So I up in Canada visiting with ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
naryrising and forthright while I get my passport renewed.
Yesterday was a relaxed day, for the most part, that consisted of sleeping in, watching lots of Person of Interest, making pizza and garlic fingers with donair sauce (OMG that recipe is *perfect*), and playing Adventure World. oh and knitting a bunch on my Firelight, though I am possibly yarn-over incompetent and pearling through the back loop is confusing and I may have to rip back to fix :/
Anyway. This has all been lovely.
This morning I went to take my passport application. And Man. These sorts oif things are never awesome, but it was really pretty stress free all told!.
First of all, when you go in, you go see the courtesy desk. The people are actually courteous and friendly! They help make sure everything you need is in order before they give you a number to wait, so that if you are missing something or are like me and your passport photos are not up to snuff, they can tell you before you sit around waiting for however long. My passport photos had some shadows around the edges of my face. Fortunately there is a place in the building downstairs that does them really fast and cheap, so I just got new ones done there and it was pretty painless.
I went back upstairs and realized that they had actually tossed some of my supplementary info (a list of employers), but they totally just went through the recycling stuff and found it for me and apologized, and it was all fine - whew!
The wait was not overly long either, even though there were a fair amount of people. They have a dual number system - one for applications and one for just questions - but people are just served in the order they arrived regardless. It all seemed to go pretty fast. I think we were in and out in 45 min tops, and that was including having to get new pictures.
When I got up to the desk, I told her I needed to leave on Wednesday afternoon, and we worked out a pick-up time of Wednesday morning at 10 AM. Because I was okay with this (my flight is only at 3), and because it was less than 24 hours, they only charged me for the lesser of the rushed services (express rather than urgent?), and it saved me $60. Score! But yes - the woman was super nice and helpful and actively helped to make things easier and cheaper. We stopped at Tim Hortons on the way back, and by the time we got home, they had already callednaryrising, who is listed as one of my references. She called them back and all is well :D
I know not all offices in Canada are that well organized, but it was overall super pleasant and way superior to any of my experiences dealing with government services in the US. And when I go back on Wednesday, we are going to stop in at the Elias diner right next door, for the breakfast and the lols.
And now, back to my Person of Interest and knitting binge :D
naryrising and forthright while I get my passport renewed.Yesterday was a relaxed day, for the most part, that consisted of sleeping in, watching lots of Person of Interest, making pizza and garlic fingers with donair sauce (OMG that recipe is *perfect*), and playing Adventure World. oh and knitting a bunch on my Firelight, though I am possibly yarn-over incompetent and pearling through the back loop is confusing and I may have to rip back to fix :/
Anyway. This has all been lovely.
This morning I went to take my passport application. And Man. These sorts oif things are never awesome, but it was really pretty stress free all told!.
First of all, when you go in, you go see the courtesy desk. The people are actually courteous and friendly! They help make sure everything you need is in order before they give you a number to wait, so that if you are missing something or are like me and your passport photos are not up to snuff, they can tell you before you sit around waiting for however long. My passport photos had some shadows around the edges of my face. Fortunately there is a place in the building downstairs that does them really fast and cheap, so I just got new ones done there and it was pretty painless.
I went back upstairs and realized that they had actually tossed some of my supplementary info (a list of employers), but they totally just went through the recycling stuff and found it for me and apologized, and it was all fine - whew!
The wait was not overly long either, even though there were a fair amount of people. They have a dual number system - one for applications and one for just questions - but people are just served in the order they arrived regardless. It all seemed to go pretty fast. I think we were in and out in 45 min tops, and that was including having to get new pictures.
When I got up to the desk, I told her I needed to leave on Wednesday afternoon, and we worked out a pick-up time of Wednesday morning at 10 AM. Because I was okay with this (my flight is only at 3), and because it was less than 24 hours, they only charged me for the lesser of the rushed services (express rather than urgent?), and it saved me $60. Score! But yes - the woman was super nice and helpful and actively helped to make things easier and cheaper. We stopped at Tim Hortons on the way back, and by the time we got home, they had already called
naryrising, who is listed as one of my references. She called them back and all is well :DI know not all offices in Canada are that well organized, but it was overall super pleasant and way superior to any of my experiences dealing with government services in the US. And when I go back on Wednesday, we are going to stop in at the Elias diner right next door, for the breakfast and the lols.
And now, back to my Person of Interest and knitting binge :D
cheerful