US bloody Customs, my home on an island, and postal address

G’Day All from Friday Harbor in the San Juan Islands,

Firstly thankyou to all that sent me birthday messages. It was a quiet but sunny day with a few cold ones, nothing big, but very nice. Got into Seattle on Thurs after being held up at the US/Canada border. What a bloody joke that was! I took the bus from Vancouver to Seattle and of course we had to cross the US border. So we get to the border gates, had to wait in the bus for half an hour cos there were 3 buses ahead of us. So after we moved from the bus we had to unpack all the luggage and wait in line ready to see the customs officers. We line up and there is not a bloody soul in the area! You’d think a full bus load of people would have the customs people ready to check them and get them on their way, but no, we stood there for another half hour while officials just seemed to occasionally appear, look at us, then go into another room. After another good half hour one official came out and started putting us through, then another one came out, and another, so were finally getting the ball rolling. My turn comes up, I go up to the customs bloke, show him my passport and student visa form. He looks at it and asks me to step over to the counter so they can process it over there cos for some reason the proper software wasn’t available at his station. So I go over there and no one helps me, the bus line is getting smaller and smaller, and still no one has come over to help me. All the people on the bus get processed, and then start loading back on the bus. I’m thinking “shit, I’m gonna be holding up the bus” and yep, sure enough, I did. The same older overweight guy that served me in the first place waddles over to the counter, sits at the computer and begins going through my student visa processing. Now to give you an idea of how long it should take, when I got into Miami I was through the customs guy in about 2 mins. This guy had no bloody clue, cos he took friggin’ ages, although didn’t let on. I knew he had the instructions on the screen cos he was typing everything with 2 bloody fingers! The bus driver walks over to me and asks what’s going on. I apologised to him and told him they were processing my visa. The customs guy assured the driver he won’t be a moment… A moment my arse! 15 min later and he finally hands me back my passport with the relevant documentation. Then I gotta go grab my bags, have them quickly checked and load back onto the bus. Throughout this whole process I’m thinking “Shit, we’re already over an hour behind schedule and I’ve just held the bus up another 20 min.” I was bloody ropable! Now you’d think that being a US Customs official on the border of a different country and the fact that Canadian students come through there with student visas to study in the US, then the US Government might train their officials in processing student visas…. Pfft! Fat chance! How many international students that come to the US to study do you think are gonna be a threat?! You’d think international students would be the least of their worries compared to people trying to come in from Canada on a bus (no disrespect to Canadians, I think they are great people), and so they wanna get the students in, processed, and on their way… Nope. Once it again it just proved to me the ridiculousness of US Security and Customs. Ok, sorry, got that off my chest, feeling much better.
So got into Seattle late Thurs night, met Ash on Friday (the other Aussie from this program from Adelaide). Saturday we checked out the Space Needle (big tall needle like building in the city overlooking the Puget Sound and surrounds), met up with another chick from Seattle going on the program and we ended up at what is known as ‘Hempfest’. Basically it’s a free festvial with music and everyone smokes dope, gets high in the hope of sending the message that marijuana should be legalised in the US, as it is a much less “harmful” drug than alcohol in that more crimes are commited when people are under the influence of alcohol. Apparently it’s a really big issue over here in the States.
So Sunday saw Ash and I travel up to Friday Harbor in the San Juan Islands where we have landed at the University of Washington Laboratories. It’s an awesome facility right on the water, and it’s quicker to row into town on a boat than to walk! How cool is that?! And yeah, so have met everyone over the last couple of days, a very diverse group I must say. Ash and I are the only internationals, the rest of from the US. And another interesting fact, apart from the instructors, I am the only male student. Yep that’s right, out of 10 students I am the only guy. Dunno how I feel about that yet but no doubt I’ll get through it. We’ve all been thinking about exactly what we’re gonna study and so will break into 2 groups of 5 and spend a week on the boat, then a week off, for the next 9 weeks. So communication will be limited as it’s a pretty full on 10 weeks. I’ll do my best though. Friday Harbor is a quaint little town on San Juan Island so isolation for the next 10 weeks will be interesting.

In case you wish to/need to post something my address is as follows:
Tim Hunt
C/O Beam Reach
Friday Harbor Labs
620 University Rd
Friday Harbor, WA 98250
USA

Hope all is well with everyone. Take care and next time you hear from me I will have hopefully seen many a killer whale!

Tim, Timmy, Timbo