The Passport

If I were forced to choose a theme song, The Beachboys I Get Around might not be a bad choice. I have been blessed with the resources, education, family and desire not only to create, but to feed my wanderlust. If you haven't heard, I'm living in China now, but didn't always. I was fortunate enough to spend a year studying in London, running over Europe on my off days; and I've been privileged to see much of my fair country with both friends and family. And future travel plans aren't in short supply either, as I have made plans to leave my teaching gig here in Shanghai to depart on a 5 month bonanza vacation. Is it crazy to quit a job and blow so much money on travel during the worst economic crisis of my or my parents lifetime? Probably. Will I regret it? Probably not.

Americans, however are not expected to venture far from our shores. I say this because if you compare your US passport to those of most other globalized countries you'll quickly discover that we have significantly less pages in our passports than they do. We have more than enough room for stamps, but when countries decided to take up a full page with a visa, then a second with a residence permit (then another with a second residence permit), the pages start to disappear all too quickly (lookin' at you China...). In short, if you travel enough you're gonna need more pages added to your passport.

When I realized this fact last fall, I began to look into what steps I would need to fulfill to get these bonus pages. On the internet the prospect looked bleak, as I was only going to be home for a month over Christmas and the State Department said it would take up to 6 weeks to return it to me by mail, unless I expedited the work (at the cost of $60) and they'd have it back to me in 2 weeks - there was no 'in person' option. I had reluctantly resigned myself to spending 400 Kung-Pow Chickens on upgrading my travel papers when I learned of an alternative: the US Consulate in Shanghai.

Apparently adding pages isn't difficult. Less than half an hour after I arrived at the consulate, I was walking out with 24 fresh new pages in my little blue book, and I didn't even have to pay a dime! Covered with background landscape scenes from around the US, they were just stuck right in the middle of my old passport. Talk about expedited - 30 minutes and FREE! Needless to say I was excited, so I celebrated by throwing on some Beachboys and heading out for some Kung-Pow. It's amazing how bureaucratic rigmarole we go through for passports sometimes, and how easy they really can be to make and update.