Our Canadian Border Adventure

I'm normally a super, super prepared traveler. I plan out our itineraries for every moment of every day (even if we don't ever actually follow them). I look for things that might complicate our trip and try to avoid them ahead of time. If there is money that is needed or tickets that need to be printed, or anything that should be done ahead of time I get it done. I love to plan things this way. Herman and I actually complement each other perfectly as we travel. He doesn't plan ANYTHING. He loves to have adventures and just see what happens. While my method tends to bind us and keep us from some fun and memorable experiences, Herman's method can create chaos and keep us from doing some things we want to do. The two of us together manage to work out a system that allows enough planning to keep things running smoothly while giving us tons of opportunities for adventures and memories.

I am especially diligent when it comes to planning foreign trips. We haven't gone on all that many foreign trips yet as a family, but I was a master of documentation when we did our grand month in China in 2011. I had every piece of documentation with backup copies and contingency plans if things went wrong. I was ready. That's the sort of planning I do. That's the sort of traveler I am.

That's what made our adventure yesterday and today so ridiculous. It shouldn't have happened. I should have known better. I just wasn't thinking at all, and I created a royal mess for our family as we planned a "quick" little one night trip into Canada to see the Canadian side of Niagara Falls and spend the night in the area.

We were on our way to drop Savannah and Spencer off for EFY in Palmyra, NY, and we had some time to spare. Spencer has this mini little obsession with all things Canadian, but he has never been there. The last time we were close to Canada we didn't have our passports yet, so all we could do was look across the border longingly, unable to go any further. This time we would be ready since all of us have passports.

Well ... most of us.

Minsy still has her Chinese passport. I never got around to getting her American passport. Mostly that was because we were still working on getting her age changed, and I didn't want to mess with having to change a passport age. I never actually looked to see how foreign passports work, but I knew that the kids' passports lasted five years. I figured Minsy's passport would last that long as well. All would be fine, right?

In the past several months I have felt prompted to get Minsy a new American passport, but I never sat down to actually do it. Big, big mistake.

As we headed north to cross the border we found ourselves on a super long bridge ... Peace Bridge. About halfway across the bridge we came to the international border between the United States and Canada. As I looked at the two country flags on either side of the UN flag I started to think about Minsy's passport ... and I panicked. I began to worry that Minsy's Chinese passport was going to be a problem, and I wondered how the border patrol would handle it. Of course, at this point there really was nothing that we could do. There was nowhere to turn around. We were just going to have to go through the line and see what happened.

A little side story that didn't involve passports ... We were stuck in traffic on the bridge. A lot of traffic. It was stop and go traffic that was going to take about a half hour to make the short trip. All would be fine, except (of course) that JoJo ended up having to go to the bathroom. Badly. Really badly. There was nothing to do really unless he were to jump out of the car, head to the side of the bridge, and pee over the side. That wasn't going to be a great solution, so we decided to go with our best option. We had a water bottle in the car, and after emptying it out it became the perfect receptacle for JoJo's excess bladder contents. JoJo is somewhat of an expert in this method of waste disposal since he was forced to do this when we were traveling from Guangzhou to Hong Kong in China. At a certain point in the trip the train closes the bathrooms, so he had no other choice. He did just fine then. He could do it again today. But, you see, the Chinese bottles had a bit wider top than our American water bottle. JoJo was going to have to maneuver things to get the pee into the right spot, and he was having a hard time figuring out how to make things work. Herman kept asking me to help him get the right angle, but there was no way I was getting involved. Finally, Hyrum sighed really loudly and said, "I'll do it." He assisted, and JoJo got the job done. Hooray! When we approached the border station a large sign explained that we needed to declare any weapons we had in the car. I jokingly said that we were going to have to declare JoJo's pee bottle. I didn't really think that anyone was listening to me. Turns out I should maybe think a bit before I blurt out things like that around young children. When we arrived at the gate the agent asked us if we had any weapons to declare. Herman said no, but then we heard this little voice in the back say rather loudly, "But we do have my pee bottle up in the front that might be a weapon." JoJo was just trying to be honest, I think. Our entire car burst out laughing. The border agent just looked at JoJo in all seriousness and said, "Well, I don't really need to see that." Too funny!

When we got to the inspection site where we needed to produce our passports the border agent was excellent. He was obviously French Canadian, and he spoke with a pronounced French accent. He wished us Bonjour, and welcomed us to Canada. It was super cool. I don't know why, but I never really thought about there actually being French Canadians in Canada who spoke with a big accent. That shouldn't be a surprise, I guess, but it was for me. I thought all Canadians, even the ones in Quebec, basically talked a lot like people in the US. But this guy had the coolest French accent. I could have listened to him for a long time.

We did get to talk to him a bit more than average because when he looked at our passports he noticed Minsy's Chinese passport and found it to be a problem. We explained who she is and why she had a Chinese passport, but it was complicated, so he couldn't send us through. We had to park at the station and go in to talk with the Canadian immigration workers. He assured us that it wouldn't be too much of a deal. We could figure things out pretty quickly ... hopefully.

