Its has been over a year since I flew out to London, and over a year since I flew from London to Canada! How time flies... in two and a half months I will hopefully be finished Honours! Funny how our lives can be seperated into such small segments.
Some of the things I have forgotten to tell you in the past year because they weren't that interesting then!
When I arrived at Regina international airport, I was confident there would be no problems going through customs. It was late - around midnight. The flight had been slightly delayed. My transfer (Richard from the exchange office) was waiting for me. I didn't have a student visa because I was staying in Canada less then 6 months... When the Canadian immigration offical asked me what I was doing in Canada, I said studying, of course.
I'm not sure if she was new to her job or what, but she wouldn't let me pass! Despite the law being that i didn't need a visa, she thought it a good idea that she prepare a special visa which indicated all the restrictions of a student visa. In fairness it was because I was leaving the country after 5 months and coming back in again! Unfortunately she needed to process all the other passengers first, then she needed to contact the emergency IT department because she needed to overide certain controls to make this 'special' visa. I wonder what those controls were in place for?
Eventually I got away at about 2am. Poor Richard! Then of course there were the problems when I flew into Vancouver from Seattle, they looked at my now expired 'special' visa and said; "What the hell is this?" Yay, more delays, except this time it was Alvin who had to wait about an hour before they shook their head in exasperation and let me go free!
I still say none of it was my fault! Don't even let me get started on the stupidity of the fact that you need a US visa even if you only transit through the country but stay more then 3 or 6 months!