Fill up my passport before it expires

I’ve just returned from the Galapagos islands, so another 4 stamps. yay :D

I don’t think so, somehow.

I thought I could accomplish this goal by taking a tour of Europe. I just returned from a 16 day tour where I visited: England, France, Belgium, Netherlands, Switzerland, Lichtenstein, Austria, Germany, Italy, Vatican City, Monaco, and France. Little did I know that in the EU, they don’t stamp your passport at each border!

I only got stamps from England (where I flew in), France (got stopped at the border), Switzerland (ditto), and Germany (where I flew out of). In Lichtenstein, you can purchase a stamp on your passport for a nominal fee (about 3 Euro, I think). Unfortunately, the day our tour passed through was a national holiday, so the office was closed.

Oh well, more reasons to return!

Next countries up: Mexico, Argentina, Thailand, Singapore. Dates TBD.

this is possible if i’m in the international base.. (i’m a flight attendant)

well I’ve been to Australia (2x) and NZ and India (+ visa) in the last 8 months, so am slowly progressing. And Chile Argentina and Indonesia in the next three months. Gotta love the gap year!

1. London and that mythical land of legends Nottingham – check
2. Paris – check
3. Fiji – check
4. Rome – check
5. Auckland – check
6. Merida, MX – check
7. Antigua, Guatemala – on Nov. 9th
8. Vancouver, Canada – on Dec. 26th (hey, technically i do need to get a stamp to go there now…)

A few weeks ago, someone mentioned that my obsession with passport stamps is ‘very American’. First I found this ironic.

Then I thought there are worse connections which could be made.

And so, it’s all good.

I got my passport back with the new pages added. They aren’t sewn in as I had been led to believe they would be; they are taped in. And it’s a shoddy job. I feel much less attraction to my passport now.

Ah … well … if it gets ya outa the country then who’s complaining?

Now that I’ve had to use the back cover of the passport to recieve stamps and have been held up at borders trying to convince the official, “Just stamp over the other stamps, it’s ok, all the cool boarder officials are doing it…” I’ve finally decided to just go for it and mail in the passport and ask for more pages to be sewn in. But now – just two weeks after mailing it off – I feel a little nervous and trapped. I have to wait until I get the passport back (who knows when that’ll be) to go anywhere again. Ugh.

But yes, it’s worthwhile. I worked hard for those stamps. I definitely feel a surge of pride in my temporary-passportless dilemma.

as ID. Hit me again how much I Need. More. Stamps. It’s been a year since the last batch. Which lately is a stretch for me. A painful, painful stretch.