Passport Fun - International Style

You may recall in a past post how I was concerned about how the whole passport thing was going to work out since I'm currently living in England and won't be returning to the States until late August. I didn't know at the time that Peace Corps volunteers don't use their personal passports to travel with (which makes me sad - I was really looking forward to a Ukraine visa to go along with my China and UK ones). Instead, we use a special government type passport. So all volunteers must apply for this special passport.

The e-mail I received after accepting my invitation basically said: You have three options - 1) If you have a passport, use this form; 2) If you don't have a passport or are traveling, use a different form; 3) If you are applying overseas, call the travel agency. I called the travel agency, and explained my situation to them, which was actually really amusing and went something like this:

Me: 'I need to apply for my passport and visa but I'm living in the UK and the e-mail I received said to call you.'
Them: 'When are you leaving for service?'
Me: 'September.'
Them: 'And when do you return to the States from the UK?'
Me: 'September.'
Them: '...'
Me: '...'
Them: 'Really?'

The people I spoke to were really nice about it and told me what I needed to do: I had to go to the U.S. Embassy with my form and passport and they would make an official copy of my passport that I could send in lieu of my real passport, since I need it to get back into the country. I just started to laugh. Really? I had to go to the Embassy in London (about 2 1/2 hours away by train)? Sure, why not, sounds like fun, and I'm always down for a road trip. Plus there's this pretty decent Mexican restaurant in that area of the city that I could go to. Hoping online, I went to the website for the U.S. Embassy in London and learned they have no available appointments until August 27th, the day I will be back in the States. Ahh...nothing is ever that easy, is it?

Calling the travel people back, I told them what was what (the person I spoke to said, and I quote: 'Sounds like you're up a creek without a paddle.' It took all of my will power not to bust out laughing), but the woman who could help me was out for lunch so I would need to call back. In the meantime, I did a little research and found out that the consulate up in Edinburgh (about 3 hours away) does passport stuff as well, and they had lots of appointments available! I decided to just go ahead and book an appointment with them and just hope for the best. Besides, I've been meaning to head up to Edinburgh since I would rather spend the time Dad and I will be in Scottland visiting the parts of the country I can't get to easily. I wish I could have stayed there overnight, but things didn't quite work out since I had other appointments scheduled for this week.

Anyways, yesterday I headed up to Edinburgh with all of my paperwork. My appointment was at 12:30 and I arrived at 12:00 (I have a habit of being perpetually early), but people were sitting on the steps of the building, which really confused me. Turns out it was a queue. A queue that went out the door. Brilliant. It wasn't bad, though, just a little cold as I sat on the steps with everybody else reading the book I had brought until I was allowed to head inside at around 1:30 and wait in there. I was finally called up at about 2:00, and it took a total of 3 minutes to give them all my paperwork, explain what I needed, and to be told it would take at least an hour for everything to be processed. Gotta love it.

When I was finally called back up, turns out the guy who watched me sign my application was a RPCV (Returned Peace Corps Volunteer) who had served in Tonga in the 90's, and we chatted about what it's like to volunteer and what it's like to work in the Foreign Service, a career I've been entertaining pursuing someday (he said it's simliar to serving in the Peace Corps except you get paid - love it!). He also explained why things had taken so long that day - apparently a lot of the usual staff was still on vacation for the 4th. I happily walked out of the consulate at 3:00 with my forms.

At 3:15 I was back, knocking on their door asking to be let back in because, after reading the instructions provided by the Peace Corps, I was afraid things had been messed up. He was really nice, read over the instructions and called his supervisor in London. The thing I was worried about I was told not to worry about (the instructions said they would seal the application in an envelope, which they didn't do and they assure me they don't need to do), but it's a good thing I did go back, because he was supposed to include a seal on the application showing that I had gone to the consulate to have it done. Application freshly sealed, I walked out of the consulate at 3:30, after 3 1/2 hours, still a little worried about the fact my stuff wasn't sealed in an envelope, but deciding everything would work out.

I spent the rest of the day walking around Edinburgh and went on a freaky ghost tour of a part of the underground city called 'City of the Dead'. Very very cool, I definitely recommend it. Then I hopped back on the train and came back home. It was a very long but enjoyable day. Today I'm going to head to UPS and mail the forms off and hope for the best! Then I'm pretty much done with Peace Corps stuff for a few weeks until it's time to start thinking about arranging my travel and purchasing the things I'm going to need for my time in Ukraine. I'm so excited!