mittens said:
congratulations maid-marion!!!
let us know how the landing goes?
Hey Mittens (and any others interested in hearing my landing story),
I'm now a Permanent Resident! It feels like such a relief. We live in Winnipeg, so we drove down to the US border at Emerson (a bit over an hour away) and landed there. Fiance took his passport, I took mine along with the COPR. Also took some other bits (my visitor record, ESTA number etc) but nothing else was needed except for my drivers licence, which they asked for at customs after I'd landed - think it was just something to show my address.
The whole bit at the borders took about an hour, most of which was waiting in the (always slower than the one next door!) car queue to get to the border. The US side asked why we were crossing, our relationship to each other and then took our passports from us and told us to park up and go inside. After waiting about 10 minutes, an official came over with our passports and a piece of paper saying I'd been refused admission to the US - this originally worried me, but he reassured me it was just a weird part of immigration rules whereby the US can't admit me (as I'm just doing a U turn and going back to land) but the Canadian side needs this piece of paper to show that I did leave the country. He then came out of the office with us, took down a barrier so we could cut back into the line to enter Canada and bid us a good day.
The Canadian side felt more friendly than the US side, but maybe that was just me! In the office, the immigration official took my passport and COPR, got me to write down my current address and phone number (for the PR card delivery) and asked me whether I'd ever committed a crime, been refused entry into Canada or asked to leave Canada, then told us to take a seat. About 5 minutes later, he called us back up and said the best words ever "Congratulations! You're now a Permanent Resident!" Lastly, he explained the things I can't do as PR and gave me some info about the card and Manitoba healthcare etc. Last bit was to see Customs to sign a sheet confirming that I had no belongings etc that would be joining me later, and we were done!
Not a bad experience at all and the immigration guy I got was positively lovely!
Just waiting for it all to sink in now...