God. DAMNIT.
I’m on a bus on my way back to Vancouver, after spending the better portion of the day sitting in a customs office at the US/Canada border. Short version: I got turned away. Turns out, there’s a perfect formula for this; it includes:
buying your ticket online, but choosing to pay at the bus station when you pick up the ticket. finding the ticket office closed, and having the bus driver offer to take your driver’s license and let you pay at the other end of the trip not knowing if you’re planning to return Saturday or Sunday, so not booking a return ticket not knowing where you’re staying in Portland, so putting “uncertain” on the customs sheet, not carrying any cash in your wallet, and finally not being able to quickly come up with a good way to prove that you actually live in Canada, when the officer stares you down.
Seriously, you’re supposed to travel with six months’ worth of your electrical bills and a copy of your mortgage? Nobody goddamned-well told me that, but apparently that’s what I’ve got to bring to them the next time I want to casually cross the longest unguarded border in the world.
fuck.