Finally arrived at Canada. I had series of troubles since when I got out of Vienna airport.
There was no problem at the passport control, got Austrian stamp straight away.
However, at the boarding gate, there was “the second passport control” by the airline company.
The old “gentleman” (At first I thought so) asked me where I am from. I answered “Japan”. then he asked me where I checked in. I checked in at the train station, where is called “Mitte”. He replied, “You told me you are from Japan, but you are actually from Vienna.”.
He started suspecting me for the stupid reason, and “ordered” me to give him the ticket reservation sheet to come from Japan to Vienna 6 months ago. Luckily I didn’t throw it away and put it in the pocket of the bag so I can immediately give it to him but if I didn’t have it, I would have been troubled for no reason.
Because the second passport control took too long, the boarding time became behind the schedule. I queued but at the moment when I got on board, I was stopped by security again. She says the big black bag was suspicious.lol They started checking my passport number again, and ordered me to open the “BBB (Big black bag)”. There was only another small bag in it, which I had to take out from my suitcase because it exceeded the weight regulation by 3 kg. I gave the BBB to the security staff “You can have it for your own vacation.”
I finally got to my seat but an old lady was already sitting there. My seat was window side but I sat down on the aisle side instead. After taking off, stewardess came to me and started sign language.
“What ?? I understand all the announce.” They say, my seat 27H is marked as “deaf”. Probably that was the old lady sitting next to me, yet the stewardess suspected that I mis-registered status on purpose for some reason. I took 20 mins to fix the situation. Of course the old lady didn’t hear anything.
(She was having a war against the seat in front of her because it was reclined.)
I couldn’t get relaxed at all. I was on the plane for 9.5 hours and had 2 meals, 4 movies but couldn’t enjoy none of them because of all those problems. Especially the problem I encountered at the second passport control puzzled me so much. I couldn’t understand why I needed the ticket reservation sheet.
There were a lot of Indian on the plane for some reason. They were recognizable because they all wore turbans. One of them came and opened the luggage case above me. At the moment, his suitcase dropped on my head.
I spent the last 2 hours on meditation. I had to. Soon after getting off the plane, police came and checked my passport. The old “gentleman” at Vienna airport must have reported. I was taken to the back office apart from other passengers. They checked my returning tickets, Japanese driver’s licence, and even inside of wallet. I had searched around on the internet for historical trouble cases that other Japanese people have met at Canadian airport. I printed out my online bank account and even made the perfect sightseeing plan for the following 3 months. They checked about 70% of the documents that I prepared. If I didn’t prepare them, I would have been sent back to Japan, and can no longer come to Canada. I thought I was too paranoid but that was right to do.
He asked me “What do I do ?” “How come can you get such a long vacation, is that normal ?” “Why don’t you go back to Japan ?” I simulated all those questions but again, if I didn’t, I wouldn’t have written this in the hotel room now.
I’m so relieved now.
On the taxi from the airport to hotel, I was talking to the Indian driver. He said, “My brother is also fighting against nuclear plant in South India. They just want money, so greedy. Accepting nuclear power means the death of the community. I heard about Fukushima. That was right for you to have left there. All the nuclear plants must be shut down now all around in the world.”
Iori Mochizuki