Overcoming Obstacles

After a bit of scrambling to figure out exactly what we needed to do to get our passports up to snuff for the Libyans - we are on track. Although I must say that Passport Canada doesn't like answering their phone nor do they know a lot when they answer it.

After my phone conversation with Passport Canada they said the best thing to do was go to the Passport office and see what they can do - it normally takes 10 working days to get the stamp in the passport. Over night our friend in Libya said that if we couldn't get it done in Calgary, we could FedEx our passports to the Canadian Embassy in Tripoli. That was an option, but Kim and I really didn't want to send our passports that far this close to our departure.

So first thing this morning we trotted over to the Passport office. It had been open for 20 minutes and we were 98th in line. The Commissionaire at the door was confident that we could get it done in our timeline, but that I must sit down and turn off my cellphone. And don't ask anymore questions. There is a bureaucracy here and they will process me when they get to it!

We talk to a Passport officer, she says normally takes 10 working days for $12, but we can get it done express for $30 more. Great. She goes to work processing mine and says we'll have it back on Tuesday - the day before we leave. I am thinking that is fine. Then Kim asks about what information is translated - good question. It is just items like "name" and "date of birth" that are translated...not the actual information. So if we get it back on Tuesday, that won't leave us enough time to get our names, etc. written out in Arabic. Now we are getting our passports back on Friday.

Currently we are locating an appropriate translator that can do it by Tuesday...so it looks like our visiting Libya is still alive!!

gm