And It Ends ...

23 July - Will I be missing a day's entry? All signs point to the probable. Well, it appears that this is it. Got woken up by blinding morning sunlight but didn’t get moving for a short while, and after that it took even longer to get morning necessities like caffeine injection and ingestion of foodstuffs. Where to eat breakfast was an important consideration - Fet's was chosen because well, I like their pancakes and the rude waitress whose name I can never remember is certainly someone i'll miss but for what reasons I do not know why. Half price and a kiss goodbye was certainly reason enough for going there. Made a few more goodbyes, some pretty heart rending and some more casual - its always harder to say goodbye to a few people, especially the ones who you just wish you met an age earlier rather than two weeks before your departure date. Is a 9-day girlfriend better than no girlfriend at all? Oh, I certainly think so. Had to get a bit creative with the packing job - good thing old baby blue is in a box with room for quite a bit of padding in the form of the various possessions i'd accumulated throughout the year (pity he weighs as much as a tank though). Spent half an age looking for a wifi access point to refresh my AvantGo and get some email out of the pda before departure was unsuccessful. Transport for the first leg of my exit out of Canadia was provided by Kristil who borrowed a truck from a friend and her, Becky and me loaded my scant possessions into the back and headed out to Van airport. Going on an international flight always brings it plethora of incidents - ran low on gas, pump wasn’t working at petrol station, had to make a diversion to drop off a broom to becky's sister (???), sent to the wrong ticket counter, was charged extra for the bike box despite being assured by Lufthansa and Flight centre that I wouldn't but before I knew it I found myself checked in and being rushed through the gates with barely a chance to say goodbye to the girls seeing me off. Well, I didn’t cry but I did want to. I don’t know when i'll see Kristl or the other vancouverites i've known over the past year again but one thing I do know is that I will be seeing some of them - whether back home, back in vancouver (intention to return is 100%) or somewhere else (it's a small world out there).
In any event, once I made it through the duty free I found myself at border security - the flight was going to stopover at Honolulu and US Homeland Security recognises a stopover as a visit to the states. Guard checked my passport and sent me to an agent, queued for a while then the agent told me that my visa waiver (from the road trip a few months previously) had expired and I had to reapply for the waiver. Sent back filled out the form and the guard said go to Gate 2, went to gate 2 and the miserable f**king lowlife c**t of a border agent condascendingly told me to wait 5 minutes then sent me to another queue (can't you see the 'closed' sign? The guard told me to come here, you magnanimous prick!) then while I was queuing at the next gat the opened up again and I had to go see him. Then the collosal prick told me that my waiver had expired ... Yeah, that's why i've filled out the green form like your f**king colleague told me to. Agent - When did you go the USA? When did you get back? Um, maybe the dates on the stamps of the passport page that you're lookingat right now - date of entry to USA, date of entry to Canada? After the waiver has expired you can't visit the USA for 12 months - I just rejected someone for that today. I only found out I was stopping in the USA today (the Air Canada girl who confirmed my booking told me it was a direct flight) and I was told we weren't even going to leave the plane (apparently we have to get off the plane). I'll let you go through this time but when you leave the USA you have to hand in this card - leave the usa, so I do get off the plane? When you leave the usa you have to hand in this card, do you understand? Yes, I fucking understand you miserable bastard. Good luck (edge of sarcasm). Well, I guess you had to be there but, believe me, that border security guard was on a power trip and I had no choice but to grit my teeth and swallow my pride because any outburst is certainly going to have repurcussions. Well, made it though there and got through the customs declaration without any incident and before iknew it I was on a plane and en route to the place where I belong.