Ottawa, Canada
It was all remarkably painless. Compared with my previous interview in London (6 hours of queues – queuing to join a queue to have an interview to join another queue to have another interview) – this was incredibly swift. My appointment was scheduled for 8am, and even with a certain amount of obligatory queuing, I was out of there by 9am, and my passport will be ready for collection tomorrow.
In fact, the official was too busy asking me about ocean rowing – what I ate, how I slept etc – to focus properly on the job at hand. But in any case it is all resolved, and I can now row out from San Francisco confident that if I don’t make it into Hawaii, it will be due to forces of nature rather than the forces of US Immigration.
Thanks to all who have helped along the way – Deb and Michael Follo who drove me to the airport yesterday, Victor Ferreira and all the staff at the Delta Hotel, Ottawa, who have provided me with a lovely room, and all the others who offered help, advice and contacts.
All’s well that ends well.
Or… not quite. I am now trying to get an earlier flight back to San Francisco, but the Travelocity phone number isn’t working, and their email form seems broken, so for now I am still stuck in a hot and humid (but very friendly) Ottawa.