Chap 18 (Canada & USA)

It took me three planes and over 25 hours of flight/stop-over to get to Burlington, but I got there. I claimed my luggage and started looking around for any sign of my parents, but found nothing. Knowing I had some time to loose, I decided to take a look outside. Now, coming from the tropic, I had no winter clothes other than a small hoodie, but the winter enthusiast that I am still wanted to go out and feel the chill on my skin. I was expecting the worst, 25h to go from +20°C as the coldest temperature to a sudden -15°C sounded bad, but to my amazement, it turned out not too bad. I even stayed outside for a little still waiting for my parents.

Home sweet home, I'm coming

A little while later, my parents turned the corner and greeted me with actual winter cloth; it did felt good. We hoped in the car and started driving toward my cottage in the Jay municipality, still in Vermont. All throughout the trip, we exchanged on the past year, obviously, I told a few tales about my journey, but they filled me in with the more local news. 

After a good night sleep (first in a long line of mediocre nights) I got up ready to tackle my first day of winter in almost 2 years. My dad and I decided to take the cross-county skis and climb the mountain in our backyard. The conditions were nice, especially for this early in the season, but the skier (myself) wasn’t as agile as before. I crashed in a few trees, got covered in snow a few times, but it still felt great to be in snow covered forest rather than the usual leaf covered ones.

After another day in the backcountry, it was time to head back to my real home, Canada. As expected, as we crossed the border, we got pulled over, due to the amount of stamps in my passport. 

On my first night in Montreal, I saw two of my best, if not best, friends near downtown. It felt odd to see familiar faces, other than my family, which I had Skyped with a few times. But another thing that felt surprisingly odd was hearing French in the background. For over the past year, background noise, was just noise, as I wasn’t comfortable enough to understand Spanish when not being directly spoken to. Being able to understand the word from a stranger felt very odd; odd enough to keep saying words like “hola” or “gracias” when talking to a stranger.

Between my arrival and Christmas, I stayed mostly at home and at my cottage, as most of my friends were either working or in their exam period. I still managed to see most of my friends, but just for a few hours here and there. When x-mas finally showed up, it was time to see the rest of my family, and spend some time with them. It felt great!! 

X-mas was now over, but the holidays weren’t as New Year was coming. I went to my cottage one last time with my parents, my brother and his girlfriend, and my uncle and aunt to enjoy my last bit of winter. We were supposed to go skiing, but the due to a rain, Jay Peak wasn’t fully open. Instead, we took our cross-county skis back out, and climbed another nearby hill, on top of which we made a fire. When my parents and I crossed the border back to Canada, we started having problems. The border patrol asked me if I had ever had any problems at the border. I had been pulled over many times, but never had any problem, and so I declared I had never had any problems at the border. It turned out it wasn’t the answer wanted. They asked again but my answer didn’t change. They eventually told me I had had problem at the border within the last month, I told them I had been searched, but nothing had been found, thus I had no problems at the border. Therefore, when I left for my trip, the American border had had problems with me due to another guy named Eric Bertrand, born on the same date. I told them that maybe they had the wrong Eric Bertrand, and so they double check, only after nearly half-hour research, it was proven I was indeed the Eric with problems at the border. It was starting to be odder and odder, but was still innocent. They kept on searching and calling the here and there within the border patrol, they finally realised that I indeed never got into trouble at the border, but since I had a Colombian stamp in my passport and that I had not taken a direct flight to Canada but to the USA where I had a cottage, they decided to flag me, meaning that I needed to be searched every time I was too cross the border for any good I would have left at my cottage. That was a bummer since I had planned a party with all my friends at my cottage before taking the plane back. Obviously, I cancelled my plans and decided to stay in Canada until my trip back to El Salvador.

What a beautiful day to gather around a fire

I spent New Year’s with my friends and enjoyed my last few nights enjoying social life, as soon I was going to be back alone. The first three days of 2017 flew by, but finally, after one last supper with my family, I climbed into the plane and started my journey back to El Salvador. Why El Salvador and not Guatemala? Well, as I left Guatemala, I realised the flights to Guatemala passed by El Salvador, but also, the airport of El Salvador wasn’t within the city limits, but in the middle of fields, meaning it was a lot easier for me to start hitchhiking from the El Salvador airport rather than from Guatemala City.