The attendant took one look at our non-canadian passports and began the questioning. Why are you going to Canada, do you have a visa, why is your passport not stamped with a visa yet? Ugh - seriously? I had all my documents saying that the work permit will be approved ON ARRIVAL to canada! Geez. But no, it was all too complicated - we had to step aside to get it all sorted out. There was also another passenger with the same 'problem'. They started with her first - whoever they were trying to phone wasn't answering their phone (funny that on a Saturday night!) and the attendant ended up calling over another attendant to help.
This attendant was much more helpful. She took one look at the other woman, looked at her boarding pass, then asked her "where are you flying to tonight?" She replied "Toronto". "Well, this flight is going to Halifax, you're not on this flight, you need to go to gate XX and wait for your flight to be called". Problem solved!
Next it was our turn. "Are you Australians?" No, only my daughter is Australian, the rest of us are on New Zealand passports. "Oh well then, theres no problem here" She turns to the original attendant and gives her a quick lesson regarding movement between commonwealth countries! hahahahaha So all was good, and we were now allowed on the flight. Nothing better than being the LAST people to get on board, with everyone staring at you because you've been holding up the flight <sigh> We made our way to our seats....silly me. I thought when we were seated in Row 12 that we were going to be near the front of the plane, not in the very back row! This plane was most definitely a 'fun-sized' plane!
It was a beautiful clear night, so we had some fantastic views flying out of New York. I guess one of the benefits (and I can honestly think of no others!) of flying in a teeny tiny little plane, is you get to fly lower to the ground, so you get to see more! Coming into Halifax we could see lights here and there, but we had no idea what we were looking at, but it was enough to get us VERY excited! We had arrived at last!! Now, to convince immigration to let us in :)
We lined up at to wait our turn to go through. We get to the counter, and I hand over our passports. Then the questions start....
"Do you have a job?" - yes
"Do you have an address?" - no
"Where do you plan to stay?" - hotel
"Do you know anyone in Truro?" - only the people who hired me, does that count?
"Have you ever been to Canada before?" - no
"How long do you intend to stay in Canada?" - I'd like to stay 3 years if you'll let me
"Who is travelling with you" - i look at emily and caitlin standing right next to me - surely thats an obvious answer??? <sigh> just my two children i answer
"Do you have full custody?" - yes, do you need to see the documents?
"No, thats fine, but you'll need to show them to immigration"
Ummmmm.....ok??? I thought *this* was immigration???? "No maam, we're border security" Ok? Isn't that the same thing? Apparently not! Ok, so i've just sucked up to the wrong person. Lovely.
She stamps our immigration card and tells us to now proceed to immigration with a smile and a "welcome to canada". Cool!
So we then make our way over to immigration, and start the whole process again - seriously, it was all the same questions! I reckon they must have a script. Again, I was asked how long I wanted to stay for, so I again asked if I could stay 3 years - hey, no harm in trying! She said thats fine, and approved it! YESSSS!!!!!!!! So we are officially allowed to stay until 21st January 2014! <happy dance> Then the long process of her printing all the documents, one at a time. Our only difficulty is that Emily is on a student visa, which means she is only allowed to study in high school for 3 years. Which is a bit unfortunate when she only has 18 months of high school to do here! Hmmm....we'll cross that bridge when we get there I guess. She has to apply for a different kind of student visa to go to University. We'll see what happens.
Finally, all the documents were in order - we all now have lovely shiny permits fixed into our passports, and we were then handed back the immigration card again, to hand to *another* person on our way out. So we grab all our bags and make our way to the exit. I handed over the hard, and he looks at it and says "follow me please maam" and leads us to the little room out the back.
Oh, you have got to be kidding me!!!! After all this, and NOW you want to check my bags! I look at the pile of suitcases and think, geez, we're going to be here all night! Again, a barrage of questions, what are in the bags, what have you brought with you, how much is it all worth? Hmm...is this a trick question? I'm trying to remember if there is a limit on what you can bring into the country. I know you have to declare more than $10,000 cash, but I haven't heard about belongings! Ummm, umm, what do I say. I have no idea how much its all worth! And most of it is sentimental value, how can you put a price on that! So I pluck a figure out of thin air, he writes it down, radios the information to someone on his little walkie talkie, and then he makes small talk for a bit, asking how insane are we to want to move to Canada in the middle of winter! LOL And I'm still standing there thinking, for gods sake hurry up and get this over with, we're tired. But he made no move to put the bags onto the counter. Finally another guy comes out with a piece of paper, which the immigration guy hands to me and says this is your receipt, hold onto it incase the tax department ever asks for it. Welcome to Canada!
I have NO idea what *that* was all about! I'm sure i'll find out soon enough! LOL
So we are now free to leave the airport! WOOHOO!!! i call the hotel to arrange the shuttle bus which is 5 minutes away. The bus shows up, and we quickly get our jackets on - well, caitlin and I do, emily insists that its not THAT cold and walks outside in her t-shirt. Did I mention that it was MINUS 10 degrees!!! With SNOW on the ground!!!! She got about halfway to the shuttle, and starts to slow down, then her shoulders roll in as she tries to huddle to protect herself from the cold, then she changed her mind and ran back to grab her jacket!
Sorry - a bit blurry, but its very hard to take a photo when you're laughing so hard at how ridiculous your daughter is, plus still push a trolley of bags, oh, and also try and protect yourself from the cold too!
So here we are - no more planes for a while now, thank god. We have made it to Canada!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment