What used to be a relatively simple task , that is getting a new passport, turned into a major problem this year. Coming back from our European vacation I realized that my passport will expire in January of 2008. Of course I knew that all along but what took me by surprise was that January 08 was only six months away. I remember that when I received the passport January 08 seemed to be so far in the future that it did not really seem real. Surely, I will be retired by then, I thought.

Following the ExxonMobil policy (renew passport when it has less than 6 months left) I logged on to passport Canada, downloaded the form and started to look for a guarantor, which turned out to be quite difficult due to our recent moves and general good health: I have not consulted a doctor in years, my dentist has known me for 5 months, I do not have sick farm animals and do not know any veterinarians. I have not been arrested recently and so I am not known to policemen, lawyers or judges. And that basically exhausts the list of eligible guarantors, which is more restricted if you are applying from the USA. Luckily, I remembered that before moving to the UK a company notary public notarized some documents for me and that made her eligible to be my guarantor. The next hurdle was the passport photo. The website stated that for people in the US, a US-style passport photo was acceptable, but being used to the more stringent Canadian standards I put a fair bit of effort into getting a photo of the appropriate dimensions. It took trips to three photo shops, finally I found a photographer across the street from the INS offices (used to fulfilling strange photographic fantasies of Homeland Security bureaucrats) who has taken Canadian passport photos before and took a picture which not only had the right dimensions and my head was not too big and not too small, but he also had a photographer’s stamp to print on the back of the photo (this is typically difficult to find in the US). I was quite proud of the photo and sent the application off. At the time, the website was estimating about 20 working days.

When I checked in two weeks, the estimate has changed to 4 months. The Canadian offices were being swamped by a flood of applications due to the change in the US requirement for passports on all flights to the US. This made me nervous. Six weeks later I received my application back with a terse statement “photos unacceptable, shadows behind the ears”.

(Click on the picture to see it full size, use a back button to return to this spot.) Shadows behind the ears? I took out a large magnifying glass and by god, they were right! There were tiny little shadows just beneath my earlobes (both of them!). How could this happen? I started to look at my previous passports and I noticed that on the previous two passports I had them too. Huge shadows behind the ears! What is going on here? I started to carefully examine all previous passport photos to find an explanation. Finally, the 1985 photo provided a clue: these were not shadows but hair! It is a genetic thing, I have hairy ears. My mistake was not getting a close shave before having the photos taken.

Of course by that time I lost faith and did not want to repeat the process only to find out 6 weeks later that something else was wrong. A fellow Canadian at work told me about a photographer in Kingwood (about an hour drive from home) who has had a good success with Canadian passport photos. Another Canadian told me that he went to Toronto and by lining up personally at the passport office got a new passport the same week. So I took a drive to Kingwood and then hopped on a plane and headed to Montreal. And it worked! By Friday I had a new passport. I am good until 2012. That is so far in the future it does not seem real. By then I will surely be retired.

It was a good time to visit Quebec. Summer heat and humidity were gone but it was still warm and sunny. Central Montreal keeps getting better. Lot more shops, little restaurants and lots and lots of coffee shops. Not just Starbucks, but also Van Houten, Second Cup, etc. The downtown is very lively, having 4 universities in the center of town definitely helps. Tim Horton’s doughnut shops on every corner – always a line, but most people go in for coffee, which was surprisingly good. I was startled by the number of people who walk up the escalators rather than just passively stand on them. In comparison to Texas there were very few fat people – at least in the metro. I guess the stairs cancel out the doughnuts.

While walking around Montreal was fun, I did not really see myself doing it all week and so I rented a car and headed north to the Laurentian National Park. I stayed in a little town near the Mont Tremblant ski resort just outside the park. Quite impressive development and lots of condos on sale, but no bargains. Of course the Americans (there is a air connection to New York twice a week) who bought when Canadian dollar was worth 63 cents must feel pretty smart now. It was a low season in the park, end of the summer tourists and the full autumn colors were still about two weeks away. I spent two days hiking on the spectacular park trails. They have 4 types from easy to difficult and the difficult ones actually provide a good workout. Not maintained, a fair bit of climbing over fallen trees and big rocks is involved exercising all major muscle groups.

On the other hand it was nice to get back to Houston to catch the remaining parts of summer (Canada was already getting fairly brisk – 7 degrees C in the mornings). The water in the Gulf is still warm and only one hour drive from the house.