This week I had to renew my Canadian passport. Its one of those love-hate things where it’s
a pain in the ass to have to go get new photos, fill out the paperwork, and in
the past find a notary to be your witness (thanks goodness this has finally
been changed), but as an ardent traveler I’d be lost without one of my two
passports.
I’m fortunate enough to have dual citizenship in both
Australia and Canada, which is great for traveling the globe, but a bit of a
pain to make sure they’re both safe and sound and up to date.
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| TW's two passports....sweet deal! |
Surprisingly the two-passport thing has some great
advantages. When I went to Turkey a
couple of years back I got to the passport control in Istanbul and I noticed
that because I was Australian I didn’t have to pay for my visa to enter the
country, so rather than shell out the $60.00 for a visa I just showed them my
aussie passport, smiled my best smile, he in turn stamped it and just waved me
through. I’m not sure how far this
arrangement goes back, but it was a nice little surprise all the same.*
I guess because I travel so much that I’m constantly
checking to see the expiry dates and then calculating when the best time to
renew, in fact this time my old passport still had three months left on it, but
with upcoming trips to the US, England and Hawaii in the
next month so there was no better time than this week to go get it done this past week.
I don’t know about you, but finding time to go get a new
photo is a bit of a challenge, let alone finding an actual photo store where
you can get passport photos taken. I
trudged over to the photo shop at Yonge & Eglinton (about three blocks from
home) in a blinding snowstorm last week to get mine done.
Can you say “mug-shot”?
Okay, not only is illegal to smile (which is ridiculous unto
itself), but I have to admit my photos were not that flattering….in the least! I’m going with the fact that it was -15C
outside and I resembled a frozen Yeti rather than a person when I arrived
(snow covering me from head to toe). It
was full on winter weather, so my cheeks and nose are red from being exposed,
my hair was wet and flat because of the snow that was piled high and that
dripped down my back as I sat for the photo.
I guess some people would say "what how cool experience"…me, not so much!
So with the photo portion now complete (albeit a rather poor
facsimile of the real moi) all I had to do was front the actual passport office
and I’d be done.
You know what its like when you really don’t want to do
something, you put it off, make excuses, find something else “more important”
to do, so that was my Monday.
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| TW's very first passport - way back in 1985 |
Okay, no excuses tomorrow….bring on Tuesday I thought to
myself as I headed home that afternoon, confident that I get it done first thing in the morning (can you spell
procrastination?). I was now determined
that I’d be first in line, bright eyed and bushy tailed and ready to go first
thing Tuesday morning, be in and out before the line was unbearably long. This is the part where I was congratulating
myself on the scathing brilliant plan I’d just devised.
One small wrinkle soon emerged, Tuesday morning dawned, but as I pulled
out my paperwork I quickly realized that I still needed two witnesses to sign
the forms…how could have I missed this I thought – now fully in chastise
mode with myself (completely craaaarazy!).
I now had no choice but to go into the office first, find two suckers (I mean
witnesses) who’ve known me for more than two years and get them to sign the
form, before I could hit the passport office.
Looks like I'd have to go at the end of the workday.
All day I felt like I was on death row, constantly checking
and rechecking the time to make sure that I left early enough to get to the
office before it closed, but not too early to hit the “rush”. This was not going to end well I could just
feel it... it hung over my head like an albatross all day long, and as I
watched the hours tick slowly by I became a little jittery knowing that I have
to confront the dreaded passport office at the worst possible time of day.
I was dreading it especially since I knew there'd be a huge wait, so as I started my car I even mused that I would have even preferred to be going to
the dentist rather than going to renew my passport.
The office is sort of on the way home, so not having to
battle peak hour traffic actually was actually rather nice. Less than 20 minutes later I found myself eyeing a parking spot right out front of the government office where I had to go….can you say “rock star” parking?
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| My old passport - now renewed until 2018! |
Too good to be true I thought as I navigated the icy
footpath toward the centralized parking meter – yep, it was jammed! I even tried my VISA card, but to no avail –
there had been a day-long problem with the VISA network which continued to be
“down”…bugger I said out loud.
I looked at the others quickly queuing behind me and gave
them the bad news, after a few choice and colorful comments (completely
unprintable :-) we all were all now resigned to the fact that we’d be
getting parking tickets en masse. The cold weather just made me feel more miserable...just make it stop!
I headed into the building, up to the third floor and into a
relatively short line (this was new) where they checked all of your paperwork
first before issuing you with a number.
The attendant eyed my paperwork and photos, gazing into my eyes to make
sure I was actually who I said I was – she paused which worried me a
little. Eventually she must have
concluded I actually was who I said I was and she issued me my number -
D502.
Great – showing the security guard my paperwork,
along with my number he ushered me into the large waiting room where I was confronted with a packed
house – damn it, just as I had suspected.
The office was set to close in 45 minutes, so I dejectedly slumped into
a nearby vacant seat.
I then noticed that the D line (passport renewals) was a
D696 – and my number was D502….OMG!
Doing the math quickly I realized that there were 806 people ahead of
me. Swearing under my breath I got up
and found the security guard again, and in a tone which I tried not to sound completely
exasperated enquired if in fact the number was correct? How could I have over 800 people ahead of
me, the room only holds about 100 at most I asked?
He chuckled and said that when the number hits 700 it flips
to 500 again. Okay this must be some
sort of crazy passport office thing cos none of that makes any sense to me,
but non-the-less I sat back down now somewhat relieved.
Less than 15 minutes later I exited the building, having
applied for a new passport (expedited thank you very much – with an extra fee),
which I could pick up Friday afternoon no less. It felt like I had visited some parallel
universe where the government department had been really efficient and
smart… Okay, that might have been a
little cruel given the exceptional experience I had just been party to.
I had for sure expect a parking ticket….but no ticket when I
got to the car, wow, my lucky day. I
was on a roll, rock star parking, super fast passport renewal and now no ticket – does it get any better than
this I thought to myself.
As I pulled away from the curb I realized that I had created
all of my own stress and anxiety - from start to finish, and that in retrospect my
consternation had been completely unfounded (well at least this time :-). Really, who says I’m a naysayer???
those passport people are real pains. oh, wait! :-) come test out one of your passports in Colombia!!!
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