So after I left Brandon’s I was heading down to Toronto to pick up Phil. We were going to head to Niagara falls to hang out with our friend Marty and his girl, Vanessa. They just drove up from Texas with a trailer full of house, and unfortunately were denied at the border, and basically were stuck until paperwork could be filled out and all that jazz.
The drive down was absolutely fine. No snow, no wind, no nothing. Getting onto various skyways it was windy, and there was a light dusting of snow by the time we hit St.Kitts. And then, like 100 feet from the border, there was wind, and blowing snow, and lots of snow, and it was like a white-out blizzard. Very crazy. Driving into the states it continued with the blowing snow, the zero visibility and just massive piles of snow all over.
The border crossing was also strange. Me and Phil both had our passports. While the border patrol lady was scanning our passports the questions were as follows:
- Driver, where were you born?
- Passenger, where were you born?
- Where do you live?
- Have either of you lived in the states?
- Have either of you worked in the states?
- Have either of you gone to school in the states?
- Where are you going?
- When are you coming back?
Very rapid fire, and very strange. Thankfully me and Phil answered almost in sync with each other with exactly the same words, although he kept throwing in “ma’am” after every response, and the “When are you coming back” I said “This Evening” while he said “Tonight”
Got to the hotel, picked up Marty, went for groceries for Vanessa who was staying with the dogs. I realized that Cherry Coke is something I could purchase in large volumes and did so. Then we went to the bar that should have had the UFC fight but didn’t. Ordered chicken wings. (Poor phil, he’s a vegitarian and all they had left was chicken wings really, so he ordered fries)
Marty explained the Keno game to us, and we played 5 games with 9 numbers. There’s a new drawing every 4 minutes so we played for 20 minutes. We won 2 bucks and it cost us 5. Oh well! Just really sat. And talked. And it was brilliant.
Picked up smokes when I realized that America also has Almond M&Ms that aren’t available in the states. Asked if they had any in the store Marty was picking up his smokes, the girl knew what I was talking about (although none of my friends did, we’re all canadian so it just doesn’t exist in our mind) but couldn’t find any. The grocery store we went to earlier is 24/7 so my plan was to go back.
We went to the hotel, hung out some more there, sharing stories and adventures. Left the hotel probably around 2am. Went to the store, they had it. Even better, they had it 2 for 5 bucks for these giant bags. I picked up 2 bags of Almond, 1 bag of Dark chocolate (also non-existant to Canadians) and 1bag of mini’s (just bloody expensive normally) Phil grabbed a bag of Almond to try so I grabbed one more to even it out. Then I picked up a Rockstar (highly caffenated energy drink) for the drive home and Phil grabbed a bunch of Vitamin Water.
Got to the cash… getting charged full price. Asked the lady and she’s like “Oh you didn’t swipe your savings card” I don’t have one. So I didn’t get to save. And in the end spent $25 US on chocolate. I should have returned some of it, but MEH.
Drove home in about 90 minutes. Border patrol on the way back was easy, didn’t even need to give them passports, it was mostly:
- Where do you live?
- You are citizens of what country?
- Who’s car is this?
- How long were you out of the country?
- Where were you?
- Did you have anything to drink? (Because we said we were at a bar)
- Do you understand our powers of arrest for intoxication?
- Thank you.
Got phil home around 3am. Got myself home at around 3:30am. Was wired and wide awake til well past 6am. Finally went to bed, probably crashed around 7am. Woke up at 10am cuz some dude called me. Was up most of Sunday.
Crazy fun times. I miss that bunch in Niagara/St.Kitts. We will have to visit more often. Especially to go chocolate grocery shopping.
