t is now in the latter half of 2020 and I am sure you know the drill by now, an email arrives from italyMONDO! and I am excited, thinking that maybe now my application is complete. Nope, it is (yet) another request for documents to be notarized.
Oh, I also need to get a new passport with my middle name added. In other words, all of my documentation has to match my birth certificate – down to the middle name (which is not needed on US identification). Ugh – again!
This time, I need to take passport photos – but not just the usual biometric ID photos that are fairly easy to come by, but US passport photos. A different size and the head needs to be within a certain distance from the edge…yadda yadda yadda…I head across the street to get them taken. I tell them they need to be a specific size – minutes later I am back at home but I notice that the photos are the wrong size. I enlist Olaf’s help at lunch and he returns with me to help translate (and I brought a printout of the requirements). Very nicely, they re-took the photos at no additional cost.
This time, the Berlin embassy is open and requires an appointment. I have the same options as the embassy in Frankfurt – appointments until noon and nothing after. Here we go again, luckily Berlin is 2 hours closer so I do not need to leave so early. More train tickets and mass transit tickets, and I schedule the day. Of course, nothing ever goes off without a hitch – this time the issue was the passport application that I had pre-filled out. I used the renewal form as I already had a valid passport and this was just a simple addition of a middle name.
But no, apparently they just changed the rules on who can use the renewal application…and my name change is not one of the uses. I need to fill out a new application – the one for a new passport – not renewal. The most annoying thing about this is not the act of filling out the application, but that the new passport application is quite involved. With lots of addresses where you have been the last 10 years, and names and addresses and date of births for mother and father. Not that I do not have all this information, but I do not have my phone (no electronics allowed) so no access to some of the more specific details asked by the application. I am annoyed.
A short interview with one of the agents about why I need to get a new passport when my old one is still valid and there is nothing wrong with it. I explained that I needed the passport to match my birth certificate for a dual citizenship application. He rubber stamps my application and, after the payment, I am on my way.
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