Aber Ja!: May 2008

To make it a short story: I got on a plane to Canada (well, three different planes actually) and after about 24 hours of traveling all I needed to do was to grab my suitcase and walk through immigration. Which was easier said than done. Call me a naive blond European (well, besides the blond part) but I really hadn't expected to be questioned so thoroughly. My neat little story about traveling and visiting friends didn't hold together all too well and when they asked to call these friends I was visiting it quickly completely fell apart. Like me they were very unprepared and at this point there was nothing else to do than admit I was there to take care of their kids. So I was given those nice sheets of paper shown in the earlier posts and was told to get my European ass on to the first plane back to Germany. The first plane back to Germany was the one leaving next afternoon and the officers didn't want to spend the night at work so I was let out to stay with Simon and Meg. It was all very frustrating and annoying and I was so mad at myself for not counting on the worst in the first place. We came up with a lot of plan B's and C's and D's to enable me to stay or return but in the end we found out that none of them would work. I was really sad to go, Meg and Simon were so nice and the kids were great - I would have taken them all with me if I could (yea, I'd love to explain that to customs!)! So after another 36 hours of flying and waiting and going through security checks, fingerprinting, body scans and ridiculous questioning by the Americans I was picked up at the airport by Tobi not even four days after we'd said such a tearful goodbye. Now isn't that a nice story.

The very few pictures I got of Canada:

Canadian coffee and Meg taking me to the airport

The closest I got to the Rocky Mountains

A few views from the trip:

The cool part of the trip - besides the obvious coolness of having been kicked out of Canada - was all the nice people I met. Definitely made the flights much shorter. There was Diane (picture), a 50-something from Texas who had never been outside the U.S or on a plane before. I guess I became her new best friend when she couldn't get her seatbelt fastened and I pointed out that there are extensions for people with a few extra pounds. Diane was more than excited about her trip to Europe, her newborn grandchild and German pastry as well as her teen-like romance with a 70-something sugar daddy back home and we had some really fun conversation!

Then there was Kathryn, a 52-year-old returning from a week of tequila and dancing in Mexico. Kathryn had been an exchange student in Liège a long time ago and remembered it as the worst year of her life. She was very worried that I'd end up with some less nice people and made sure I got her phone number just in case. When I was sent out to get my suitcase she was waiting for me to find out what was taking so long with immigrations. She offered me to use her phone but the officer had kept the note with phone numbers so this very sweet woman went out and asked a bunch of people if they were or knew "Meg from Strathmore" so that they would know what to say in case the officer called (it was Simon picking me up and she didn't find him, but it would have been too late anyway).

Howard was an electrician who bought me a beer (or two) while we were waiting for our very late flight in Phoenix and let me use his new laptop. He was very sad when I told him I have the very same computer and it's worthless and even more sad when he realized I wouldn't miss my connecting flight and have dinner with him or stay in his 11-bedroom home. His friend whose name I forgot told me very interesting stories about visiting both sides of Berlin some twenty years ago. On the plane to Philadelphia I sat next to Paul who was a semi-retired helicopter pilot instructor with the army. Paul is one of the most pleasant personalities I have ever met, very open-minded and very interested in what I had to say as well as offering very interesting insights, stories and thoughts himself. We just talked through the whole 4+ hours about Iraq, Afghanistan, vegetarian food, weight loss, the difference between flying a helicopter and flying a plane, movies, Bush, Michael Moore, life choices, making decisions, 9/11 secrets, the Swedish welfare system, German food, and the silly arrogant flight attendant who wouldn't let us use the bathroom.

Some other people who really made my day were the airport shuttle driver who couldn't believe I was kicked out of Canada; the guy next to me in the sandwich-line who thought I had such a pretty name; and the security guy searching all my stuff who was so impressed by my pink-flowery laptop that he needed to tell me the story of all the different computers he had owned (he had a lot!). Now, the sad part of the story is I talked to more people during these few days than I have the last six months living in Mannheim.