We did it!

Yesterday, I officially became a permanent resident of Canada. In other words, I got my "green card!" I was pretty nervous about it as I just wanted it to be done and I was worried that they'd find something wrong with the paperwork or with the car or whatever. Surprisingly, we spent maybe a half hour total actually at the border--the other 6 hours that we were on our mission were spent moving my crap out of a storage space in Washington and moving it into our condo. As we were putting it into the Uhaul, we had to estimate how much each item was worth, which was, in my opinion, kinda worthless. How do you estimate the value of a She-Ra castle that was purchased for you in 1985? I would say that at least half of the stuff was purchased for me by someone else, so we had little to no clue of what to put.

Luckily, it didn't matter as they didn't even search the stuff. If we had to guess, we don't think they even opened the Uhaul to peek inside. I locked my car before going in, and they never asked for the keys, so we know for sure that they never searched that. We couldn't believe it! A 14' Uhaul full of stuff, and we don't think they ever looked inside! Jeff and I were thinking of possible reasons for this, and we think maybe since I've been through the border so much and never caused much trouble, they already felt comfortable with me and didn't feel the need to search my stuff. There must be some sort of logical explanation for it, but if not, wtf? That isn't safe! The Americans at least opened the Uhaul (it was empty at that point of course). I'm not complaining as it made things soooo much faster I'm sure, but isn't that kinda weird?

Anyways, we had completed all the paperwork ahead of time, as we've read you're supposed to do, but apparently people usually don't as the officer who processed everything told us we'd have a lot of downtime instead of filling stuff out while doing whatever she had to do. We waited maybe 10-15 minutes, and we were done! No lengthy line of questioning, no massive amount of paperwork to fill out, nothing. Importing the car was probably what took the most time to process, but other than that, I guess we had our ducks in a row.

Now I get to do all the things people usually do when they move somewhere: register and insure my car, get a new driver's license, etc. I will also sign up for MSP, which stands for "Medical Services Plan," the health insurance that is available to all permanent residents of Canada. I think that doing all these things will give me a wealth of new stuff to write about as all these processes sound somewhat different to me than what I'm used to. Even though I've been living here for 10 months now, I finally feel like I can "settle in," and at the same time, discover more about the country in which I am now allowed to live forever.

Crossing Over

Well, the moment we've all been waiting for has finally arrived: I have everything I need to land as a permanent resident in Canada. A few weeks ago the immigration folks asked me to send them my passport (thank God I had gotten a passport card too when I renewed), and they put a visa in it and sent it back. Now all we have to do is get my crap out of the storage space we rented in Washington, make a list of it all including the value of everything (that'll be fun), and bring it to the border. Yesterday, Jeff and I went to talk to the customs folks at the crossing where I'll be "landing," and both sides made the process sound so easy. Let's hope it is. On the American side, all I have to do is submit paperwork to officially export my car into Canada (not sure why they care about my car, but whatever). This is the crossing that I go through every day to go to work, and the officer who always gives me a hard time about my KY plate was making fun of me, telling Jeff how sick he is of seeing my KY plate go through. I cannot wait to get a BC plate--the KY plate has been subject to much questioning and confusion. It will be so nice to just go through the border, show them my passport, drive away, and not have to explain my situation or show them a bunch of paperwork to prove that I'm actively immigrating. As time has gone on, it's gotten easier and easier to get through as many officers know who I am, but it still can be a pain in the ass from time to time. Now I'll finally feel somewhat normal, like I'm not doing anything wrong or shady (which I'm not, but sometimes I feel that way when I get heckled), and that I'm entitled to be in both countries.

On the Canadian side, we just have to bring my crap to the crossing, do a bunch of paperwork, they'll probably search my crap, and then put something else in my passport that shows I've immigrated. I'll get my official "permanent resident" card a few weeks after that. We're thinking we'll do the landing this weekend. I can't believe it's almost over! I hope to take some pics and will definitely write about it. Yey!