Leaving next Friday, and where's that passport?
Why, it's been at the Consulate of X in New York for the past 3 weeks. Country X has no diplomatic representation in Canada, despite that there is an Honorary Consul of Canada in country X.
My travel agent suggested that I pester them with calls and e-mails, and that this is why I should have used a visa agency. I imagine that Consulate X has put all communication devices in a locked, soundproof cabinet.
So I did speak to an agent, who offered to ask the Consulate if
she could be authorized to speak on my behalf. She however cannot get
through to the Consulate either. Big surprise. Google reviews indicate that paperwork processing can take months, and people have called them "10 times a day" without response. An article suggests that people wait for hours at the Consulate by the trash bins
outside. There is no indication that this diplomatic mission expedites service to anyone in
the way we tend to expect. It certainly has unlimited potential for improvement.
Other than calls and e-mails to the Consulate requesting that
they process my application immediately, I have requested the Embassy of X in Washington and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the
Republic of X to contact the Consulate to process my
application. I have sent an e-mail to Passport Canada asking how I can
recover my passport.
Unless I get my passport out of New York this week, I will
plan on getting a replacement passport next week, using a money-talks service called "urgent." I'll obtain one visa in Istanbul and another in Tbilisi. A
thought is also to fly to Tashkent to obtain a visa at the airport, and
then fly to Khiva.
I will keep you updated on this unanticipated inconvenience.
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