New Passport!!

How could I have forgotten to post about this monumental event...I renewed my passport last month!

After returning from Italy on December 31, 2007 I promptly sent my passport renewal application in on January 7, 2008.

My passport was due to expire in September 2008, and you ask...why is she sending in the renewal 9 months in advance?

Simple my friends...after reading about all the chaos last year with the new entry requirements and the nightmare stories of people having to stand in line for hours at passport offices, and I mean people flew to the nearest cities with passport offices to stand in line for expedited service in order to not cancel travel plans, I was not going to be one of those people who waited to the last minute and be caught in a lurch. OK, so if you know me well, you know that I would never leave something like this to last minute anyway!

So I completed the application and sent it off with my passport. I did send it certified mail, but I did not pay the extra to have expedited service since my next forray into a foreign country is not scheduled until September 2008 (but I certainly want to be prepared if an opportunity presents itself!..but I digress here). I mailed the envelope off on January 7th as I mentioned.

Lo and behold less then 3 weeks later I had my shining new passport in my hands! Wow...what a difference from the stories I ready about renewals taking 3 months! I was overjoyed!

But I gotta say, I really don't like the look of the new passport pages...all the different photos/watermarks where the country stamps will go...you know how some of those stamps are so light and now with all the background photos on the pages, I'm willing to bet I won't be able to read some of the new stamps and afterall that's part of the fun of getting your passport stamped anyway, it's a reminder of all the interesting places I've visited, it's the verification that I was not dreaming that I actually saw the Colloseum, Eiffel Tower, Hong Kong Harbor, The Sydney Harbor Bridge...well that stamp and the plethora of photos I seem to always take.


I will just deal with it, at least this new passport has the new chip technology in it, whatever benefit that includes I don't know yet...but now I can rest easy for the next 10 years knowing my passport photo doesn't look half bad and I can jet off to the far ends of the earth on a moments notice!