When Herman and I got into the building there was a short line of about three people. While we were sitting in line we started to really think about what a mess we might have created for ourselves. If Minsy's passport could not get her into Canada then what about getting back into the US? We were pretty much standing in No Man's Land, not really in Canada, but not not really in the US either. When we got to the front desk we realized that things might be even more complicated than we thought. If Minsy was truly a Chinese citizen then she would need to have a visa to enter Canada or the US. Obviously, she is no longer a Chinese citizen. She is American. As an American she wouldn't need a visa, but we had no proof with us that she was actually an American. We didn't have an adoption certificate. We didn't have her naturalization papers. We didn't have her new birth certificate. We had nothing. Complicating things was the fact that Minsy is now officially two years younger than her Chinese passport states, her name is different, and she looked totally different as well. What a mess!

We weren't actually terribly concerned about getting into Canada. If we couldn't get in, then we couldn't get in. We'd just cancel our hotel reservations and check out the American side of Niagara Falls. But we got really worried wondering about how we were going to get her back into the United States with this passport. The Canadians seemed fairly laid back about everything, but we knew that the Americans were probably not going to be so lenient. That freaked us out a bit. We began to wonder if we were going to be in our very own episode of "The Terminal," stuck between borders with no way to escape. We talked to the Canadian border agent about this, and she kindly called over to the American side to see what they recommended. They said that there shouldn't be a problem. We would have to go talk to US immigration on the way back, just like we were talking to Canadian immigration on the way out. No big deal. The Canadian border agent promised us that she would not let us through if she thought there would really be any problem for us getting Minsy back in the states. She stamped our passports and gave us the opportunity to have our Canadian adventure that night. Hooray!

She originally wasn't going to stamp our passports, but the kids really, really wanted a Canadian passport stamp. Herman told her that it was Spencer's big dream to come to Canada. She was so impressed with the fact that there was this boy out there who desperately wanted to visit Canada that she asked if she could come out and say hello. So we all headed out of the building and came to our parking spot. I think Spencer and Minsy were a bit confused and maybe a tiny bit worried about why we opened the door and told them to come out of the car. But it was only for a picture, so all was well.



This was the super nice border agent who helped us get things figured out so that Minsy could get into Canada. Such a sweetheart!

When we got back into the car and started driving I looked on my camera and found a bunch of pictures that Savannah had taken while we were inside the building. A bunch. Savannah is not really much of a picture taker, so this was surprising. What was even more surprising was the subject of these pictures. They were all of one of the Canadian border agents. Pictures of him walking. Pictures of him talking. Pictures of him laughing. Lots and lots of pictures. Why? Well, Savannah explained that he was the most beautiful man she had ever seen. Savannah does not normally gush about guys, but she was gushing about this one. I think she has decided to move to Canada where they seem to have the most beautiful border patrol agents in the world. Here's the subject of her mini photo documentary:

Really, the pictures don't do him justice. He was a very nice looking border agent, and I think he has seriously gotten Savannah interested in looking into the qualifications needed to join the Canadian border patrol in the future. She cracks me up. Our informal observations definitely showed that Canada does have the most beautiful border agents, both men and women. So there's something to ponder, I guess.

We had a ton of fun in Canada. I really want to take some time to explore more of Canada in the future. An evening there was not enough. It is such a beautiful country and I love the French culture and language sprinkled all around. But I'm not going to talk about our experiences in Canada for this blog post. They'll get their own little space in another post coming soon. This post is just dedicated to our adventures at the border, so I'll just focus on our experiences there.

So now ... on to our experience trying to get Minsy back into the US. Sadly this part of the saga was not nearly so smooth and drama free.

When we woke up on Monday we knew that we needed to get Savannah and Spencer back to Palmyra, NY sometime between noon and 2 pm so that they could get checked in for EFY. We anticipated our wait at the border to be around an hour, so we planned accordingly. This time we chose a different entry bridge since apparently the Peace Bridge is the busiest and most stringent border crossing in the area. We hoped if we tried to re-enter by Niagara Falls we would have a bit better luck. We ended up getting to the bridge at around 9 am, and it was true ... this border crossing was much smoother with a lot fewer cars, but we still couldn't get easily back in the US. We needed to pull the car over and enter the immigration building. No big deal. That's what we had to do when we crossed into Canada. We knew the drill. We were prepared for it.

Except we weren't. The US procedures are totally different than the Canadians. It was a complete mess. A complete mess.

Herman totally broke the no cell phone rule to document our experience.

Instead of being able to just walk inside and walk right up to an immigration officer, they send everyone into what is basically a giant herding room. They confiscated all of our passports at the car checkpoint, so none of us were going to be able to get into the US until we got those back. We just trusted that they actually sent them to the immigration workers because once we arrived at the room there was no one to greet us, no one to explain what was going on, no way to see if anyone was actually working on your case. We were just expected to sit there and wait until they called our name. We weren't allowed to use cell phones. There was a TV set up, but there was no sound, so it wasn't all that helpful. The good news was that there were only four other groups ahead of us, so we figured we wouldn't have long to wait.

