My First Passport

I was recently going through some of my old things and came across my journal from my first international experience outside North America -- a trip to Israel, Jordan, and Egypt in January, 2000, led by Dr. Tom Phillips during my freshman year at Eastern Nazarene College. The journal began with the recollection of the very complicated steps it took to get my passport. Since I have often posted about how difficult it can be to renew a visa in Romania (see posts tagged with "Nothing's Ever Easy"), I thought it would be fun to share the difficulties to receive my first passport:

Here are the words I wrote about getting my first passport in November 1999:

Friday, November 1999-
Deirdre & I went to get our passport pictures taken for $7.00 at a photographer's studio on Hancock Street, just a few doors down from Dunkin Donuts. Speaking of Donuts, Deirdre was driving her car with 3 wheels and her spare "donut" tire. We got our pictures taken & both were pretty good. We were going to go to the Quincy Post Office to get our passports that day, but ran out of time, so we planned to do it the next day.

Saturday, November 1999-
Deirdre & I met "wicked" early (for a Saturday) and set off. First, we went to her bank so she would have the $60.00 needed to get her passport. After the bank, we went to the Quincy Court House so Deirdre could get a copy of her birth certificate, but they were closed because it was a Saturday. She said that she would still take me to get my passport. Then we went to the Quincy Post Office. There weren't any parking spaces in front, so she dropped me off in front, & I went in. I stepped up to the first available window, presented my passport application, and said I was here for a passport. Then she told me that they only do passports on weekdays; since this was a Saturday, I couldn't get one! I went back outside just as Deirdre was pulling around the corner. I told her what had happened. In order not to have a totally profit-less morning, we went out for breakfast.

Monday, November 22, 1999-
It was three days before Thanksgiving, and we still didn't have our passports taken care of. Dr. Phillips told us that we should have that taken care of before Thanksgiving break. Deirdre & I decided to meet around 11:00 that morning since our Bib Lit class was cancelled that afternoon, and we would get our passports. Right before the time we were going to meet, I realized I didn't have the second passport picture that I had had taken. I tried looking everywhere in my room for it. I went over to the Dugout to meet Deirdre a few minutes early to ask if I had left it in her car, but she wasn't there yet, so I ran back to my room to look a few more places. When I went back to the Dugout, Deirdre wasn't there. (Somehow, we had missed each other; she told me later that she had been there.) I went to find her car in the parking lot, but couldn't find it, so I called her and left a message on her phone. I didn't know that she had already left.

Around 1:00 or 2:00 that afternoon, I still hadn't heard from her. I was walking by the Student Center patio on my way to the library to study for a psych test and saw Vanessa from my critical writing class so I went over to say "hi." She said that she had to get a passport, too, but for another trip. She had already gone into Boston to try to get it, but she doesn't have a driver's license, so they needed a better form of ID than her student ID, so she had to bring them a yearbook with her photo in it. She said that by going directly to the Boston Passport Agency (instead of the Quincy Post Office) that it would take a few weeks off the delivery of the passport, so we decided to go into Boston.

First, however, I needed to get a second passport photo. We walked down to the photographer that had taken Deirdre's and my pictures, but he was closed. Then I remembered that CVS has a new machine that they can copy pictures, so we went to the one next to Eastern Bank. They said that they could do it, but they had not yet been trained on how to do it. They told us to go to the other CVS -- next to Blockbuster.

We went there, and I told them that I needed a copy of the picture. They said that since it was a passport photo and that it was done by a professional photographer, they couldn't copy it. They could, however, take a new photo for my passport for me. Unfortunately, although they had received some training, they had never actually taken the photo and used the new system. They finally got my picture taken and printed, cut apart, and stapled on my application. I paid them, and Vanessa and I left for the T-station. We each bought 2 tokens and waited for the train.

We rode the Red Line to where we got on a green line train. But that train didn't go the entire distance, so we had to get off and wait for another green line train that would. The next train came, but that was its last stop, too. We finally got on the right train. By this time, I told Vanessa that if we get to the Passport Agency and it is closed, that I would tell Dr. Phillips that I couldn't go because God was doing everything so I wouldn't go.

We got to the Federal Building which houses the Passport Agency at 3:55. I think they closed at 4:00, but we made it! When I was called up to the window to pay for my passport, etc., the lady behind the glass inspected my application to make sure everything was complete. She stopped, looked up, and said, "Yoe?"
"What?" I said, not hearing through the glass.
This time, she pointed to the paper and repeated, "Yoe."
"Yeah, Yoe." I said.
"That's where you live?" she asked. "Are you sure you didn't forget a letter?"
"No. It's Yoe." I said.

Vanessa and I returned to ENC around 5:30. My passport came in about a week.