I second the suggestion of getting a provincial photo ID card (which my wife and sons call their “not-a-driver’s license”. It’s got pretty much exactly the same info and look as a driver’s license (at least in Ontario), although a different colour.
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Theoretically, it’s easier to enter Canada than return to the US, but for all practical purposes, including airline red tape, carry a passport both ways.
Entry into Canada: Canadian law requires that all persons entering Canada carry both proof of citizenship and proof of identity. A valid U.S. passport, passport card, or NEXUS card satisfies these requirements for U.S. citizens.
Entry into the United States: When traveling by air from Canada, U.S. citizens are required by U.S. law to present a U.S. passport book. A few exceptions to this rule and a full list of documents that can be used at land and sea borders are provided on the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) website.
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And the moral of this story is be a grown up and keep track of your important paperwork.
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His now-cancelled passport.
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Guy loses passport (the only photo ID he carries when travelling to bullshit foreign country) on bullshit flight to Chicago. Nevertheless he makes it through bullshit border security and is still able to check in to bullshit comfy hotel. Bullshit Canadian consulate provides him with emergency travel documents within one bullshit business day. Guy proceeds to make his bullshit United flight back to Canada on time. Clearly your glass is half-empty.
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What a tale! I jumped to the end, the entire thing gave me too much anxiety. But one way I avoid much of this is simply to always wear cargo pants when travelling. Passport always goes into the same pocket, and I am constantly checking for it.
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The CIA and FBI would like to talk to you about your role in the trafficking of Canadian passports on US soil.
The consulate efficiently got you your travel documents. What a nightmare.
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A fancy audio hardware company called Shure
You mean Sid’s old company, the one that made cartridges for DJs? I’m don’t think “fancy” is the right word here. Maybe venerable?
Watch it again. You see things you were too tense to see the first time through. (As a former Hull resident, I enjoy the beginning, which starts in neighbourhoods I knew.)
It’s a hassle, yes but it usually gets sorted out. I’ve had passports stolen in odd corners of the planet several times. When that happens you have to get a police report to take with you to the embassy, and then somehow get to the embassy – in one case it was a two day ordeal on the back of a pickup, then 10 hours on a bus and then a tuk tuk. The country required foreigners to show a passport to get a hotel and weren’t happy that I only had a photocopy, The embassy no longer allowed walk-in services, so I had to go find a place with internet – not so easy in Laos at the time – and make an appointment. Two days later I was in the embassy where they told me I wasn’t a “real” american because I was born abroad (my parents were in the army in Germany when I was born) so I pulled out my form from the state-department showing I was a “real american” and then had to repeat the trip three weeks later to pick up the passport. I suppose it sounds bad but it’s a walk in the park compared to when things really go pear shaped.
Buses go off the road when drivers fall asleep, trains break down in the middle of rice fields extending off to the horizon and you find yourself slogging through the paddies with your luggage following everyone else, looking for a road where there might be a pickup-truck bus. You come back from your meeting to find that the hotel room next to you had been raided by the police for yabba (crystal meth) and there are actual bullet holes that go clean through the walls into your room. Flying into Hong Kong the plane turns around to avoid a Typhoon and you spend the next 4 days stuck in the international section of old Bangkok Airport. The airlines are holding your passport because you aren’t in Thailand – thousands of people, no food, blankets and all of our luggage still checked in – on the third day they herd us to a terminal and after three hours the pilot storms out of the gate shouting (in Thai) “I’m not going to fly that piece of shit into a typhoon” and the next day find an Air India flight to Tokyo that was so old that the chairs rattled because the bolts holding them to the floor were loose. I actually hallucinated that they were tossing straw on the floor instead of cleaning up the baby vomit. These were all a hassle but not a nightmare. Nightmares are a different class of existential fear and dread.
So when things go wrong, and your view does not include bars on the doors and windows and there is no one pointing a gun at your head or you’re trying to get anywhere from the mountain road you are on in torrential rain as trees are crashing and the road is blocked by a mudslide, or you’re sleeping on the ground outside for a week being eaten by mosquitos (which ended up killing my wife) next to a mechanics shop waiting for a new transmission to arrive from the nearest city which is 500km away)… you just have to shrug your shoulders, find a bar, drink lots and lots of beer and watch the river roll by and chalk it up as another day in paradise. You’ll live.
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I always prefer transit, and love exploring new metro systems, but last week, hoo boy, did Shanghai’s system let me down…
Turns out the line which runs to the airport(s) requires a transfer to a smaller train to get from downtown Shanghai to Pudong airport, and service on the section beyond the transfer point ends at 10pm. I learned this while riding the train towards that transfer point at 10:15 for my 12:30am flight, and spent the next hour or so desperately trying to get DiDi (essentially, Chinese Uber) to take my foreign credit cards, to no avail, and then hunting for an ATM and navigating its menus by guessing until it spat out enough cash for a taxi fare.
(That’s partly on me for not doing my research on the subway closing time, not leaving earlier, and not carrying sufficient cash, but still. BART runs service to San Francisco International until 11:56pm! BART, for crying out loud!)
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You don’t really know much about Shure do you? They’re one of the top (if not top) live audio microphone companies in the world. They are similarly top tier with their wireless systems. The SM58 is probably the most widely used vocal microphone in the world and the SM57 the most widely used instrument mic.
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I have a Shure cartridge on my Thorens turntable, and my father was a Shure dealer in Chicago the 60s. But, beyond that, no, I guess I don’t know much about them
I keep wondering if he had a less Anglo name, had come from somewhere other than Canada, was not wearing US style clothing, had a beard or was swarthy. Would he have had the same helpful experience?
Shoulda taken the Maglev I guess?
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For anybody visiting Kuala Lumpur, the LRT is an automated, elevated railway which crosses the city in several directions. You can by a ticket to the next station, then keep going to the end of the line, turn around and come back. You get a great view of the city, its air conditioned, and almost free.
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There are two words that should never, ever, appear together on an itinerary - “United” and “Chicago”. Separately, though dangerous, they can perhaps be dealt with. Together, they are a recipe for disaster.
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You’d think, wouldn’t you, that the biometric data the US made everyone pay to attach to their passports would be enough to, you know, verify your identity in this situation.
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I always use the blue line out of O’Hare, it can’t be beat. However, if I were a writer in a new city, I’d be tempted to take a cab just to be able to talk to a resident for awhile.
Given he was coming from Calgary, he would have been pre-cleared by US customs there. It would have been even less fun if he’d arrived at the US border without a passport.
