I will admit that my family is perhaps a little more internationally-minded than the average American family, but we really were just looking for lunch when we headed into Canada one Friday. When we were in Switzerland a regular outing would be to take the train to Germany or France for shopping and lunch. The border was so close, just asking to be crossed. The Schengen zone has made visa-free travel the rule in Europe, and crossing borders is as natural as a daily commute. (In fact, many border-crossers live and work in different countries) For the USA, borders are considered a little more serious areas of security and protection. U.S. citizens now need passports to get into Canada and back, and have long been profiled and searched while coming through land-crossings from Mexico.
Still, my troupe is fresh from Europe, with a slightly less sense of danger while around borders. This is why we decided to take a day trip into British Columbia one day, just to find a restaurant and then head home. In all my traveling, from Athens to Oslo to Cairo, I had never been to Canada. So we set our plans, not knowing the interrogation to come.
