Crossing the border to Canada was more difficult than antipicated. The border guards seemed convinced that we were terrorists and delayed us for a long time while searching our car and interrogating me. Eventually they let us in, and we drove to Mission to stay with John and Hetty, who we only knew through e-mail. The following day we spent in Vancouver, a city that seemed to be completely dominated by the Chinese.

July 27, Saturday

We got up at 0800. Gisela had made scones (called biscuits in the USA) for breakfast, which was excellent and felt more like a typical Norwegian breakfast. After packing our stuff, we said goodbye to Vernon and Gisela and then we drove the short distance to Port Havelock. It was a nice little town, so before getting on the ferry we walked through the main street and visited some shops. I also called John to tell him we would be arriving in Canada today. I had never talked to him before but he seemed very nice on the phone.

The ferry left at 1115 and after a brief detour we found the way towards Canada. On our way we came to the "Deception Pass", which made a striking resemblance to "Justøybroa" outside Lillesand in Norway. The view from the bridge was exactly as the view from that bridge over "Blindleia", so it was very beautiful. For a brief lunch, we stopped at a gas station and had a sandwich each. Then we continued towards the border.

We had expected the border crossing to go smoothly, since as Norwegians you are usually free from suspicion. However, to our surprise, at the border we were asked to park the car and come inside. A young, tall and lean guy, looking very grumpy, first asked us some questions. "Have you been to Canada before?". "No", "Where in Canada did you visit last time?". "But, we haven't been here before!". "But you just said that you had been visiting here before". "No, we didn't say that".

Now the guy was suspicious as he seemed to believe there had been a contradiction in our statements. (Yes, he really was that intelligent!) He started asking more questions! "Where were we going to stay?" "How did I know John?" Finally, he disappeared for a few minutes before returning to tell us that they were going to search our car! We could do nothing but wait, looking at the three officers searching our car and opening our bags and suitcases for at least 20 minutes. At first, this was quite annoying but after a while we started to see the funny side of it.

Obviously, they didn't find anything suspicious in the car, so the guy was really in a bad mood when he returned. "Who are you going to visit?", he asked again, this time taking John's name down on a piece of paper. He also wanted his adress, which I didn't have, but I instead (perhaps being overly friendly) offered to find John's phone number, which he didn't want. Then he disappeared for another 10 minutes (probably just going into his office and putting his feet up on his desk), before returning again.

This time he asked who of us was the best English speaker, and I volunteered. I was then led into a room with a phone. He told me to pick up the phone as somebody (I don't remember where the caller was located) would interrogate me further. There was a woman with a friendly voice on line. She asked me a few questions about where I lived, what kind of job I had, what our plans in Canada were, how long we had been in the US, when were we planning to return, where would I stay in Canada, how did I know John etc. I answered as friendly as I possibly could, smiling all of the time at the grumpy young official who was watching me speak. The questions were really easy and I could have answered whatever I wanted without them having any way of verifying my information.

Eventually she told me to hand the phone to the young guy, which I did. After a short pause, he said to her "Yes, that's how it was...I wish you could have been here with me". Then he realised that I was still standing there, listening in on the conversation, and told me to leave.

Around 5 minutes later he arrived, this time finally stamping our passports and letting us into Canada. The whole process had taken more than an hour, during which there had been a steady flow of traffic across the border, but nobody else having been taken in for questioning. I asked him whether we looked particularly suspicious, or whether the whole thing was a routine check. "Just routine", he mumbled, not looking happy at all.

Before leaving we opened up our bags and checked that they hadn't broken or stolen anything while searching the car. I also got out all my dollar bills and counted them, but everything seemed to be okay. At least the border guys hadn't requested any "gifts" for letting us into Canada!

Our first impression of Canada (or at least British Columbia) was that it looked exactly like just another state in the USA, and this was also our lasting impression. There were small differences like distances being measured in kilometers and all signs being in both French and English, but apart from that, the towns looked similar, the shops looked similar and the people behaved similarly. However, Canada would turn out to be a great deal cheaper than the US on most accounts.

