After our hassle free entry into the country, we set off to acquire our first piece of documentation. The Social Insurance Number or SIN card. This is something that I wish that none of you experience when you come to Canada.
Coming back to the SIN story, so we get directions and we set off on foot to the SIN office. The driving distance to this place is seven minutes and since we don't drive yet, we felt that on foot, we would be just fine. We were so WRONG!
It was 35 degrees that day (in the shade). With the humidex factor it was almost 46 degrees, this is some heat that we Indians, especially in Bombay, do not experience. It took us an hour to get there and we were exhausted. We had to wait about 20 minutes before a very lovely lady looked at our documents and started to process our SIN application.
That is where the bubble burst! It appeared on the screen that my name was incorrectly entered in at immigration and that I would have to get this corrected from the Airport office. My heart began to sink and all crazy thoughts came to my mind. My wife's SIN number was processed, no problems at all. I was instructed to give immigration a call and if required get to their office in Etobicoke to get the matter fixed.
The walk back home was a terrible one. Melissa almost fainted through it and we were very disappointed when we got home. I had a horrible feeling that I was going to get deported. When I called up the immigration office, the lady told me that the problem was a severe one and it may take anywhere between four days to four weeks to fix. That dented my confidence even more.
However, it was not as bad as I thought it was going to be. Melissa urged me to call the Immigration office two days later and the lady I spoke to told me that the matter was fixed. I was ecstatic and we raced back to the SIN office. This time by bus :-). The kind lady had told us that once we got the problem fixed, we could just walk up to her and not queue up for someone to attend to us. She checked her computer and it was fixed. Glory be to God! I was so happy! I was not going to be deported!
We got our SIN cards five days after our respective applications were processed
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