Germany

Well, I scheduled my last dentist and haircut appiontments to take care of before I leave the States! That way my hygiene will be that much better for me to take on the world. ;)

I also filled out my application for the U.S. Passport last night. Since Wednesdays are my busiest days, with blocks of back-to-back-to-back-to-back classes, I figured I would not have time to walk to Walgreen's from campus, to get my two professional/official Passport photo IDs taken and printed, and then get on the 15 bus to ride up to Capitol and to the Shorewood Post Office before 5 PM closing time, where I could submit the application.

So I figured I'd do the Walgreen's photo part today, and the Shorewood Post Office dealie tomorrow, when I am done with class for the day at 12:15 PM.

I launched myself into Walgreen's on Oakland, made a beeline for the photo counter, and told the attendant I needed to get my passport photos taken. He blankly looked at me, took two steps to the right, towards the printer for the passports, and then took three steps back towards me, to just say, "Uhhh, sorry, we're working with the Health Department right now and our printer is broken. It should be fixed tomorrow, can you come back then?"

Argh. That was not a part of my timeline with getting this imperative little slice of studying abroad all submitted, but I just lightly said, "Sure, not a problem!" and buzzed out the door, wondering what the Sam Hill the Health Department had to do with any of this?

I figured to take my business elsewhere, to Clarkwood Graphics up the street, which handles most of the custom print-jobs that the instructors from UWM request. I walked in, asked for the same thing......and the attendant there replied to me that they no longer do passport photos because they got their store renovated recently, and that included digging out the room where you were staged to get your photo taken.

Arrrrrrghhh. Looks like I'm going to have to do both tomorrow, after all.

I'm also going to have to pay an additional, whopping $60 on a rush-request to get my passport mailed to me in two weeks, because I need it by December 1st. (Federal law states that you must have your passport in-hand, 30 days before you depart the U.S., and I depart December 31st!) If I were to let this go naturally, and take the 4-6 week processing time, I probably would not get it until just before Christmas. (WOW...Christmas, already?!?! I gotta start considering the mad rush of the holidays now, too??? Wah!)

Besides, as Dave pointed out to me awhile back, there is a new law, airing January 1st, that requires all citizens to have passports to travel throughout North America...so in order to go to Canada or Mexico, basically.

That will probably cause some un-due backordering for my passport, since there will be an unusually large flux of other citizens getting their passports, just to be thorough (and I can't blame them, I would so do that, too!)


Passport frustrations. Ahhhhhh.