Passport Memories

Last month I was forced to renew my passport. This is a pretty momentous event in the life of an expat. Our passport is our most treasured and protected document. With it, we can travel and live legally in our chosen expat domain. Without it, we are naked in expat purgatory, trapped, reliant on our consulate and the speed with which they can produce a new one, cold and empty as it may be.

I really didn’t want to renew this passport. As the dreaded “six months to expiry” date approached, I knew the deed had to be done. If I wanted to travel at all, I needed more than six months of validity. But it was not easy. This passport is full of memories. Each page and every stamp tells a small part of the story that is my life as a traveler and expat. This passport also tells the story of my life with the DH. We’ve known each other for each of the ten years of this passport’s life. We’ve been married for eight of them, eight years today, coincidentally. Ten year anniversary of my passport, eight year anniversary of my marriage. I told you there would be anniversaries!

I love flipping through its pages, and at first I thought I would post scans of them, but that would have made for a mile long post. Instead, I’ll post highlights with my memories of how I got the stamps throughout the month ahead.

1999 Passport, so worn out the US seal is no longer visible. 2009 Passport with the dreaded RFID chip symbol.

Although my new passport is indeed cold and empty, I look forward to all the unknown stamps and visas that will fill its pages and to another adventurous ten years with the DH, my favorite travel and expat buddy. Happy Anniversary, DH!

En Español:

Como puedes imaginar, el pasaporte es muy importante a los expatriados. Sin ello, no podemos viajar a un pais al otro y en el caso de China, tampoco podemos mover dentro del pais. Sin el pasaporte, nostros no existimos. El mes pasado yo tenía que ir a Beijing para renovar mi pasaporte en el consulado americano. (O estadounidense si quieres ser perfectamente correcto…)

La verdad es que no quería renovar éste documento. Está llena de muchas memorias de los ultimos diez años que he vivido en el extranjero y todos los viajes que he tomado con el DH. Hemos estado juntos todos éstos diez años del pasaporte, y casados ocho de ellos, ocho años hoy, precisamente. (Te he dicho que habría aniversarios, verdad?) Pero si yo quería continuar viviendo así, no había mas remedio. Una pasaporte sin seis meses de validez no tiene valor ninguno.

Me gusta mucho mirar a los visados y sellos que rellenan las paginas y recordar las buenas experiencias que he tenido. En vez de poner aqui fotos de todas las paginas, como quería hacer, voy a enfocar en un par de visados/sellos especiales durante el mes.

Aunque éste nueveo pasaporte parezca muy frío, tengo illusion para poder rellenarlo de visados y sellos de mis aventuras por el mundo al lado de mi aventurero preferido – el DH! Feliz aniversario!

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Tagged as: Anniversary, Expat Life, memories, memory, Passport Memories, Reminiscence