HollyKing's Journal

I heard about the Letter Writing Club at the Regional Assembly of Text from the Letter Writers Alliance blog and being a fan of writing letters, slightly crazy and a few hours drive from Vancouver I decided to pay them a visit. So I took a 1/2 day off on Thursday September 3rd, drove up to Vancouver to have dinner with noveldevice and attend the festivities. Here is my recollection of the day and a few photographs.

The trip started off well as I didn't encounter bad traffic or really any problems until I was crossing the border. See I asked noveldevice if she wanted anything from the USA that I could bring her during my visit. She asked for some Oreo cookies because there is something about them that tastes better than the Canadian versions. That was my undoing at the border crossing. Up to a point the guard was idly asking his questions and then he asked, "Are you bringing anything with you that you are leaving behind in Canada?" "Yes," I replied, "some Oreo cookies for my friend."

Well everything changed after that. I guess I had unwittingly disparaged the character of Canadian Oreos because he asked me a lot more questions about my plans, who I was going to see, where I was going to go in Canada and how long I would be staying. I answered his questions and eventually he let me pass. I love his final question though. "Are you bringing any alcohol or tobacco with you?" I said I wasn't but my thought was, "I can legally buy Cuban cigars in Canada. Why in the hell would I bring cheap knock-offs from the USA?"

After graciously being allowed to enter Canada I continued my drive on to Vancouver. noveldevice and I were meeting for dinner at a crepe place she liked. I was early but I usually am so after a few hours sitting in the car I stood on the sidewalk and watched the people go by while waiting for her to arrive. Which she shortly did.

The food was excellent, one of the best crepes I've ever had. While I had made the trip to attend Letter Writing Club the highlight of the whole thing was my evening with noveldevice. She was a wonderful dinner companion and I really enjoyed our conversation. I was afraid we wouldn't have anything in common but my fears were misplaced.

After we had finished eating there was still a couple of hours before the event started so we drove over and found parking by the Regional Assembly of Text. We stopped in the store and talked with the owners a bit. I told them how I had made the drive from Seattle to attend the Letter Writing Club and regaled them with my border crossing tale. noveldevice even produced the Oreos as evidence of my tale and shared some with them.

Since we had some time before the Letter Writing Club started noveldevice and I and whiled away the minutes walking around and talking. I was late to the event as we missed the store as we passed by.

When I did return I found the store transformed by the removal of the displays which were replaced by two rows of typewriters which were filled with people typing out letters. So I went into the lowercase reading room and sat down to write a couple of letters. While in there I also took a few pictures.

As I had a few hours of driving ahead of me I decided it was time to head home. So I took a few more pictures of the people working on their letters and someone took a picture of me with the owners. If you like writing letters and you make it to Vancouver I recommend visiting the Regional Assembly of Text. Even if you don't make it for the Letter Writing Club there are lots of stationery and nifty things you need even if you aren't aware of them yet. Plus, the owners were very friendly and helpful. Places like these need to continue in our world.

Driving home I saw the sign that said the Peace Arch crossing had a wait time of 20 minutes while the inland crossing only had a 5 minute wait. The last time I used the inland crossing I was interrogated by the guard about my reasons for using that one instead of the Peace Arch. So I was expecting a few extra questions this time too.

I did get extra questions. Plenty of them, but none about why I chose one crossing over the other. First it was why was I in Canada and how long I had been there. Answering that I was there for dinner and had been in the country for about eight hours the questions turned to why dinner had taken so long. So we went through my time in Canada from dinner, to walking, to the meeting and driving back to the border. Then the guard asked me about my job, where I worked, what did the company do and where it was located. Maybe he was just curious about Coinstar and what we do but he also could have been testing me.

Every time I've visited Canada I've been amused by the questions I've been asked. Other than the basic few questions it's always a different set. Plus the questions the border guards ask are more interesting than the ones I've been asked by the TSA agents.

If you want to play go ahead and join the_leber_expd. We're having discussions to help everyone get started and answer questions. Don't worry about being perfect or ready to send your letters right away. Not everyone would start at the same time if this was a real society anyway. What I do want is to make sure you get the help you need.