So July 30th, 2011 marked a day I will never forget - the day my passport expired. I cannot believe I have had this little blue thing for 10 years now. And if I am completely honest, I am a little sad. This date literally marks the end of a decade - a marvelous decade I might add of traveling, seeing the world, making memories, etc, etc.
It also marks the end of this terrible passport photo! Thank goodness for that! I mean look at that haircut and those eyebrows - oh my!
But then again this wasn't the original passport photo. I got my first passport right before I graduated from high school - so sometime around may 2001 probably? And upon graduation, three of us set off for our first European adventure - we traveled to England, Spain, Germany, Norway, Sweden, Italy..and maybe some other places?
And we were having a fabulous time...until our overnight train through France changed everything. I still remember that terrible train ride. It was a LONG one! I remember thinking, "how the heck am I ever going to fall sleep on this thing??...it's so loud and so uncomfortable." And I remember someone opening the door to our little cab on the train...and hollering uhh someone is in here. And the next thing I knew I was walking up the next morning and my bag was missing. No big deal right? This stuff happens all the time...well this bag just happened to contain my passport, my money, and my most treasured possession...my journal! I was devastated. My thoughts instantly went to my passport and all the new stamps, and my journal and all the time and energy I had spent on documenting all the happenings!
I mean those things were truly irreplaceable right? Well I guess someone thought differently because the back flap of my passport loudly states that this passport is a replacement for my stolen one. Thus, the passport that I have carried around with me for the past 10 years was simply a replacement for my stolen original, and it was issued in Madrid, but that still doesn't explain why I look like a 12 year old in my photo! I mean did I not think about the fact that this picture would grace my passport for TEN whole years?
Anyhow...you can tell alot about a person by checking out their passport. Or maybe they don't even have one and that right there tells you a little something about them doesn't it?
You can flip through the passport and examine all the stamps or the lack thereof. Have they traveled alot? Where have they traveled to? The stamps truly say it all.
And one of my absolute favorite things about traveling is the stamps I acquire at immigration. I love the questions they ask and the sound of the stamp pounding down upon my passport. Each beautiful stamp serves to document a new memory in the making and I absolutely love that! Thus, it only makes sense that I was absolutely devastated when my original passport was stolen along with my newly acquired stamps!
These stamps down below tell you that I have been to Guatemala and London a few times, along with New Zealand, and France. The stamps above tell you that I have lived the dream and traveled to Uganda and Malawi. My visa tells you that I have lived in Northern Ireland and the stamps within my passport tell you that I have been back and forth from there a TON!
My passport also marks some important dates. On August 3, 2001 I was on my way home from my first European adventure, and I was anxious for another one! July 1, 2004 marks my first Ireland encounter, and that date is simply a few days shy of my first Peter encounter. Both trips changed my life and truly transformed my world!
No comments:
Post a Comment