goes nah (bruh) I speak up and say that I have got the flight records and they immediately tell me to not speak unless asked. then they continue on to say that no non-essential travel across the border is allowed at all and to send me back.

Okay I guess

In the 1 hour line I talked to two people trying to cross for business reasons who also got denied, they order an Uber and say they're going to the second border to try there (usually they can pass no problem so maybe just a particularly bad border guard idk). I go with them and try again over there and get denied even faster this time.

Then I borrow a hotspot from one of them to order an Uber back to where I am staying to await further instructions. That's when I write this whole recounting. There's probably a lot of shit I've repressed/forgot about as less important but that's the gist of it.

The earliest date I could fly in according to the Mexico city airports way of counting it is 00:01 Friday morning, but given that the US is cancelling every ESTA across the board and the fact that I would miss media day, every side event and probably arrive completely exhausted right before bracket with 0 practice. I think this essentially spells doom for this trip.

Unfortunate, I do everything correctly, stay 2 weeks, get an ESTA (2 even!) Get 2 negative Covid tests, fill in the LA traveller form, fill in a health attestation and then try every avenue possible only to be edgeguarded at every turn.

I don't think it's truly hit me how bad I feel about this yet, currently I just feel a total soul crushing numbness. Haven't managed to cry or get angry at all, just a pure sense of defeat

I didn't manage to get any studying done this trip either so I have a fuckton of work to catch up on when I get back home, with absolutely nothing to show for it. Lost money, lost time and most importantly I lost my mental health along the way.

It has just been confirmed that my spot will be taken by Kodorin who I respect greatly as a competitor and give my complete support. If anyone who wanted me there is considering sending any hate/complaints in either his direction or at BTS in general please reconsider. They have all done as best they can and deserves absolutely no blame in this, if anything I would like to thank them for trying as hard as they did for me.

That said, saying I dread the flight back home would be an understatement.

Thank you for reading, I am sorry I couldn't make it but sometimes you can do everything right and still lose, that's not weakness, that's life.

Might isolate myself for a bit as I always do when things are rough but I promise i'll be fine in the end, no need to worry about me.

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