Vancouver to Seattle.. to Seattle and home

Since the last post life in Vancouver has been pretty uneventful.  With the girlfriend, Katie going home for a couple of weeks to the States I’ve be catching up on work, spending all day everyday on the Mac.

Katie flew into Seattle last Thursday which is a four hour bus drive from Vancouver.  We’ve found that it’s much cheaper for her to fly domestic to the Seattle airport and take the bus across to Vancouver.  So after my work-a-thon while she was gone, I decided it was time for a mini vacay and went down to Seattle on the ‘Quick Shuttle’ to meet her.  The journey has again the amazing scenery which I am still not used to, passing Mount Baker along the way and approaching Seattle where the highest peak, Mount Rainier (4,392 m) dominates the horizon.  On arrival into the city I was blown away of how nice the city was, matching to the beauty of  Vancouver.

We planned a short two day stay in Seattle.

Day 1 -

Shopping – Being over the boarder there is a new mix of shops and of course the more favourable US$ to my £.  Great for shopping fans (Katie), not my favorite part of the trip, but I did treat myself to the new UFC Xbox game.

The Space Needle – Every city has a tourist view point and the needle is Seattle’s, 605ft with spectacular 520-degree views of the city and can apparently withstand a 9.5 earthquake, mental!  We had a crystal clear day so could even see Mount Ranier.

Seattle Aquarium, located on pier 59, the aquarium got off to a good start with a huge Octopus and it’s feeding session (Mackrel!).  But after that the aquarium went rapidly downhill.  It seemed a bit tatty, with only small holding tanks for the larger marine mammals on display…  no recreated natural environment for them to live in.  The fish displays were good, they did a great job displaying the unique aquatic environment of the Puget sound, even got to see salmon swimming upstream.  All in all though, no where near as impressive as my local aquarium in Hull; ‘The Deep’.

Day 2 -

Pike Place market – Home to the first world’s first ever Starbucks, which began as a small Seattle-based enterprise and has grown to global domination.  We had a swift lemonade, took a obligatory photo and were off.  In Vancouver, I boycott Starbucks and look for smaller local cafes… what Starbucks used to be to Seattle!  but, when in Rome…

Seattle Cruise – Borrrring-ish…  took the Argosy Bay cruise through the sound, saw some big ships being loaded, took in the seattle skyline, got a little sun.

Museum of Flight – Just outside of Seattle, ten minutes from downtown and near the current Boeing manufacturing plant, this museum stands on the site of the first Boeing production plant.  Took a ride in the Awesome flight simulator, toured Air Force One, and a  British Airways Concorde – got an autobiography of a cold war pilot autographed!

It was time to return to Vancouver, and with two tickets booked on the budget bus service ‘Greyhound’ we headed home.  We arrived at the US/Canada border for the immigration check.  Everyone has to get off the coach with all luggage and walk through the border immigration, like you would in an airport.  It was about 22:30 and there was only one lady officer for our coach.  The process seems really strange to me, everyone stands in a que and one by one you approach the officer and get interrogated as to what you are entering Canada for.  Everyone hears the questions being asked and the relayed answers so you get a small insight into everyone’s lifes.  If you satisfy the officer and have the sufficient docs they let you in.  If not.. you get asked to go to the secondary immigration room.  I found this all very cool.  Two people in front of us got asked to go to secondary immigration, one guy whos story was that he had met a Canadian via xbox live a week ago, quit his job and with $500 and his xbox controller and headset was going to stay with him for a while.  The second, a crazy looking lady with a huge mysterious box had no passport or documents other than a Costco Store card for ID.

It got to me and, having crossed the US / Canada a number of times and being pulled up a number of times I knew I was a ‘flag’, being self employed working from the internet may lead them to think I could easily work ‘illegally’ in their country.  But this time I was fine and the officer sent me through to the depart room where I would wait for Katie.  Katie’s turn.. and the officer sent her to secondary immigration.  This was pretty surprising seeing as though the US and Canada have a mutual ‘friendship’ boarder agreement and Katie is a US citizen.  I found it amusing that she got pulled up and I didn’t but the second after that thought crossed my mind, I was also sent walking to secondary immigration.  So we were now in the realms of… Xbox guy and crazy Costco Lady, WTF?!  A long story short Kate was refused entry but I was granted entry, based on her not having a print out of a return journey showing she was leaving Canada at some point.  It was now midnight and there was no way I was leaving Katie behind.

So immigration now having stopped us from entering Canada, now told us we had to leave and go back to the US side.  I was expecting they would provide us with some advice and maybe even transport to the nearest hotel, but no, we were shown the door and told to walk across the highway to the US boarder patrol to re-enter the US, carrying all our luggage, like criminals in the night.  So with 5 items of luggage we started walking across the lanes of traffic to get back to the US border.  US immigration gave us the number of a taxi service and recommended we head to Blaine, Washington – the nearest town with a motel.  At this point xbox guy seemed to be panicking so I told him to come along with us.  We crossed the road to the border’s duty free shop and sat outside of the building till well after 1:00am, waiting for the taxi, just the two of us and Xbox friend.

After a long wait with Xbox friend and my hysterical girlfriend, a taxi minivan rolled up and twenty minutes later dropped us off at the “Motel International”.  The motel was like the one’s you see in the movies where the mayor / police chief takes a hooker to cheat on his wife… and is then murdered by a serial killer.  mismatched lamps, cigarette holes in the bedding, and a still hysterical girlfriend.  Def horror movie material!

The next morning we found a great breakfast place called ‘Tony’s Just-a-bite’, the lovely couple who owned it helped us out immensely giving us bus and taxi info so we could return to Seattle and try and resolve the problem.

Back in Seattle Katie went to the Canadian Consulate where staff there were confused to why she was stopped and told her she would be fine if she had print-outs of a return journey and bank statement and that it would be easier if she flew.   So now two days later (full of more shopping…. ah) we headed for the border.  This time we split up, Kate took a flight and I opted for the cheaper ‘Quick Shuttle’ the service which I previously took.  No problems for me at the border after I had a male officer this time who was into Rugby, after some rugby chat he gave me a stamp and I was home-free.  Kate now obviously with notes on her immigration file had some problems at the border but after a couple painful hours at immigration with the refugees and criminals, she also got stamped through and headed back to our Vancouver home.

Wouldn’t choose to repeat the issues at immigration, but we did enjoy spending vacay time in Seattle – looking forward to heading back later in the year!!