Farm Country

TD: Himne’s sister, Gaudia, was denied a tourist visa from the US embassy in Calgary. They said they simply could not process a non-Canadian foreigner from their office (they essentially only process non-Canadians living in Canada). While I was in the lobby I saw all sorts of these foreigners get tourist Visas – foreigners that did not have any US sponsor. I understand that those foreigners were residents of Canada (guest workers, etc..) but a number of foreigners from all over the world (including Middle East) were cleared for visits to the US, meanwhile myself holding my American passport with a guest that had all the 100 pieces of paperwork and identification were refused. Basically people can travel around the world and pickup visas as they need them, but to visit the US as a tourist you have to travel all the way back to your home country to apply. I understand we have a security issue in the states, but not having any appeal process or alternate paths to obtain a tourist visa is insane.

It’s really hard to get a visa if you follow the rules. Ironically it must be really easy to get into the US from Canada if you don’t. When we were travelling to Vancouver island I became aware how porous the border is via the islands and waterways around this area; in addition for the fun of it we took a detour when we got close to the US border near a town called Abbotsford (http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=abbotsford&sll=49.082412,-122.484512&sspn=0.404765,0.892639&ie=UTF8&ll=49.074766,-122.419281&spn=0.404823,0.892639&z=10&iwloc=A). We went down some random farm roads until we came up to the US border where it ended. I just wanted to see what the border looked like in some random rural area and it was quite pretty actually – just farmland. It must be so easy to get into the US from some random remote location along the Canadian border it makes the border check points seem irrelevant.

 

 

 

 

 

The US/Canada border.  The illusion of security.  What you can’t see from the picture is that this is just some random home’s driveway.  Behind Gaudia is nothing really but grass and farmland. 

Oh yeah – Farm Country…. Since we left Calgary its been nothing but farm country for two days.