Passports: bureaucracy in action

The good news: In six days Matt and I head to Argentina, Uruguay, and (maybe) Brazil.

The bad news: I applied for a new passport in mid-April, and heard nothing for more than three months.

(Side note: if any South American experts have suggestions or travel tips, we’d love to hear from you.)

I never reached full panic mode—that was scheduled for last Tuesday—but the waiting period had an air of impending doom to it.

First there was this Washington Post article about the incredible lines at the D.C. office. “Those silly, unorganized people,” I thought when I read the article. “They should have known this passport business was going to be bad and applied earlier.” (Lest I sound like a complete hypocrite, the Post article was published before the South America plans.)

I soon found myself checking my passport status on the State Department website every day. Then twice a day. I sent a “status inquiry” email that generated an sketchy automated response from “Agent #5705.” And I started preparing myself to get in The Line at 5:00 am some morning this week.

Next I tried fruitless phone calls (to make the appointment so I could get in line at 5:00 am), where I would choose the “I am traveling within the next 14 days and would like to speak to a real person” option, only to get transfered to a nonsensical message that hung up on me.

On Monday I went home armed with phone numbers and ready to spend the whole evening on hold, and, if the State Department route didn’t pan out, contact my Congressman and… there was an express envelope outside my door. (Hmm… both my old and new passports sitting on my front stoop for five hours—I don’t want to think too hard about that.)

Anticlimactic? I suppose it would make a better story if I had actually visited Rep. Moran’s office and stood in line on the hottest day of the year (and boy has it been hot the last two days). The outcome turned out to be so easy I still have this nagging feeling I have some daunting task ahead of me.

The conclusion—my passport was dated before I started my mad attempts to obtain it, and, four days later, the State Department still lists my passport as “in progress.”

So what is this? The failure of bureaucracy? Or success? Someone else can decide. For now I just need to make it to the Brazilian embassy and obtain a visa.