Bye bye Imago

[peregrina]

I wasn't sure where to post this... but my husband's Imago was stolen in Barcelona yesterday in a moment of carelessness.. there were lots of electronic stuff in it but the main loss was the bag itself and his passport...

[Badger]

That's terrible. I hope that you can get a replacement passport right away.

[maverick]

i'm so sorry to hear that!

it will help to get a travel document or replacement passport if he has a copy of the picture page of his passport. if he didn't pack one in another bag, if you have a copy at home, you can scan and email it to him, or fax it to the hotel.

good luck! let us know how this resolves!

[maverick]

hi!

just a quick thought - if your husband doesn't have a copy of the picture page of his passport, ask him to check with the hotel (if he's staying at one) to see if they made a copy of it. at least in india, i've noticed that hotels do that.

[Sera]

I'm so sorry to hear that you had such a lousy thing happen.

[moriond]

So sorry to hear this. Lots of sympathy, and please let us know how this turns out.

moriond

[peregrina]

Unfortunately we didn't stay in a hotel. We rented an apartment from a friend. All we have is the passport number and expiry date. The consulate is closed until tuesday so we'll be going then to figure out what to do. The passport is relatively new, I'm not sure we have a copy of it even at home... I did take a picture of my passport before we came and told my husband to take a picture of his but he ended up forgetting and I forgot to do it...

hi!

just a quick thought - if your husband doesn't have a copy of the picture page of his passport, ask him to check with the hotel (if he's staying at one) to see if they made a copy of it. at least in india, i've noticed that hotels do that.

[Stacybean]

Best of luck with these challenging circumstances!

[notmensa]

Oh no! What an awful thing to happen on your holiday. :-(
Fingers crossed the consulate is helpful & efficient....

[ncb4]

This is awful! I'm so sorry to hear about this, and I hope that when the consulate opens on Tuesday they are able to help you swiftly and with good grace, even without the picture of your husband's passport. He didn't lose his laptop, too, did he? And of course, it's so sad about the beautiful Imago...

This doesn't help you now, but I'm so paranoid about losing passports that I don't just carry a paper copy of the photo page, I keep a scan in a secure folder on Dropbox. I especially worry about my son who is an ex-pat living and traveling abroad. So if even if his paper copy of the passport should be lost or stolen, and his laptop, too, all he needs is access to anyone else's computer to get another copy of it.

I hope somehow that you and your husband are still able to enjoy your holiday despite this! Please keep us posted, if you can.

~Nancy

[peregrina]

I usually take a picture of our passports and keep it on dropbox or email them to myself. Since we have new passports, I told my husband to take a picture of his passport but we both forgot. I did take a picture of mine... Luckily, our catsitter was able to locate his previous passport and has emailed us a copy of that. We have also managed to get his passport number from the airline... hopefully that will help tomorrow.

He didn't have a laptop with him but he had his ipad 2, ipod touch, a GPS, and a fancy lightmeter for his manual camera... we were on our way to the train station so the bag was fully packed...

This doesn't help you now, but I'm so paranoid about losing passports that I don't just carry a paper copy of the photo page, I keep a scan in a secure folder on Dropbox. I especially worry about my son who is an ex-pat living and traveling abroad. So if even if his paper copy of the passport should be lost or stolen, and his laptop, too, all he needs is access to anyone else's computer to get another copy of it.

~Nancy

[bchaplin]

Aw, so sorry! Well, let us know how it goes. This must happen to a lot of people, so I'm sure the consulate has a system for handling it efficiently.

[Walker]

I add my hopes that your embassy help you resolve your lost passport issue soonest.

[Maria]

Peregrina! So sorry to learn this news. Hope your husband can get a replacement passport straight away.

Good luck and safe trip the rest of the way home for you both!

[peregrina]

Back from consulate...

After much scraping to locate the number of the lost passport and the picture of an old passport, we made our way to the Canadian consulate in Barcelona bright and early on Tuesday morning. We are currently staying in a town 1:30 hour by train from Barcelona and had to catch the 7:15 AM train to make sure to be there when the consulate opened at 9 AM.

We saw an official right away, who gave us all kinds of forms to fill and photocopied the police report. Once the forms were filled, they would issue my husband a temporary passport (a white one) that would be valid for 2 years. Once in Canada, he is supposed to contact his local passport office and request his blue passport, which would issued automatically, since the forms we filled then would be valid for both passports. I asked her if she wanted the number of the previous passport. She said no. She also didn't want to see the picture of the old passport. The trickiest thing about getting a new passport? Having to come up with the names, addresses, and phone numbers of four people who knew him for at least 2 years. We have lots of friends but we don't really have their mail addresses. I have a list for Christmas cards at home but most of our closest friends have moved recently. To make matters worse, it was 5 AM in Canada, so we couldn't really email anyone and expect an answer anytime soon. Luckily, it turns out that the referees don't have to be Canadian or be residing in Canada so we were able to use our friends in Spain as referees.

Lesson learned: sure, bring a copy of your passport with you but don't forget to also have in hand the addresses and phone numbers of four friends who have agreed to act as a referee should you need to put their names down on a passport application!