Ready for international travel

balbert Jan 13, 2009 General Since I’ve had some extra time on my hands, I have been trying to get some of those things done that i just never seemed to have the time for before. One of those things has been renew my passport. The last time I needed a passport was when the family visited my brother in Brasil during his study abroad program. I was still in high school and we visited for Christmas. Being south of the equator when winter is summer was a very odd experience… Christmas on the beach just didn’t really feel right. Looking back on it now, it was a fun experience, but it didn’t seem like it at the time. Being a grumpy teenager in a foreign land, didn’t really appreciate the experience fully. I also didn’t take advantage of some opportunites like when my brother and friends offered me beers. Oh well… live and learn. So almost a year ago I thought it would be a good idea to have a passport. Can’t really remember why I started thinking about it, but I did some research on the net to see what was involved. Since I had my old expired passort it turned out all i had to do was download and fill out the forms, get a passport photo and then show up at my local neighborhood service center with some money. I think the hardest part of the form was figuring out my parent’s birthdates. I knew their birthdays, but not the years. I just never really payed attention to that kind of thing. After a call to my Dad I got the right dates and places and the form was done. It then sat on my computer’s desktop for months. Well today I finally got it all completed. Printed out the forms, grabed my old passport out of the safe and headed down to Ballard Camera for my photos. Figured out later that I probably could have saved the $13 for the photos by doing it myself on my Mac but oh well not worth complaining over spilt milk. With my photos in hand, I headed over to the Neighborhood Service Center attached to the Ballard Library branch. Walked in and up to the counter. Handed over my form, photos and old passport along with my two checks… one for the city of seattle and one for the state department and I was renewed. I should get my new passport in 4 to 6 weeks… maybe sooner.