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Showing posts from May 22, 2011

Expidite the expidited

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I am headed to the passport office this AM to get a new passport. I didn't have time to do the expidited renewal after getting back from Japan. So I made an special expiditing appointment with the passport folks in Atlanta. I am glad I only have to drive into Atlanta, not fly up to NY or Washington DC. It seems I have had to do some expiditing everytime I have renewed my passport. Passports are good for 10 years. When you get a new passport it is a time to ponder where you will be and what the passport will look like in 10 years. The pic belows shows the wear on my now cancelled passport. it was a 50 page book (the extra pages version) and 46 pages are fully used. Many countries require 3 empty pages to enter their country. So, I got full use of the larger size passport. If you need more pages, you send the passport in and they will "sew-in" more pages. The thickest passport I ever saw was at the Uzbekistan-Turkmenistan border. A truck driver I saw had a Uzbekistan passpo...

England and France under the English Channel

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I am back in Atlanta after being away for two weeks. Time flies when traveling. We got a lot done in England and France. And the week off in NY was definitely worthwhile. I had some nice Fois Gras in France, but of course it isn't that fancy when you are in France compared to the US. All the food is fancy in France. I am sure I am not alone when I say "I haven't had a bad meal in France." Even a simple cafeteria is special. I guess the personal highlight of the trip was going through the "chunnel" underneath the English channel. The train was about 28 train cars (double decker car carrying), and only fractionally full of cars. There is not much to do on the train. You can get out of the car and go the restrooms, but there isn't much more than that. The crossing took about 35 minutes. It was different.
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I am in West Midlands England the first part of this week and near London and then in France for the end of the week. I am a bit concerned I may have to change my travel plans because of incoming volcanic ash from Iceland. I am thinking I may have to take a train to Italy or Spain to get back to the US. Certainly, I have not had to change my plans leaving from Paris Friday, yet. I had a good week off in NY. I spent time on the farm, went canoing and we made it up to Rochester for an overnight. My Brother was also in town. I met up with a very-very old friend. I don't know where all the time has gone. I hope it has gone somewhere good.