Well, I know it all looks like a big, never-ending travel party over here, but I gotta keep things interesting so every once-in-a-while I like to mess up BIG.

I know everyone makes mistakes but mine just happens to be the gift that keeps on giving. If any of you read my last blog, I mentioned how I just happened to throw away FIVE passports (conveniently all but mine – funny, not funny, wait for it). Just walked in from the car with the garbage and plopped all of them in with it (think Kate, the mom, from HOME ALONE tossing Kevin’s ticket). I didn’t realize until it was too late and the garbage had been picked up.

Fab-u-lous.

Justin made 2 phone calls to the US Embassy to figure out what to do, but you can only call between 8-10 A.M, and same for emergency passport services – only between 8-10 A.M. So he just went – to Brussels – the busiest, international, head of EU, worst traffic’d city ever. But turns out you need an appointment to get an appointment, basically. He needed an emergency passport for travel the next week. Great. So, he had to go back the next day. But they can’t process an emergency passport during the appointment, so he had to go back 2 days later to pick it up, then 2 weeks later to get the real one. The embassy is only about 35 miles away, but it takes an hour via train or longer to drive. He tried both. The day he took the train, it was delayed an hour and a half. One of the days he drove, it took him 2 hours one way…in the middle of a work week. Three days out of a work week! But this part gets even better in a minute, too.

Ok, so then we have to take all 4 kids to get theirs. (They weren’t traveling so didn’t need emergency ones) They have to appear in person. You have to have an appointment. Of course the whole month of May was booked by the time I looked on May 10th. So June. Ok. They miss school. We drive. We wait for our appointment, though once you’re there it seems that times appointments aren’t even a thing – you just pull a stupid number. Our pictures from our library (that I paid for) are the wrong size (they’re “European size”). We use the booth at the embassy. It only takes cash (maybe even just coins). A 2 year old in a crowded DMV-type place in a photo booth is a real peach. He had to sit on the bench and look at the camera, but we couldn’t be in with him because it was too close. It only gives you three tries. This is the best one 👇🏻. Luckily this one worked and they cropped the hands (Justin’s and Bennett’s) out.

We finally get to the processing guy and he asks where we want to pick them up. Wait, this was an option for Justin? So he says they can send them to the base we’re at. Perfect! Now we’re only out $600 for five passports ($115 each + €5 pictures) and FOUR trips to Brussels because I got garbage happy.

Fast forward two weeks (amazingly quick turn around!), and Justin gets an email that they’re in! We try to go get them because we’re trying to leave the country, only to be told there is ONLY ONE guy who handles passports and he’s on vacation. I’m sorry, what? Absolutely bureaucratic nonsense.

Add another week (we’re at 2 months now), and the guy is supposed to be back. My first attempt to pick them up and the door is locked. Typical government hours, my bad. I go back an hour later. He has them. Perfect. *Almost* whole again.

He asks for the old ones. I tell him I DONT HAVE THEM and that these are replacements because the other ones were lost/trashed. I tell him I have mine so I can pick theirs up (ID verification!) I check the kids passports to make sure they’re ok. I go to sign for them and I hear a hole puncher…

HE PUNCHED MY PASSPORT AND CANCELLED it.

The only passport that made it through the previous mess – cancelled. I lost my ever-loving mind in there. Straight screaming like a lunatic. Screaming. “There’s nothing we can do,” he says. “You’ll have to get a new one.” But the best part – it is in NO WAY their fault? Telling me that I absolutely have to pay the $115 to have it redone.

What the what? I’m still totally fuming. He didn’t even bother to match it up to an old one before cancelling. Had he looked at them? Did he see they were FOUR KIDS??? This is his job! His only job! All he does IS PASSPORTS. There was no QA before ruining my passport????

So here’s the other kicker – after we tried to get the passports the first time, we were told that you can do the WHOLE process from the base . We didn’t need to go to Brussels Embassy at all 😳. (We had asked around and been told they “no longer” do passports on base, but that, like a lot of “information” here, was false).

I lost it. He wasn’t sympathetic at all other than offering to file for a new one at any time (“I’ll fit you in any time” blah blah). He offered to do it right then, but I was in no state to deal with it. I had to leave. I had a mascara-stained, beet red face, a child with a yucky diaper who was hiding behind a chair because “mama you scawy”, and refrigerated foods in the car.

Here’s hoping going back tomorrow works out better, and that the turnaround is just as quick as the kids. At least my pockets will be ANOTHER $120 lighter 🙄.

(FYI: I’ve been working on my Rwanda blog for a while (it’s coming!) and it’s hard to be this angry over something that I know really isn’t that big of a deal in the whole scheme of things. Just know that I know that 😊 and thanks for reading!)