I've Been to Canada. Twice. Tonight.

I cleared Canadian immigration twice today. The first thunderstorm of summer cut off the route north of Newark, canceling a flight to Montreal and leaving my Toronto-based jet stranded on the Jersey tarmac. No sweat, right? Just ride it out and hope that it doesn’t turn into an eight-hour runway parking lot. (Over the weekend I heard two separate accounts of this kind of event). Besides, my neighbor was a cute girl from Queens flying to Paris for the first time and I’m headed to Riga tomorrow…

Arriving late in Toronto, I passed through immigration and showed up (with 20 minutes to spare) at the gate for my flight to Heathrow, only to find that the airline cancelled my seat. Seems that they expected my original flight from Newark to arrive at 2am, not at 8pm when I actually touched ground. During my discussion with the gate attendants, they said I could not get on the scheduled flight because I would not be traveling with my bag. So in order to rebook, I had to file back through immigration, retrieve my bag and then check through the airport from the beginning.

Begrudgingly, I took my long journey. I made quick friends with a long lost Aussie who found herself in the same traveling chasm as me, a baggage agent with braces who overwhelmed his annoying half with a well-timed dose of helpfulness, and a customs officer who told me that she loathed AirCanada and had me laughing straight into Canada for the second time in an hour.

I am no systems analyst. Nor do I seek to criticize too much without some expertise in the field or without being part of a solution. That said there must be some sort of loophole in a national immigration system when the same person can check into a country and then check into that country again without raising the slightest of interest.

Weary from a weekend with friends and a late Memorial Day Night, I retrieved my bag (which had until this time been unidentifiably somewhere between the baggage carousel, the bowels of luggage storage and on its way to England). They sent it up individually, though they didn’t announce it in lights like they do the planes (which may have redeemed the whole fiasco entirely), and I lugged it off the carousel. Stumbling back to the ticketing counter, I nearly dropped at the sight of the 30 party line. Instead, I leapt into full-on survival mode and chased a sharp looking agent who seemed to know the trade . He listened to my situation explanation, booked me immediately and sent me through.

Restored, I welcomed the sight of Tim Horton’s next to my flight gate. A place of legend originally introduced to me by my friend Matthew, who had grown to love it during his days north of the border. I welcomed the warm coffee and donuts home as they corrected my sugar balance and gently pushed me to write this piece about my last hours in the Toronto airport.

On a world journey in which I expect to visit almost 15 countries, the first stamp on my passport will be from one I did not expect. O, Canada.

Click on the comic to see how Bob the Angry Flower and rolls at the Canadian border.