Identified
Yesterday I went and got my photo taken for a new driver’s license and medicare card, as well as paid my next 2 (I think?) years fees for driving. I had until Feb 22, and I did this Jan 31, so go me.
I went to the SAAQ with my little form all filled out. Wow, that’s a lot of people here. And, you know, the place closes soon. I take a number: 46. They are at 88. Good thing I brought a book, though I forgot to bring music. I decide to wander around the depressing strip mall, and conveniently right next door, there is a photographer who does passport photos! It’s a little expensive, but it’s not like I’m doing anything else now, and then it’s *done*. “You can’t smile, right?” He confirms: no more smiling in passports. I cannot keep a straight face.
Eventually we have a sombre photo of me with my eyes open, and I watch him Photoshop it to make sure my head is the right size and my eyes are in the right place. Passport photos are a lot easier with digital photography.
Photo done, I return to see we’re at number 4, with about 40 minutes left until the place shuts. I am not sure what they do when it shuts: tell everyone to go back tomorrow?
Score! I find 33 on the ground. It takes about 20-25 minutes to reach 33. I hand in my form and pay for everything. She tells me that my current driver’s license is now invalid, should I be pulled over, and hands me a small slip of paper which is now my license. She also suggeests I keep my old license as ID in case I lose my new one. Good idea.
We take a photo. Something is wrong. We take another photo. My eyes are closed. We take a third photo, and my eyes are closed again. Fourth time’s the charm!
Total time: about an hour.
Lesson learned: go there the second it opens.
My passport expired Jan 12, which balances out the earliness of the other applications.
I finished up my online passport application yesterday evening, as my guarantor is supposed to go out of town today. (He’ll be back Sunday.) I tell my father that he can be my guarantor, but he thinks this is wrong and refuses. I print off the forms and sign them, then go over to visit my guarantor. He signs onto the grey box, invalidating my form. I try to reprint, but first need to install Java on his computer. Then I need to clean off the terrible amount of spyware on his computer. Eventually he signs again, not onto the grey box. I fix his other computer.
Today I set my alarm for 6.30 so I can be out by 7 so I can get to the passport office when it opens (7.30). I get there at 7.26, and there’s a line of about 50 people waiting to go to the elevator. I am number 34 to submit an application (people picking up passports do not get numbers), and in the fourth (of 5) elevators. I wait in line to validate my forms and get a(nother) number. My forms are okay! As she prints out my number, she tells me I am in a different line, because I did the passport online. I look at my number: C900. I look at the screen, C900 is flashing and telling me to go to wicket 14. I walk past all the people waiting for their numbers to be called and imagine the death stares I am receiving.
Passport lady confirms my father can be my guarantor, and informs me that they will mail out my passport Feb 15; I cannot pick it up. Or possibly she informs me that I will receive my passport the week of Feb 15; I’m not entirely clear. In any case, I cannot pick it up.
I am out by 7.50, and have bad coffee and a worse muffin while watching the fountain and reading a good book that was written by a non-fictional character. I get to the bookstore, then go home.
Lesson learned: always apply online. Go there the second it opens, too.
February 1st, 2006 at 1:43 pm
The online passport application works really quite well indeed. I’d hate to wait in the non-online passport line.
February 2nd, 2006 at 11:26 am
I also had trouble not smiling. Apparently my natural neutral expression is a smile - so the photographer tells me, anyway. So I gave an angry look; that, combined with my full-on expression and my dark and severe features, provided me with a passport photo that, while in compliance with Canadian law, makes me look like a terrorist.
February 2nd, 2006 at 1:22 pm
Plam, I had no idea there was a different line for them. The Passport Canada website is unclear about this. But no complaints.
MS, my neutral expression is not a smile, but I cannot deliberately unsmile, somehow. But they accepted the photos. I’ve seen a lot of photos of people who look like terrorists; mostly I am glad I am fair.