We drove to Mission and stopped at a mall. There I went into a supermarket called London Drugs to phone John. Ten minutes later he arrived to pick us up. We had never seen a picture of him or Hetty, so it was quite exciting to wait for him. Each time somebody arrived we examined them, and if they didn't look nice we hoped it wouldn't turn out to be Hetty and John. Fortunately, John seemed like a nice guy when he arrived :-) "You don't look at all like in your pictures", was his first remark!

We followed him back to his house on the outskirts of Mission. On coming inside, he first had to tell us a secret. Apparently Hetty was not around, but was visiting some relatives in Europe. However, he hadn't mentioned this before, being afraid that then we might not come! We talked for a while until John had dinner almost ready, at which point his neighbours Kurt and Lisa also arrived. Kurt was originally from Denmark and Lisa from Finland, but they had lived in Canada for a long time. They were very nice people, too!

John turned out to be excellent at cooking. He made us a three course meal, first soup, then rice, fish and other seafood, and cake for dessert. John, Lisa and Kurt were extremely talkative and it was very interesting to have dinner with them.

After having eaten, it was suggested that we should all go to an abbey where there would be a great view. It was only a few minutes drive to the abbey. The area around the abbey was very nice with green mowed lawns and the place looked very "relaxing". There was a view over the river with some mountains in the background. Kurt had brought along his dog, a Huskey called Chasha(???) which we said hello to.

On coming back to John's place, we talked with him for a while before going to bed. He and Hetty had toured Asia recently and he was especially fascinated by China, telling us all kinds of stories about what they had seen and done. "You know what", he would say, pausing briefly while looking around at everybody to ensure that we were understanding. "In China, me and Hetty did........" and then a story followed :-) It seems we really need to visit China soon!

Eventually we all retired to bed. Tor and Kirsten were sleeping in the main house, while Tina and I had our room in a cabin in the garden. We had to use the bathroom in the main building, though, but this was no problem.

July 28, Sunday

We got up at 0800 and John already had breakfast ready. For once we were able to have bread for breakfast, which was a nice change. Today we were going to Vancouver on our own. Usually there was a lot of traffic there, but being Sunday, John expected that it wouldn't be too bad. He also gave us a map and told us where to drive.

Vancouver was only about 50 km from Mission, but there were suburbs almost all the way there. Our first impression on coming into the city was that it looked to have a very big Chinese community. There were signs in Chinese everywhere and in some places almost only Chinese people out in the streets. Later we would see that just about every shop was run by the Chinese as well! I had no idea that they had such a massive influence on Vancouver.

The downtown area at first looked rather empty, which at least it made it easy to find a place to park. We had some cake at a restaurant called White Spot before going out to explore the downtown. After walking around a little bit, we found some streets that were busier and the city in general started to become more lively as well, with more traffic.

There were trolley buses giving hop-on hop-off tours of the city. Not knowing quite where the most interesting parts of the city were, we decided to go on such a tour. It cost 25$ each and we boarded at somewhere called Canada Place. After driving around the downtown area for a while and being informed about the various sights, we reached a very busy street where we got off to have lunch. For simplicity, we just went to McDonald's. It was very cheap (roughly the same amount of Canadian dollars as it cost in US dollars in the USA), but also very poor quality (even for McDonald's).

We walked around the street, visiting several shop before getting on another trolley bus. This one took us through Stanley Park, which seemed quite nice, and around most of the city. At one point we drove past a race track where an Indycar race with lots of spectators were underway. A place called Gastown, close to where we started out, looked really nice, so we got off there and walked around for a while before returning to the the car.

Although there probably were more cars than usually in the city due to the Indycar race, driving out of Vancouver turned out to be no problem either. On our way back to Mission we stopped at a mall, which unfortunately turned out to be mostly closed (what, they close the malls on Sunday evening in this country!?). A large bookstore was open though, and after taking a look we went to a restaurant for dinner. I had fettucini with chicken and a Ceasar Salad, all of which was very good. Finally, we stopped at McDonald's to have an ice cream for dessert.

Despite going the wrong way at one point, we managed to find our way back to John's without any major problems, arriving around 2100. We talked with him for the rest of the evening, and both me and Tina also borrowed his computer to check our e-mail. Eventually we went to bed around 2320.