Hello, Internet, it's ya boi *Daniel* here.
As my new apartment video background currently looks like this...
which is like someone put a black-and-white filter
on a nice, normal corner someone would sit in–
that is just my personality as furniture right there; it needs some work–
please enjoy this 100%-true story time about a traumatising day of travel that I experienced.
So strap yourselves in, as we're about to go to a whole world of suffering.
Despite me claiming to be focusing on my not-so-drastic metamorphosis into ~Daniel Howell~ right now,
earlier this year, I committed to going to perform at a YouTube convention in Florida with Phil,
and, since we'd already be there, stay for a few days to have a little holiday.
Now, because we did that whole tour thing last year, me and Phil (Phil and I) have these professional U.S. working visas,
which ain't your regular tourist ones where you have to fill out that form
that says you're not a Nazi.
Ahh, that pesky genocide box catching me out again.
No, I'm allowed in a special queue because I am a professional
that sometimes *~works in the USA~*
Now if you wanna use this snazzy thing, you have to tell the government how long you're actually working for.
So I said to the embassy that I was at this convention for three days, but I figured that 'cause I still have a regular tourist visa,
if I wanted to stay for a bit longer, I could sit by a pool and get some stuff done.
Like changing my icon to something new, which everybody loved.
Or going through the description of every YouTube video I've uploaded
changing the social media links, which are now of course different,
so that affects the thing that I had at the bottom of my videos forever,
and also every collab that I have ever done on YouTube.
I didn't think this through.
So I land in Orlando, ready for this adventure, and start queuing up in the U.S. border control.
Now, I don't want to get in trouble for saying this or probed by anyone—
*muttering* well, not anyone—
but USA immigration is fucking terrifying.
Even if the worst thing you've ever done in your life is
steal a mint from your grandma's purse when you where 5,
you will feel like you have robbed a bank and they know it, everyone knows it,
you're gonna be caught, your whole life is gonna go up in flames, and you are a BAD PERSON.
So as I'm nervously stood, profusely sweating—
'Haven't done anything wrong, haven't done anything wrong, haven't done anything wrong...'—
making me shimmer like a beluga whale, to the point where the passport scanning machine
doesn't even recognize my face...
By the way, the morning I had this photo taken, I looked rough.
I woke up at 6 AM, I hadn't showered
the photo booth that took it looked like it was built in the '60s...
This was my last photo, which I took in a Topshop photo booth,
which we actually made a poster out of.
Pretty bloody good, right?
This is the new one.
JESUS, it's like a before-and-after of taking every drug at the same time for a year.
I need to just get a new passport and burn this one.
We get to the front of the queue and there's two border agents that we could meet:
a stern-looking bald guy and a middle-aged woman that just
looked like a generic mum. So I valiantly volunteered...
Phil to go first.
He gets called over by the bald guy, which yeah,
made me feel slightly relieved, but in
less than 20 seconds after some
hilarious tiny banter that left them
both giggling, Phil goes straight through
and starts waiting for a suitcase.
So naturally when I get called over by the mum-looking lady,
I feel quite optimistic about this whole thing.
Turns out this I-go-to-church-and-
hand-out-cookies-for-free-because-I'm-
the-kind-of-nice-person-that-probably-
bakes-and-has-a-kind-of-cute-dog–
looking lady is literally the—
They're listening, Dan; don't get probed.
—a less positive person.
*violent keyboard smacking* 'Ugh. All right, NEXT!'
'HELLOO!'
'Huh.'
And then the question that anyone that probably has
any kind of job on the Internet dreads being asked:
'So, uh, what do you do for a living?'
'Uuuuuhhhhh......'
Trust me when I say explaining the concept of making videos on the
Internet without them thinking that
you're some kind of porn star is
incredibly difficult and hard to
understand.
'I make YouTube content.'
'Isn't YouTube that place with the cat videos?'
'It's actually a bit more than that now.'
No chance. But then, as if I wasn't already
starting to drown under the weight of my
inarticulate blabbing beluga whale tongue,
she then says the worst thing imaginable:
'What kind of videos?'
'Uhh, comedy, I guess.'
'A comedian, eh? Oh. Tell me a joke.'
'What—what?!'
Way to put me on the fucking spot! What am I supposed to say to that? It's not like I have anything prepared.
I'll tell you what I did say:
'Well, not really a joke comedian.