That's what we thought.

But then we sat there forever and watched as one group after another was called ahead of us. As we waited our holding cell went from having around ten people to being completely full with at least a hundred people or more. It was standing room only. One group ahead of us went into the secured area to talk to immigration, but after that it seemed as if the people being called in were those who arrived long after we had. There were at least forty Dutch citizens waiting, and even though they arrived at least an hour after us, it seemed like they were able to step into the holding cell, wait five minutes, and then have their names called. Hardly any wait at all. On the other hand, we heard nothing. Nothing.

The room is starting to fill. By the time we left it was completely full
with standing room only. Surely with all the money we spend on
immigration we could develop a smoother process ... especially since so
many of these people here come from ally countries and have already jumped through
the visa hoops they needed to jump in order to visit our country. These
aren't political refugees or dangerous criminals. They are mostly middle
class tourists. Sure, check them out and make sure they are safe, but
does it have to take so long? Ugh!

I started to panic and think that they had confiscated our passports but not given them to anyone in immigration. We could be there all day. There was no way to even ask anyone if they were working on our problem because there was no person working at the window. Whenever someone needed to enter the room they would call their name on a terribly inadequate speaker system and then unlock the door for them remotely. Even when people tried to ask someone who poked their head into the holding area, they were quickly told to just sit down and wait for their name to be called. But even as bad as I felt like our situation was, there were others who had it worse. We talked to a very nice young couple from Cuba who had arrived an hour before we did. They were still there as we left, and they were probably going to be there for a long time since the situation between the US and Cuba is so volatile. They were hoping to visit family members in Florida, but their chances seemed fairly slim. So sad.

They're thrilled. Really.

We had left the kids in the car since we expected this to only take a few minutes. After sitting there for half an hour we called Savannah and told her to bring the posse up to the holding area. I'm glad we did because we were sitting there for two hours. TWO HOURS!!!! I was really starting to freak out, but there was no one to freak out to since all the workers were tucked away in their safe little office area. We talked to all the hundreds of foreigners stuck in limbo with us, and all of them asked how come we were sitting there since we are all American citizens. Good question. We explained our predicament with Minsy's passport, and I felt more and more stupid each time we explained. We shouldn't be there at all, and it was only my stupidity that caused this. As irritated as I was with what seemed to be an inefficient and completely unorganized and random process, the reality is that we wouldn't have to even mess with it if I'd done my parental job right.

Just a side note ... there were so many nationalities sitting there with us. If I wasn't so frustrated by our situation I think I would have found it fun and fascinating to sit there and listen to everyone. Herman was his normal conversational self, and he talked to several people waiting. It helps that he is fluent in Spanish and Portuguese, and almost everyone could speak English well, so he was able to talk with lots of people. I'm not sure exactly what happened, but I think I was a bit caught up in the spirit of international languages. At one point Minsy was sitting on my lap and needed to stop doing whatever it was she was doing. I leaned down to tell her to stop. I have no idea what came out of my mouth, but it wasn't English. It wasn't exactly gibberish either. It was some sort of weird crossbreed of languages. Savannah was sitting next to me, and she just gave me a weird look and asked me what in the world I was saying. No clue. Just a byproduct of sitting in an international holding area for two straight hours I guess.

So anyway, after sitting and sitting and sitting and sitting forever I was finally in complete panic mode. If we didn't get this taken care of in the next few minutes there was no way that we could get Savannah and Spencer to Palmyra on time. I finally decided that I needed some divine assistance in this, so I did my best to say a good prayer in the middle of this immigration chaos. I said my prayer, and ten minutes later they called our name.

HALLELUJAH!!

We were the only family to actually cheer when they called our name. I'm not sure why more people don't do that after being stuck for so long, but we weren't ashamed. We were so glad to get out of that limbo.

Once we finally got into the magic immigration room the worker was so sweet to us. I appreciated that. Herman laughed at me because I had been fuming while we were in the holding area, but when this guy apologized for our long wait I just smiled and said, "Oh, it was no problem. We got to meet some nice people." He likes to call me Miss Bold-Behind-Their-Backs. I'll own that. I wasn't interested in any more drama. I just wanted out of there. But what really got me completely irritated with the whole process was when the immigration officer explained that Minsy didn't even really need to have any documentation because of her age. We could have just gotten to the border, handed over everyone else's passports, and she would have been able to ride right through with no problems. URG!! I wish we knew that earlier. I could have saved a ton of hassle. Why that took two hours of waiting in immigration for them to tell us that and let us through, I'll never know or understand.

But the good news is that we didn't have to stay in international limbo. We made it home to the good old USA. Lesson learned. First thing on the agenda when we get back home ... I'm getting Minsy her US passport.