before i forget, because you never know with my scatterbrain, i am supposed to tell you that it’s booshy’s birthday and “the super anal and disgustingly needy booshy wants you to read her birthday post.  She’s the one asking, not me, and since it’s her birthday, I am being nice.  So if she sucks, blame her, not me.  I’m simply the messenger who is trying to do the right thing.”

there it is, click on the link and make booshy’s day. if not none will ever know so that’s just as fine. *[EDIT: before booshy hates me forever may i clarify that i meant that she will never know that you did not click on the above link so do not feel pressured into doing so. i will know. that should scare you enough]

so i went to pick up my passport today. again because i’m such a loser and forgot my old one yesterday. so i get there and the lady who said she’ll take care of me was busy while everyone else was not. i’m not kidding. they had five desks open and only the one lady i had to wait for was busy. so eventually i went to a different one.

problem was that lady number 1 had already taken my passport from the file cabinet so lady number 2 couldn’t find my document. so she ended up yelling my name with me yelling it back to her with the proper pronunciation. that made lady number 1 raise an eyebrow and eventually she waived with my passport. i only got a nasty look and her saying “i told you to come see me”. well, i’m sorry. if everyone else is not busy and you have people standing in line because you seem to be taking personal appointments…

whatever. got my passport and after a few punches on the keyboard lady number 2 says i now have two valid passports. i’m like “what?” and then she goes on to tell me that this is in the system and no problem at all (which also had me wonder why then i couldn’t pick up the passport yesterday because if it is possible to have two valid ones at the same time then why would i need to bring along the other one?!) . so i question her again because i’m sure that this does not seem right (and i want to enjoy my vacation not be pulled over at the border crossing because there’s something wrong with my passport). so she says, people who travel to countries like jordan usually have two passports when they also travel to countries that would get suspicious with such a stamp in their passport.

lady, i’m sorry, are you telling me that you provide people with two legal travel documents that disguise the travel one has been undertaking? sounds like an easy game for terrorists if you ask me. if i had any bad intentions this is how i would do it! so i asked her to please make my old passport invalid as the new one totally suffices for my travel purposed. hope she changed the data entry. yikes!

the new passport has me look like i suffer from icterus. nice.

i want to follow up on one of the comments from yesterdays post. yes, you do have to get a number at that particular place because there’s 7 desks and usually a lot of people so just standing in line wouldn’t really work. in my hometown it’s a lot less formal but then again, there’s about 475000 less people in my hometown  you get the number, sit down, and wait. and wait. and wait again. it’s the only office that’s got working hours that suit working professionals. open until 8 pm is not  normal for a german government office.

thank you for the hint on the cereal bar. not that i would have learned anything from it because i was again starving when i went there. lesson learned, i am hungry at 6 pm.

franzi