It came today............

My passport showed up in my mailbox today. The postal worker wasn't kidding when she said it would be here in less then three weeks. I turned the application in on Feb 6th and my passport shows up 11 short days later. I wasn't sure. I have been pointed in the wrong direction by postal employees before. They are government workers afterall.

My summer spent working for the Youth Conservation Corp with the USFS taught me a thing or two about working for the government. Drive an hour to the job site, take a break. Work for an hour, take a lunch, drive to the next site, take a break, work for about 15 minutes, take a break. Do I need to go on or do you get the picture? My mom assures me this is not the typical USFS way of doing things but I'm not convinced. This is coming from the women who's first question about kids at school was, "Do their parents work for the Forest Service?" hehe (just kidding, Mom)

I hate waiting.

The worst part of traveling isn't the crowd at the airport, confusion caused by flight delays, or even the headache resulting from the baby next to crying for the entire duration of the flight. It's the wait.

When you first decide to take a trip, you get really excited, going online to research sites of interest and travel arrangements, creating an intinerary, and planning your wardrobe. That takes a week, two at the most. Then you have to wait. Wait for your passport, wait for your plane tickets, but mostly waiting for the day your trip begins.

This happens with concerts, too. Tickets go on sale, you get psyched up about the show, but then you have to wait at least a month for the event. By the day of the event, the excitement has lost some of it's glow.

I am hoping a trip to London is a big enough event it doesn't have the same effect as a concert.

and now a word from our sponsor

I just got back from dinner with the majority of my GFU undergrad cohort. I haven't been able to attend the last several get togethers so it's been awhile since I've seen or talked with anyone. You might wonder what this has to do with my trip to London. Well, when you see people you haven't talked to in over a year, it gives you the perfect opportunity to gloat in an inconspicuous way about your upcoming vacation. It's a short hop from what have you been doing since graduation to "I'm going to London in April." After all, I did turn in my passport application on Friday so that counts as something I've done since graduation.

It's done.......

I spent half of my lunch hour standing in line at the passport window of the downtown post office. The people in front of my were having difficulty with their application and I started to worry that it was seeming too easy and I had forgotten an important step of the process that could end up in a lengthy dely.

Not to worry. My paperwork was in order, my pictures were satisfactory (to them, not me), and my ID was adequate. I have to say I have a bit of anxiety about them taking my birth certificate but Liz had no problems so mine should be fine.

According to the postal worker, I should have my shiny new passport in the mail within the next three weeks. That seems really fast but she said it a couple of times. We'll see.

The only thing left to do is to wait.

One more thing.................

Travel plans.............. check.
Tickets........................check.
Luggage......................check.
Tour guide..................check.
Supervisor approval..check.
Passport......................uh oh.........

Looks like I need to make a trip to the post office with my application, pictures, and the appropriate fees. That's on the agenda for this week.