Passport Rules Changing

by Erik Olsen on

Making my way to Canada this year to spend a week in the gloriously beautiful Canadian province of Newfoundland, I discovered a nasty little surprise. My wife and I got to the airport and discovered that Newfoundland requires Americans traveling there to bring a passport or birth certificate to enter by air from the United States. I had no idea. For years living in Seattle I came and went to Canada and needed only to show my drivers’ license. I was pretty damn upset because no one told us that the rules had changed, and so we had to go back and get our passports and needless to say, we missed our plane.

Well my hardies, the rules HAVE changed, although they have not taken effect Canada-wide quite yet, and when they do take effect, they will cover Mexico as well. Yes, visitors to the NAFTA states North and South will soon have to bring along passports to cross the country’s borders…well, the key is really getting back in. The rules take effect December 31 for air travelers to and from the Caribbean, Mexico and Canada.

A year later, on Dec. 31, 2007, the requirement will be extended to all land-based border crossings as well.

Now, this could be either a good thing or a bad thing.

It’s certainly a bad thing in that it makes going to Mexico and Canada a bigger pain in the buttocks. I keep my passport in a safe, locked place in my home, and I am just not sure that if I decide suddenly to take a road trip to Montreal that I’m going to remember it. I suppose I’ll have to. It may also be bad in that it might discourage Americans who want to travel “abroad” from going because they either a) don’t have passports or b) forgot them.

But perhaps we should look on the bright side. Maybe the new rules will inspire people who don’t yet have a passport to go out and get one. Given the rather awful statistics that say only 20 percent of Americans carry a passport (thus speaking loudly and clearly to our deficiencies as an internationally-aware, culturally sensitive nation) putting them in more Americans’ hands could very possibly help improve our awareness of those “others”, AKA foreigners, on the other side of the border.

By the way, Lonely Planet has been pushing this whole idea for a whle, and ,in fact, THIS is National Passport Month. So how’s that for good timing?

Museum Day

by Neil Woodburn on

Museum Day is just around the corner. No, it’s not another cheesy Hallmark invention where you have to buy some type of greeting card for your favorite museum. No, Museum Day is a day when museums honor you!

On September 30, approximately 500 museums across America will throw upon their doors and waive admission fees. Patrons of the arts can waltz right in and proceed to bury themselves in fine culture without their wallets taking a hit.

For some reason, this doesn’t coincide with International Museum Day which occurred last month, May 28. But, who cares? Free is free.

For a list of participating venues, click here.

Crazy Kerouac

by Erik Olsen on

I was flying back from Bangkok when I first read Jack Kerouac’s On the Road and I was so engrossed and pumped up by the book that the 18-plus hour flight home passed like lightening. I have since read the book twice more, and each time have found it a wonderful and exhilarating experience. Part travelogue, part feverish examination of the American Zeitgeist, the book is one of the all-time classics, an inspiration to writers and adventurers who dream of exploring America’s vast lonesome highways.

So I was fascinated to read this recent posting at the Smoking Gun about Kerouac’s alleged dementia and his discharge from the military. Kerouac, who died in 1969 at age 47, enlisted in the army in 1942 and almost immediately after reporting for active duty landed in the hospital. Medical personnel said he suffered from “Dementia Praecox,” had “strong schzoid trends” (sic) and eventually recommended his discharge. The documents here also discuss an early “sex contact” with a 32-year-old woman (when he was 14), as well as his, um, masturbatory habits.

On a lighter note, Francis Ford Coppola, who has owned the rights to On the Road since 1979, will (finally) make the book into a film with Walter Salles of The Motorcycle Diaries directing. Billy Crudup is said to star as Dean Moriarty and possibly Colin Farrell will play Sal Paradise.

Red Corner: Searching for Soviet-Retro in Tallinn’s Second Hand Stores.

by Neil Woodburn on

When communism ended and western products flooded into the vacuum left by socialist central planning, every-day goods which dominated life under communism were tossed in the trash or otherwise discarded.

It wasn’t a hard choice; everyone had the same thing and so very much of it was poor, shoddy quality.

With the passage of time, however, discarded objects tend to come back into fashion. Joel Alas, writing for the Baltic Times, decided to search out for himself some old Soviet era kitsch in the second hand stores of the Baltics–especially in the small town of Viljandi which is considered “the second hand shopping capital of Estonia.”

What he discovered was that not enough time had passed in Estonia for such clothes, household goods, and electronics to come back in fashion locally. But, he did find some cool items which he felt would be a hit in the West.

If you’re heading off to the Baltics and want to pick up some cheap souvenirs, you might want to consider stopping by.

Sagrada Familia: Construction Update

by Iva Skoch on

Who says people can´t build grand cathedrals nowadays? OK, so maybe they take a little longer to build it now, since forced labor is generally frowned upon. But, you can´t accuse them of not trying.

Barcelona has been attempting to build a cathedral-like building since 1882 and I am here in Barcelona to report today that it is still not finished. Actually, I was here last in 1993 and I really can´t see any major progress has been made since then. The new estimated date of completion of Sagrada Familia–which roughly translates as `Our Lady of Perpetual Construction,` or something like that–is 2022. That does not prevent it from being the most visited site in Spain today.

It is an impressive building and when the 170-meter central dome is finished, it should be a masterpiece.