Originally Posted by
Efrem
My first (of many) visit to Australia was as part of a oneWorld promotion that offered 100,000 AA miles to anyone who flew to all six* continents within a given period. I had a 2 1/2 hour turn-around in Perth as part of that. I filled out the landing card with "Time in Australia: 2 1/2 hours;" "Address in Australia: None;" "Reason for Visit: Other." The immigration officer found that a bit unusual and asked me about my visit. I explained. He eventually decided that I might be crazy, but probably wasn't dangerous, and let me in.
I once had some difficulty entering Canada when my only reason was to have dinner.
This happened at Sault Ste. Marie. The town on the Michigan side was small, with no restaurants of interest, while the Ontario side is a fairly large city. I was a fairly young man, alone, driving a slightly flashy car that did not have Michigan license plates. The customs and immigration inspector at the end of the bridge asked where I was going, and I replied with the street address, which was almost in sight of his booth. How long was I staying? About two hours. Why was I coming to Canada? To have dinner.
This apparently sounded fishy, because he told me to park the car and go inside the building. There, a more senior agent with a strong Scottish accent (there was a lot of Scots settlement in western Ontario) took out an enormous ledger and looked to see whether I had ever made trouble in Canada
before.
On the return, the U.S. agent thought it was perfectly ordinary to cross the border for dinner; people who live on the U.S. side do it routinely. He just wanted to know whether I had bought anything, other than the dinner that I had already eaten.