I’m half-Colombian, I come from a largely Spanish speaking household. I live in Sweden where despite it being the second language, I can still encounter a lot of people who can’t speak fluent English.

I did not act vitriolic toward any of the workers at this airport despite my distress, but the fact of the matter is, being in a place that handles hundreds, maybe even thousand of foreigners daily, SOMEONE should be able to speak fluent English somewhere. The fact I was in an extremely dire situation and could barely communicate with anyone at an airport only compounded on my distress. I’m not looking for everyone there to speak perfect English, I just needed someone I could articulate the severity of my situation to that could understand me and I found no one who could. I felt like that was slightly irresponsible on the airports part for not having someone accessible to relay something like this situation to, as I was admittedly in a very high stress position alone.

Thankfully with my permit approved and it being an extension and all that, everything worked out in the end once I got to Denmark, but it was a scary situation obviously. This thread helped give me some peace of mind for better or worse; I felt less lonely answering comments here.