Passport business

I am currently in Ottawa, having been duly, biometrically, digitally, and certifiably photographed (and yet, it turned out looking like a passport picture). I could have received a free replacement for my passport—it’s from one of a number of batches with known manufacturing defects rendering them more prone to precisely the sort of cracking that has developed—but let’s face it: The expensive part of replacing it was never the $80 fee, but the almost-$800 cost of flying out to Ottawa to obtain it. I opted to get a new passport instead, which will be valid for three years longer (even though the new passports are valid only five years, compared to ten years for the old ones—like mine).

I feel vaguely amused that the Embassy of Sweden does not have its own building, but instead is on the third floor of a building with retail shops, sitting on top of the Lone Star Texas Grill.