renew my passport

My passport will be expiring March 2010 but countries could be silly. Most, if not all, want your passport be valid not only for the duration of your visit, but also for three to six months after your entry or return from their country.

So, a passport renewal is due. The good thing is that, in the Philippines, there is now a service that makes this process relatively hassle-free: Pilipinas Teleserv.

Sure, you pay a bit more than you would if you do it directly with the Department of Foreign Affairs but it’d save you the time and effort it takes to queue.

Once you go to their site, you just need to follow links that would take you to the online form you need to fill up. There, you could also indicate the dates convenient for you for the requirements and payment pickup, the personal appearance at DFA and the delivery of your new passport. Then, you just need to prepare the requirements for passport renewal.

• my old passport
• photocopies of pages 1, 2 ,3 (amendment) inside and back cover
• the pages showing latest Bureau of Immigration departure and arrival stamps
• three colored photos following the specifications
• the processing payment

The guy from the courier service came this morning to pickup my requirements and get my signature. I’m scheduled for my personal appearance on Wednesday. Then, I need to wait ten working days before my new passport is delivered to my doorstep.

I realize that some countries have a simpler and faster process but well, when you live in the Philippines where things could get terribly bureaucratic, services such as this could be a blessing.

Today I will take my pictures to renew my passport at the Post Office during my lunch break. Once the pictures are taken, I will mail off my application and send it in…yay!

Today I printed the passport renewal form (DS-82) from the US Postal Service website. The renewal fee is $75.00 – now all I have to do is fill out the form and go get my pictures taken. Now that my hair is done, I may actually do this on Friday during my lunch break…we’ll see.

My passport is renewed, I can go on holiday!

I just called the post office to inquire about renewing my passport. It costs $75 and if I get the pictures taken at the post office there is an additional $15 fee – making the grand total $90. Now that I have the information, I will go down to the post office an pick up the application. After that, I’ll decide when I’m going to have my pictures taken and send it off for processing.

I’m definitely going to wait until I get my hair done before I take the pictures. I want my passport to have a nice picture of me since I’ll have it for the next 10 years.

It’s ready! Because of pending postal strikes my husband is going to pick it up from the office.

I find this outrageous, and forgive me if you disagree, but after a postal strike, they sometimes just shred ALL the mail, rather than deal with a backlog. So that was a risk I couldn’t afford. I know they did this in Italy a few years ago, and it has been mooted here.

I just want to move it into another more generic goal. But if I delete it I’ll also be deleting the 1 cheer it has and I’d feel bad for the person who kindly gave it to me. So it’s relegated to the ‘I’ve given up’ list unfortunately.

After all – of course I can’t give this one up… how else will I get to achieve all the travelling I’ve listed as other ‘someday’ goals ;)

So my application must have arrived. Hurrah. Even though the post office’s website doesn’t record it as delivered – very poor.

%^$£*!!HSH curses, I’ve got recorded delivery on my application, but a week later, it still hasn’t been delivered.

Please, please arrive safely!

now to wait patiently. I’ll consider this done when my new passport is in my hot little hand!