'More of a person that shares his
'thoughts and opinions, or tells funny
'stories about things that have gone wrong in my life.'
'Ah. That sounds kind of sad.'
Well, she wasn't wrong, and what could I
say? She was inspiring. But then, just when
I thought I'd gotten over the worst of
it, my plans went up in flames.
'So it says here you're only at this convention for three days.'
'Yeah, but my friend is having
'a little family holiday after, so I
'figured I could stay for a few days and
'do some work over the Internet.'
'Well, you can't do that. If you're coming
'in on a professional visa, you can only
'stay for as long as you're workin': three days.'
It would seem I had fucked up, but
if there was a chance that I could say
something and get myself out of the situation...
that did not happen. In fact, I
said something that made it even worse:
'Okay, but my friend just got let through
'by that guy over there, and he's in the
'exact same situation as me, so isn't it
'just up to you to let me stay—'
'Are you questioning my authority?'
'What? No! No, no, I—I—I'm just saying—'
'Because if you want me to get my supervisor, he can take
'you back and you can explain this to
'him, and you can point out your friend,
'and I'll drag him back there too!'
'No! No, no, that—that won't be necessary. Oh, God.'
Literally.
Now, not that I'm ever a confrontational person, but as tempting
as it may seem to bust out the sass
because you think it's unfair, there was
a real risk of probing that I had to
respect, okay, so I did not want to push
my luck and didn't argue.
'But if I can only stay in the country for three days,
'then what am—what am I supposed to do about this
'holiday that I'm tagging along to, or my flight home?'
'You can't do anything. If you want to be a tourist, you have to leave
'the United States and come back as a tourist.'
What the heck did that mean? If I
had to go to Mexico or Canada and back just to stay for a few days,
there'd be no point. I might as well just go back to England.
'So what should I do?'
'Take a day trip to the Bahamas.'
'What?'
'It's a one-hour flight from Orlando to the Bahamas.
'You can do it 'n one afternoon. Bye. Next!'
And so, this is how I came to have
a day trip in the Bahamas.
After two days at a YouTube convention, while everyone
else was having fun community time and
getting ready to go to Harry Potter
World in the evening, I was packing a bag
and going to the airport again. Now a lot
of people who follow me on Twitter right
now will probably be going,
'Wait, that's what happened? What the f—'
See, I figured if the universe was playing this much of a
joke on me, it's only fair if I bring you
into it as well. I sat on the plane
and barely managed to listen to the new
Perfume Genius album—which is amazing, by
the way—before I landed at Nassau
International Airport, Bahamas.
I figured that as I was actually doing
something so insane and bizarre, I might
as well have a little fun with it on the
Internet, so I posted this tweet and
Geotagged it at the airport, which
confused a lot of people on the Internet
because only two hours ago, I was seen
milling around the Convention Centre in
Florida. But hey, Dan must have gone on
a holiday, right? Why else would he be in
the Bahamas? Now, to say entering the
Bahamas has a different feeling to
entering America is like saying that
having sex with a human is different to
a porcupine who is shouting mean things
at you while it's happening,
which I don't want to, you know, make fun
of because I'm aware that some of you
watching this might be into that and I
don't want to shame anybody.
Instead of the oppressive glare of hundreds of
security guards and cameras and
threatening posters surrounding you from
every angle, the Bahamas border control
room had a steel drum band playing in the corner.
Actually.
I was stood in a
sunny, chilled-out line, having a pleasant
fucking BOP for 10 minutes, looking at
adverts for margarita bars.
Now, I was slightly concerned that the Bahamas
border agent would find it kind of weird
that I was immediately leaving the
country an hour after arriving, but
honestly, he couldn't have given less of a shit.
'Right, so slightly complicated—I have to leave and re-enter the USA, and it turns out the Bahamas—'
'Hey, whatever, man.
'Take some sunscreen; you need it.'
'Oh, okay. Am I that pale?'
