How much of a hassle is it crossing the Canadian border these days?

Did you list all the pubs you were planning visit?

 

That was strictly on a need to know basis.

 

True border agent story: Flew into Vancouver last spring during the Ducks-Canucks second-round series. I get to the counter and the agent asks me the nature of my business in Canada.

And when I told him I was covering the series for a newspaper in California, he smirked and said: "So, do they put your hockey stories behind the high school football down there?"

(Incidentally, I had to spend all day at the federal building in Westwood the day before to expedite my passport renewal, since I'd let it lapse. But I was told during the course of the trip that the passport procedure in Canada was even more difficult and time-consuming than in the U.S., so go figure.)

 

The men are easier to deal with than the women. Either way, you might be asked something completely off the wall.

 

Whatever you do, when asked "what are you doing in Canada", don't tell them you're here for Candian beaver hunt. No sense of humour.

 

I spent my first two years of college about 20 minutes from the Canadian Border and an hour from Montreal. My parents come up one weekend and my Dad and I decide to make the trip to Casino du Montreal.

This was pre 9/11 so crossing the border was not the hassle it is today. Anyway, get into Canada no problem, go gamble and make our way back to the border around 1:30 a.m. on a Saturday night/Sunday morning. Pull up to the window and there is no one there. Waiting, waiting, waiting. After 5 minutes my dad says screw it and starts driving when a siren goes off. We think nothing of an continuing driving back towards campus.

As he gets off the highway, he gets pulled over for speeding. The state trooper takes his license, insurance, registration per usual. Comes back 5 minutes later and tells him to step out of the car. Apparently, there was a warrant out after a camera snapped a photo of the car "running the border"

Waited an hour in the middle of the night for the Border Patrol to drive the 20 minutes down to tell us we ran the Border, make sure we weren't criminals and to write a hefty ticket, which for its worth, never got paid over principle alone. Never heard from them again.

 

What principle? You ran the border.

 

Don't keep dad waiting five minutes.

 

Re: Cuban cigars.

Fucking Jones tried to bring five for me when we met in December in Louisville. But the dipshit told the Canadian border crossing dudes he had cigars. They asked him where they were from, and he stammered, Uh, um, I think the Dominican Republic.

I didn't get the cigars.

 

I'vbe always found the passport process here pretty easy. And they've now instituted a simple renewal process where you don't need a guarantor, just get the pics, fill out the form and take it to the office. I had a renewed passport in two weeks. My wife and son, both applying for new passports, got theirs in the same time.

 

I've always had more trouble getting back into the U.S. than going into Canada.

 

Tell 'em you're going to Liz Patterson's wedding in the next couple weeks. (Comic readers will get the joke.)

Seriously: Although Granholm hasn't done much to help Michigan, she has proposed embedding a chip or putting something on Michigan driver licenses that fully identifies you as a US resident or contains info about you that the customs officer can run through his computer. That might not be so bad if you cross back and forth.