Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Livin' the Dream

Life Goal #4: Travel enough to need extra pages in my passport- Accomplished.

My first passport was issued to me when I was 16.
It had two little stamps in it. One was an entry stamp and the other an exit stamp. They were beautiful, magenta colored "Шереметьево" stamps. I use to flip through all the empty pages and dream about what it would look like filled with stamps and VISAS.

My second passport was issued to me when I was 21. I decided when I got it, I would try my hardest to get more than two stamps. My first set of stamps came only 2 months after I received it and were the same two stamps as in my first passport. When I returned from that trip, again, I would flip through the empty pages imagining what I wanted it to look like and stop on the page with the two stamps and remember my wonderful journey.

Yesterday we made our first visit to the US embassy, on what was an exciting moment for us both. As we handed over our passports to the lady in the window I was jumping up and down inside as I said, "We need to get pages added to our passports". Seems like a silly thing to get excited about, but for me, this event is associated with the realization that I'm currently living 16 year old Nichole's dream.

I picked up our passports this morning complete with 24 new pages. I like my men strong and muscular, but I prefer my passport fat and busting at the seams. I sit and look at the fresh bare pages now and grow anxious to know what stamps will find their way onto them.

4 comments:

Rachel said...

Congrats, Nichole! It would be interesting to see a post with how to say "hello" from all the countries you've visited. :-)

That last comment comparing your passport and guy type was funny.

Hope you have more happy travels!

Amanda said...

Wow, that is pretty cool! and thanks to you wonderful storytelling and picture taking we get to go to all of those places with you!! haha, told you I always travel via Nichole and Michaels blog!! =)

MoMo 2.0 said...

ok, I was totally traumatized when I had to get my new passport with my new name in it.... HOWEVER, it totally rocked when the Herning Kommune put my huge sticker in there to show my residency in Denmark!! That made up for all the empty pages!!!

Anonymous said...

That's a pretty cool dream, glad you're getting to live it!!