Flying into Vancouver, BC (from Juneau, AK via Seattle) once I somehow got flagged for a full interrogation which meant I got to spend two hours with a very young agent who asked me every question he could think of. He seemed very skeptical that anyone would go to Vancouver for legitimate tourism, which is bizarre since Vancouver attracts tourists from all over the world.
After establishing my full work and travel history he grills me on why I was going to Vancouver when there were so much closer American cities I could go to like LA and Chicago. I had to explain to him that Juneau was actually much closer to Vancouver than any of those places. Again a bit weird for him not to know, since hundreds of thousands of people fly into Vancouver every year to catch cruises to Alaska.
Finally he thinks he's caught me in a lie when he asks me when the last time I had been to South America was. I told him I had never been to South America. His eyes light up because he clearly thinks he's got me busted (for travelling to South America, I guess). He pulls a 10 pataca note out of my wallet left there from a recent trip to Macau- how do I explain that?
That's from Macau.
But you said you'd never been to South America?
I haven't, Macau is in China.
But what about the Spanish writing?
Actually that's Portugese. Macau is a former Portugese colony and still officially bilingual. (Also, the Portugese writing is less prominent than the Chinese writing, and the bill shows obviously Chinese architecture- even if you didn't know where Macau was South America was a bad guess.)
Um, I have to go talk to my supervisor? (Or more likely to Google Macau.) When he got back he had about 15 minutes of questions, but his heart clearly wasn't in it and he eventually let me in.
Luckily Vancouver is actually a very nice place and I had a great weekend, even if two hours of it we're spent in the immigration interogation hall.
After establishing my full work and travel history he grills me on why I was going to Vancouver when there were so much closer American cities I could go to like LA and Chicago. I had to explain to him that Juneau was actually much closer to Vancouver than any of those places. Again a bit weird for him not to know, since hundreds of thousands of people fly into Vancouver every year to catch cruises to Alaska.
Finally he thinks he's caught me in a lie when he asks me when the last time I had been to South America was. I told him I had never been to South America. His eyes light up because he clearly thinks he's got me busted (for travelling to South America, I guess). He pulls a 10 pataca note out of my wallet left there from a recent trip to Macau- how do I explain that?
That's from Macau.
But you said you'd never been to South America?
I haven't, Macau is in China.
But what about the Spanish writing?
Actually that's Portugese. Macau is a former Portugese colony and still officially bilingual. (Also, the Portugese writing is less prominent than the Chinese writing, and the bill shows obviously Chinese architecture- even if you didn't know where Macau was South America was a bad guess.)
Um, I have to go talk to my supervisor? (Or more likely to Google Macau.) When he got back he had about 15 minutes of questions, but his heart clearly wasn't in it and he eventually let me in.
Luckily Vancouver is actually a very nice place and I had a great weekend, even if two hours of it we're spent in the immigration interogation hall.
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