Craziness at Customs

My brother Gordon came to visit over the weekend and it was so great to see him. We hadn't seen him since Christmas and probably won't see him for at least another year or more. So three days flew by, but we had a lot of fun. But we thought that we might not get to see him after all and here's why...

He was supposed to fly in at 10pm, but because there was fog in San Francisco, he was delayed three hours and didn't fly in until 1am. We were waiting at the airport for an hour and the board told us that his flight had landed. Everyone was coming out, but he didn't come through. More waiting, still no Gordon. I was talking with Russ in the arrival waiting area wondering if anything was wrong, when this lady comes up and says, "Are you Hilary?". I said yes, and she said "Are you Gordon's sister?" At this point, I'm a little weirded out that she knew who I was, but then I realized that she was an airport official. Turns out, she was with customs and she came all the way out into the waiting area to make sure that I knew Gordon's exact departure date and confirming that he was in fact staying with us in the city. She turned and left through the security gate without saying whether or not she would let him through. Seriously, we really thought they might not let my brother into Canada of all places. Luckily, he came through the gates about 10 minutes later and we all laughed so hard about it afterwards.

Honestly, the whole night was a surreal and bizarre experience. When you travel on public transit in the middle of the night, you meet all sorts of interesting characters...like this guy who was high as a kite who had to be escorted off the train by three cops and a hundred hardcore Iron Maiden fans after a concert who all decided to get on the same train car with us. It took two hours on two buses to get home, but we finally got in at 3:30am. We only got four hours of sleep, but it made for a hilarious experience!