I went to the information desk and I asked,
'Hey, I'm here for an hour. What can I do?' and
got told that apparently, I had enough
time to go to the beach and get lunch, so
I was like, 'Sure, okay.' I went down to the
taxi rank and told the coordinator,
'Take me to the nearest beach.' There are about a
hundred taxis that have been waiting
for hours for the opportunity to pick
up a huge family with all their
suitcases and drive them to a faraway
hotel, which is lots of money, so when I
got into the cab and told the driver I
wanted to go to the nearest beach, he
flipped the fuck out and started shouting
out of the window he didn't queue up for
hours to take one guy to the beach which
is a five-minute walk away. How was I
supposed to know that? But it didn't
matter, because my driver got out of the
car and literally started having a fight
with the coordinator who put him in
there, in front of all of the people
queuing up for the airport and their
families. I just wanted to do something
pleasant with my afternoon, have a fucking
strawberry daiquiri to help get rid of
all this trauma that I've built up, and I
ended up causing bloody Taxis Civil War
in the Bahamas. So I thought, 'Fuck it,
'whatever. You know what, I don't care; I'm
'just going to go check into my flight an
'hour early, sit on the floor, and sip a
'sparkling water.' Because hey, it may not
be the Bahamas day trip of my dreams, but
at least I was about to finally fly back
and put this all behind me, right?
Oh, no.
The universe wasn't done with me yet. So I'm sat
on the plane as it drives around to the
runway, starts revving up, ready to take
off and leave all of this stress behind,
when everything suddenly goes quiet and
the captain picks up the PA saying,
'Ladies and gentlemen, er, sorry for the
'delay. We have a small technical problem
'that one of the engines has lost all
'power.'
We were pointing down the runway, about
to fly into the air, and apparently, one
side of the plane just wasn't going to
cooperate. So I'm not necessarily a
nervous flier, but Jesus fucking Christ,
that is not something you want to hear!
So the pilot drove it back round to the
gate, we all disembarked, and they
cancelled
the flight. Yup! With nothing but $20, a
pair of headphones, and a phone on
critical battery level, I was stranded
in the Bahamas. I know I'm not an angel—I've
looked at some weird stuff on the
Internet over the years—but honestly, I
do not think I deserved this on that
particular day. So I prepare myself to go
back to the taxi rank, which, by this
point, I presume, is just a lake of blood
outside the airport, to take me to some
hotel, I guess, to stay the night, and I'm
about to hand over my passport to get
back into the country, when suddenly, the
airport announcement jingle goes off and
the very same captain from the Flight of
Doom says, 'Well, er, we managed to fix the
'engine, I guess, so the flight to Orlando
'is un-cancelled. Boarding starts in five
'minutes for an immediate departure.' Now,
deciding whether or not to get back on a
flight that was cancelled because one of
the engines wasn't working is already a
hard decision, but when that decision is
on the other side of an airport and you
have five minutes, I was genuinely
worried that running would kill me
faster than the flight.
'Wait a minute.'
I knew that I should get that flight, so I started to sprint through the airport
like a newborn giraffe just flailing
stupidly, long limbs all over the place,
with everybody staring at me like I'm an
idiot and just managed to reboard the
death flight. Yes, I was scared sat there,
okay, but honestly, after everything I'd
been through that day, I was ready for
death. I had accepted it. I had loaded up
my death Spotify playlist, I was looking
through all my tweet drafts of jokes that I
didn't know if they were too offensive
or not to post, and I closed my eyes.
Two hours later, with absolutely no issue
getting into America this time—of course—
I was in Universal Studios at Harry
Potter World, sipping on a hideously-expensive
Butterbeer, which was tasty
but, with all of the sugar and exercise
I'd done that day, made me do a little
sick in my mouth. And there we go. That
was the story of my ever-so-brief trip
to the Bahamas. If you remember me
mentioning a lot of people were confused
with my whereabouts that day, well, it
turns out that Geotagging a tweet in
the Bahamas and then Diagon Alley within
two hours will definitely do that.
And now you all know the perfectly simple
explanation. Something like this could
only happen to someone who is hideously
unlucky, lacks just the right amount of
social skills to make everything
constantly worse for themselves, and
somehow knows enough people that telling
the story would re-balance the universe.
Who needs to move into a new apartment
and have a fresh start to come up with
some good, quality content ideas when
things like this just happen to you all
the time? Huh. Why does the universe hate
me? Give me a thumbs-up if you enjoyed
this, or maybe if you just pity me and,
let's be honest, things like this will
always happen to me, so if you haven't
yet and you want to stay tuned to the
reality disaster movie that is my life,
then you can click here to subscribe to
my channel, and make sure you ring that
bell if you want to get a notification
when I upload. You can relive my breaking
point which put me in this position down
there, and yeah, after some snacks and
soul-searching, I will see you for that
next video. Bye~ : )