Canadian Consulate, eh?

Yesterday my mom was kind enough to take me to downtown LA (which isn't so fun when you have to deal with traffic) and we went to the Canadian consulate. As I have written before, my husband and I will be moving up to Canada soon. He's a citizen so going through the border is no problem, but we thought that if an American citizen rolls up with a car full of stuff saying "hey, I'm coming to live in your country now...eh?" they might not let me through. 

We've had issues before with getting through that dang border (pretty much all on Mark's end...America is so prejudice against Canadians!). So we thought we wouldn't chance any problems for me getting through. Mark called the border people and the girl there said the best bet would be for me to get a visitors visa. So we go about doing all this work for it. I had to deal with the very lovely Walmart passport photo taker man who, even though he said he knew how to do it, I still had to go back because the dimensions weren't right. They wanted everywhere I had worked in the last 10 years. They wanted all my siblings names, birth dates, addresses, marital status'. I have nine full/half/step siblings and I don't even talk to some of my siblings (or they don't talk to me...we're dysfunctional). They wanted a lot of other info that I can't quite remember right now. Then we have to go to Staples and make copies of everything, stop at the bank down by the consulate to get a money order for the fee, pay the parking people $10, and finally go to the consulate. 

My number's called. I go up to the window. The lady behind the counter is surprised and says, "Are you American?" and I tell her "yes" and go through my explanation of why I'm applying for this visa and once living up there will apply for permanent residency. Then she tells me "American citizens don't need a visa to go into Canada. They can stay for up to six months, no questions asked. Then if you stay longer you file a visa extension if the residency hasn't gone through yet." She handed me a paper that said this exact thing (which I will be taking to the border along with all my visa info I put together so they can't say "you actually need a visa" to which I will say "I tried, you idiots, and the lady at the consulate told me I didn't, gave me this paper that says so, and here's my packet I tried to give to her!!!")

Then she told me all we'd have to deal with at the border is custom stuff and gave me that website as well. So any Americans reading this, just know that if you want to go up and visit Canada for six months all you need is your passport.

Luckily I got some good pics for Instagram:

love the Los Angeles skyline

110 Pasadena freeway -- it's pretty