the year's top 10 bureaucratic experiences
sure to incite a prozac prescription...
think moving from one country to another is easy? guess again.
sit back, read, laugh or cry. its all true.


10. faking a birth for a cheap hotel stay...
the courtyard marriot hotel - where we booked in toronto for willow's birth - would not honour their hospital rate reduction. they sent us back to the hospital to obtain a proof on hospital letterhead. the hospital admitting staff claimed they don't even have letterhead & assured us the admitting form would suffice. when the hotel staff refused to accept the admitting document claiming anyone could forge such a form, i stuck out my arm & asked "could someone forge this?!" on my wrist was the hospital bracelet i was obliged to wear as a new father. the hotel manager promptly snipped it off, photocopied it & gave it back to me. we got our rate reduced.

9. 2 cans & a string would be easier...
in antigua, getting a home telephone service isn't so simple. after waiting over 2 weeks for the technician to arrive, we discovered that if we wanted to receive overseas calls, we would have to go to another company & fill out the application form. there is a deposit required which varies between $500. - $1500. EC. 'oh, you want to receive AND make overseas calls?. you'll have to fill out this other form, prior to approval.'

8. lois, the child abductor...
canada's passport office assured lois that she would not be able to leave the country with our 2 children, without the husband, even if he was actually residing in the destination country & would greet the family at the airport arrivals. the airline will not allow the potential for child abduction. fair enough. but a legally signed, sworn statement from another country wouldn't be acceptable due to the inability to verify its source. the father would have to either fly back to canada or to the nearest canadian consulate, which is in the bahamas. but wait... after speaking with a top diplomat at that consulate, a signed letter, faxed to the consulate could be sent to canada from the consulate. no wait. not good enough. instead, making a witnessed statement, in person at the british consulate in antigua would do... but upon my arrival at the british consulate, the british diplomats refused such a request. in the end, a signed statement, verified by an antiguan lawyer - couriered back to canada - was good enough.

7. the antigua 'customs' welcome...
antiguan customs received our single container. in the container was our car, personal possessions & my motorbike. vehicles were to be processed separately. since the bike was the first thing to be packed, all items would need to be removed to get it out. this included fridge, stove, freezer, washer, sofas, 4 beds, bedroom sets & everything else. once the bike was removed, we had to put everything back in for it all to wait almost 3 weeks. all done by hired hand (who jacked me at the port insisting on $250. EC per guy for 2.5 hrs work) & the new washer was dropped. lost paperwork & the insistence of a cheque customs never ended up using forced the booking of a hotel for almost a week. all the while, the port was charging me rent every day. BTW, taxes, duty & a $6000. EC levy totalled over $12,000. EC, just to get the motorbike through customs. it was more than i paid for the bike, not to mention the cost to ship it. with hotel, the bill came to well over $40,000. EC, just for things to pass through customs.

6. baby willow, get with the program...
my last day in canada was spent in toronto scooting from govt building to building to expedite baby willow's passport. first we would need her 'long form' birth certificate. we spent many hours & government employees' time making sure the form was completed perfectly. we then paid a $75. rush fee to get the certificate back asap. it was to arrive within a week, from sudbury. 3 weeks later... the envelope arrived. but not with the birth certificate. instead, the envelope contained our original application & a form letter indicating the named person on the application had not signed it. it seemed our newborn missed that line when she filled it out.

5. didn't say we wanted the correct info...
as a returning expatriate, lois was to be entitled to certain duty exemptions. what & how much proved to be a ball of yarn no contacted antiguan official could help us unravel. although we spent 5 months in close contact with the antiguan embassy in toronto, days before my departure, we discovered antigua has more than one official website. and not only were there no links between them whatsoever, but there was conflicting information. when we contacted the embassy to help, the response lois got was: 'we're not here to help you with your problems'... if an embassy isn't in place to assist antiguan nationals (which lois is), what is it in place for ?

4. the cat in the cargo...
my cat shadow & i have been together for 10 years. so when i had to spend $500 to accommodate antigua's rules (microchip, check-up, test from the US) & have shadow come to antigua, it was worth it. sure the test took 4 weeks to get back. lois & fam' would book the flight for after, so shadow could arrive on the same plane. hold it !! the day before the flight, the airline's head-cat-checking-dude indicated shadow could not go on the flight. why? he couldn't say. it was a govt regulation which he couldn't divulge... but upon emphatic insistence we discovered that canada does not allow live animals into cargo at the same time as human remains are also in cargo, (like we wouldn't feed shadow prior to departure). presently, shadow is still in kingston waiting to join us.

3. to open an account we'll need your soul...
in order to open a chequing account at the scotia bank branch in antigua you need proof of address, photo ID, 2 letters of employment reference & the list goes on. at the royal bank branch you need proof of address, photo ID & credit history letter from existing or previous bank. THEN after 6-12 months of having a savings account they'll review to see if you can have the chequing account. that is unless you are going to walk out of the bank with the $20,000 wired money order they are about to hand over. in order to keep that wired amount in the bank, they'll forget about the 6-12 months... did i mention the bankcard will take 2 weeks to arrive. i lied, its been 3 weeks and i still don't have it. BTW, it took 2 hours w/ a bank rep, to open that account.

2. you don't mind if we charge double...
ché & willow are canadian. because their mother is antiguan, they are too. did you know that no airlines will book one-way flights to any country for which you don't have a passport? in order to avoid being forced to purchase return tickets for the kids (nope, a newborn's flight ain't free), they'd need passports for antigua. ahh, but the passport issuer (in antigua) insisted on seeing the children first. ummm... okay, why don't we just fly them to antigua to get their passports. oh yeah... instead, why don't we just pay double & have a tall glass of shut the hell up.

and the number one bureacratic mind bending experience...

1. just try and find me...
when one arrives in unfamiliar territory, it is difficult enough to navigate. when setting up a household there are several things one must hire in... such as internet, cable, telephone, the truck driver who has the container of all your worldly possessions... so you find yourself giving directions. one can feel like a bit of an idiot giving those directions. what can make this experience even more interesting? how about, no address! that's right. just a geographic area. it would be like living in toronto & saying "i live in the annex".
"where, exactly?" would be the typical response.
and this is where the fun begins...
turn off this unnamed road, go to a T, turn left for 2 roads. if you go by the golf course you've gone too far... house & roof colours prove very popular for describing.
a letter to the mailman introducing myself & announcing where i lived by describing it, was fruitless. not only did i never receive a reply, but mail sent to me, has never arrived.
for now, i have a PO mailbox: "W1131, antigua, west indies".
but i have this challenge licked. once we establish where we will live, i'll be putting up a sign: "canada lane" or " canada corner". i'll post nearby signs pointing to our street. and i think i will even put numbers on my house. people won't even have to remember the numbers. all people'll say is: "its the house with the numbers", & everyone will know...

these are just 10 of the most entertaining.
with all these in the past, each experience has made our arrival & settling in that much sweeter.
so please forgive me when i twitch if someone says "boy you're so lucky"...

...cuz luck had nothing to do with it.