Has Anything Interesting Ever Happened To You While Crossing The U.S. Border?
@danishcanadian (28953)
Canada
August 16, 2009 8:38pm CST
This weekend I traveled into the United States across the border from Windsor Ontario Canada into Detroit Michigan USA, on a bus. Everyone had to get off of the bus, take all belongings with them, and then get back on after being individually processed.
A British gentleman sat behind me on the bus. We were talking about the baseball game he was going to attend, and the birthday party I was going to attend. I went through customs first, then he went. By the time he got through, I was back on the bus. All went smoothly for me, however, when he got on, he had a funny story to tell.
"Did you know they had the audacity to ask me if I spoke English?" he asked. "We invented the language!" he continued. Imagine that!! Don't they know a British accent when they hear it?
I told this story to my husband, who was not with me at the time (I was travelling alone, and being an American himself, he concluded how he noticed that they seem to pick Americans with the lowest IQ's to be border guards. LOL
Has anything interesting happened to anyone else, while crossing the US border?
4 people like this
8 responses
@idowrite72 (2213)
• United States
18 Aug 09
I don't know that this is interesting, but rather insulting and I do wish I had come up with a smartass answer for the person talking to me, but I was NOT that type of person, at all. Back when it was first required that US citizens present their birth certificates when crossing into Canada, my boyfriend, at the time, and I, weren't aware of this. As the border guard was questioning us and found out that we didn't have our birth certificates and that I was a teacher, he said to me, "You're a teacher, you should have known that." Later I thought to say, and you're an idiot, does that make us even? But I couldn't do it and didn't think of it at that time anyway. Teachers really don't know everything! We were sent to the offices for processing and given permission to cross, but chose NOT to go across, after all.
@horsesrule (1957)
• United States
17 Aug 09
I have to say that fortunately I have not had any interesting US border crossings. We've gone by car into Mexico and on the way back into the US you have to stop and they go through your car and trunk to make sure you aren't smuggling in people and bad stuff but other than that, no interesting stories. I have to say that I am glad though because interesting usually isn't in our best interest, if you know what I mean!
1 person likes this
@polachicago (18716)
• United States
17 Aug 09
OMG, British asked if he knows English? Oh, some people in US are not so smart, your husband is right. Crossing the border? Lately I only traveled to Europe and they don't have borders between countries.
We shouldn't have border between US and Canada, don't you agree?
@gtargirl (5376)
• United States
18 Aug 09
Yeah. I was nineteen and crossing the border from Mexico into the USA side near San Diego. It's possible that I look like a Latino but I don't think so. The border patrol stopped our car. I was traveling with two very Caucasian friends who were asked to stay in the car. They took me aside and then escorted me up to a large room and proceeded to question me. I showed all papers including my CA driver's license.
They said I was a very good little actress, and could mimic a California girl accent very well, but they weren't convinced I wasn't coming into the US illegally. Anyhow, a few hours later they just told me to fork over $100 or face jail time. What? Jail time? And they said, "Do you know what they do with pretty little things like you in a Mexican prison." Um thanks for the compliment, no thanks. I paid the money and they let me go.
Haven't tried to cross the border of Canada yet!
@gtargirl (5376)
• United States
18 Aug 09
You mean go to the police? No, I never did. Actually, I don't know why I never did anything about it. I was just so glad to get out of there.
@dreamr802 (985)
• United States
17 Aug 09
When we crossed the boarder from NY to Canada it was my brother, sister, mom, dad and me. We were all in the car and all of us kids were younger. To make things easier my dad and mom told us kids that we shouldn't talk unless we were spoken to...well one of the guards asked for my parents id's and whatnot and he looked back at us kids because there was so much stuff in the car you could barely see us (5 ppl going away for a week and 1 of them was still a toddler so lots of toys for the long car ride)...well my sister was so excited that we were going to an amusement park so she kept asking "mommy where's the rocket?"while she was looking in her big bag of toys... Well the rocket was one of the kid rides at the amusement park we were going to...my parents tried to explain that to the guard but they decided to check our whole car and everything. Plus my dad had to somehow get everything back in the car, I vaguely remember it being a mess. It took us a half hour to get through the boarder...all because a 5 year old asked where the rocket was.
@ZephyrSun (7381)
• United States
17 Aug 09
LOL That's really funny. I have been through that boarder crossing once before 9-11 and Canada didn't stop us or anything, apparently you all let everyone in LOL Going back to the US the boarder post stopped us and asked tons of questions but the funny one after searching our car was, "do you have any weapons?" The man I was with couldn't help himself and said yeah didn't you see them all while you were searching the car? LOL They are dumb!
@Poison_Girl (4150)
• United States
17 Aug 09
I recently had a friend from London visiting me and we decided to visit Canada while he was here. We also went by bus and we were nervous about it because we thought he'd have trouble getting back in. Going into Canada, they questioned us and when they were finished, they told me I could get back on the bus and told him he'd have to go get his passport stamped. I thought that was odd, but we did what we were told. Come to find out, they told him that because they wanted to question him further. Funny thing is that coming back into the States, it was easy as pie. We walked outside and sort of "celebrated" the fact that there were no issues. But then one of the guys approached us and asked to see our passports again. Hmmm... We waited until we were back on the bus and well over the border. LOL
