Traveling thoughts

Ten years ago, I got my first passport, so I could adventure across the Pond and see Rosie in her other habitat, and learn about things like the one o'clock gun, the Fringe, the Tattoo (which has little to do with body art), and driving on the left side of the road, tromp around castles and stand in Holyrood Abbey, and paint sycamore leaves with chocolate, and misspell Current/Currant Jam on the home made labels. Since then, the little blue book and I have gone to Germany and Austria with family, repeatedly to Canada for work (and earning that Immigration stamp means being asked at least three times Can't a Canadian do your job?), and off to Switzerland. That passport is from an era when Mexico felt more like a giant neighboring 51st state, and less like a hostile foreign Nation separated by an ugly fence (and bitterly united again through multi-national drug-based violence), so even though I've visited more than once there is no mark to prove it.

I got married, and held off on changing my passport. I didn't want to give up the marks from our adventures. I didn't want to lie to the government and say I'd lost it, just so I could keep the visa pages as souvenirs. At the last possible minute I sent it off to be renewed (Expedited! Overnight delivery!) so that M and I can go to Greece next week...

... and the State Department sent me back three envelopes this week. My new, "improved" passport with thick binding pages and RFID technology, sporting a face that is broader but wears much more appropriate glasses frames, with multi colored watermarks and quotes from Presidents past on each page. A passport card -- for venturing into Mexico or Canada by land or sea -- and my identity documents.

Imagine my surprise when they mailed back not ONLY my marriage certificate, but my old passport, with all of its stamps and dog eared pages, with the pre-clearance sticker from Zurich still affixed to its back cover, invalidated by a pair of hole punches through the information page!

It seems kind of fitting to me that M and I will embark on next week's travel with two virgin, unmarked passports, with matching surnames, and equally awful pictures, but I feel better, somehow, knowing that all my pre-marriage travels are recorded for memory's sake. I did a lot of living before I changed my last name; I don't really want to forget that. Now there's room for Greece, and Scotland again next year, and all the way to China to see Scott, and maybe more Canada and Switzerland trips for work.