Love that US Embassy.
They said they would give us a temporary emergency passport valid immediately, good for 3 months. We could walk out the door with it within the hour. Good, right? It was. Efficient, effective, generous.
Except that to get into Israel, your passport has to be valid for 6 months after you enter or they won’t let you in. So, he said Joel would need……an original birth certificate(!!!), authenticated by the State Department, to get a real passport. Monday is a costa rican holiday and nothing would get processed in case of a government shutdown because real passports are ONLY printed in the US. We were in big trouble!!
But then, while we’re freaking out, wondering what to do, talking about me going on the video shoot alone, me flying to LA to get the passport in person, I remembered that the adoption office downtown has a one of Joel’s original authenticated birth certificates and, since they aren’t going to be using it for awhile (see previous post), I called and BEGGED them to take those two little skinny pieces of paper out of our big fat file and give it back to us. They discussed it, agreed and we rushed off downtown to get it and get it back to the embassy before they closed at 11:30 am. Wow. So, now, providing that they really can print the passport in one week as he thinks they can, we should be OK!
When we came home last night after a long late drive over the mountain, our neighbor met us outside and asked us to come over to the town’s celebration of her mother’s birthday. We walked into the community center, frazzled and tired, not having even gone home yet, and were graciously given the first pieces of cake, plates of arroz con pollo with plantains (in that order — these people know how to party!), and welcomed warmly while everyone danced and karaoked the night away. It was great to be home.
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