Stories: Immigration in Northern Ireland

I had been mildly nervous about going to Northern Ireland to visit an old housemate who is there as a Mennonite Mission Network volunteer. The issue was that I didn't have my french residence card but only my application expired receipt (another story). Technically you aren't supposed to travel on one of those as you might not be let back into the country if your visa has expired and you don't have the residence card.

I arrived at Belfast International, got off the airplane and followed everyone toward immigration. There were two lines, one for EU nationals and one for everyone else. I felt lucky as the line for the EU group was 70 or 80 people long and there were only a small family another guy, aged 20 and myself all of us American. The family was interrogated and past through after five minutes. Then the guy went up but had not filled out an address filled out on his immigration card. The immigration officer started interrogating him closely: asking who he was visiting how long he was staying; asking for his return ticket information; asking how much money he had on him and deriding him on not preparing enough to visit Northern Ireland. The guy was completely rattled. I wrote down an incomplete address. By this time there was no one left in the EU line.

None the less I received very much the same treatment. Including questions about how long I had known my friend what our relationship was and so on. After finding out that I was on my way to a town a ways from Belfast he derided me on not having a housing situation for that night as it was late and no bus would be going to there that night (I was going to stay with a couchsurfer I had never met but didn't want to complicate anything further so didn't mention it.). They then decided that they wanted to search my bag. Which they did as I stood by providing helpful comments.

Immigration: "what is this?" opening a notebook from my bag and indicating some taped together pages.
me: "it is my notebook and that is my journal from when I was in Guatemala and Bolivia"
Immigration: "we're going to take a look at it" cuts the tape and begins flipping through it. "We obviously can't read it all, what is it"
me: "it is just my thoughts and so on"
Immigration: "so nothing really interesting"
me: "to me yes."
Immigration: finding a picture of my family. "What's this?"
me: "that's my parents and my brother, we are at haystack rock in Oregon."
Immigration: "is that a well-known place?"
me: "Uh, locally I guess."
Immigration: pulling out a book from my bag "Hemingway, A Moveable Feast"
me: "A must read as a young person living in Paris."
Immigration: "well I won't have that opportunity now will I."

After a total of 45 minutes waiting and another 45 being interrogated. I think the officer was trying to make a point as he concluded with "You realize that if I had shown up in your country in the same state that you showed up here I would have just as much difficulty entering. I'm going to give you a level 3 entry, because you haven't completely convinced me. This means that next time you try and come in you will be interrogated just as closely. I said thank you and made my way to the couchsurfer's place on the very last bus from the airport for the night.