Just to put things in perspective...

So, earlier this month, we did the Portuguese Camino de Santiago, from the cathedral in Porto to the cathedral in Santiago de Compostela, about 240 kilometers worth of hiking. 13 days of hiking, carrying backpacks (and in Thor's case, also carrying a 6 kilo baby in a front carrier) on the sides of very busy highways without much in the way of margins, up and down what appeared to be old riverbeds, through some industrial area, but also a lot of green foresty areas, by vineyards being harvested, and through small villages. We started hiking at around 8 each morning (so, when it became light), and finished each day at around 2 or so in the afternoon.

And then, after arriving, and spending a day resting in Santiago, we rented a car to do a bit of a Portuguese/Spanish roadtrip before flying back to Denmark from Madrid. We picked up the car at a bit before 10am, and started to drive towards Lisbon, where we were to meet with some of my old friends from when I lived there. And found ourselves driving back through our starting point of Porto (well, o.k., past it on the motorway) right around lunchtime.

Moral of the story: there are many ways, and many speeds in which to do things. Each have its place, but sometimes, it's good to take the slower path.

Nothing to declare...

...but my total blogging addiction. I managed to miss getting to my new 'usual' internet cafe until after it was already closed. So, does that mean that I'm missing a day? Nope, just that I'm at another cafe, one that has an even stickier keyboard than at my regular (so, any letters missing should be seen as just part of the charm). I'm hardly even checking my e-mail, no time to answer comments (I look forward to responding to all posts when I get back), but must...write...blog... post. Really, it's more than a bit pathetic.

It sort of makes me wonder what other good habits I could get into if only I force myself to follow them everyday. Taking vitamins? (Though I am not so regular at doing that, actually). Exercising? (Maybe later...I managed a 50-minute very light hike today, felt really well afterwards, but now suspect that I'll need the rest of this trip, and another week or so at home to recover). Maybe, just maybe, it will all be clearer after a good sleep. Any suggestions you can make, to await me when I am back in my usual cafe with familiar sticky keys, will be greatly appreciated.

How to lose the ability to speak in any language

Here's the secret. First, learn a foreign language. Any foreign language will do, especially one which can be sort of used in other places (so Danish is good, because it sort of works also in Norway and Sweden). In my case, I learned Portuguese, and had several opportunities to sort of use it in Spain (I've been told that it also sort of works in Italy, but I haven't had as much luck with that one).

Once you've become pretty good in the first one, then learn another foreign language. Preferably one that is really different than the first foreign language. I chose Danish, which is still Indo-European, but different enough. Learn that one enough so that you start to forget the first one.

Finally, travel with people speaking the second foreign language, to a country where you could sort of use the first foreign language, if only you could remember it well enough. Then decide you are too stubborn to use your native language (even if, as in my case, your native language is the one language that people are sure to sort of know pretty much wherever you are).

And then try and speak, and see if I am not right in saying that all communication will, practically speaking, cease. Really, it works. In my case, I can no longer speak anything at all. I stop a conversation (in Danish) to order food, or to buy something, and I end up speaking Danish to servers and clerks. Which really isn't very effective.

Am I right in assuming that this is some sort of foreign language universal?

Testing the theory that air travel is safe in the third trimester

Yes, this is where I see how much stamina I have left (if any), and spend a week in Barcelona with Thor and Thor's dad (and Thor's dad's lady friend). In theory, there should be no problem with this. I am feeling fine, no complications that I know of, I'm not even that fatigued, baby not expected for another two months or so. About the most I can complain about is heartburn, which will presumably be the same no matter where I am. And I'm hoping my memories of Amsterdam a couple weekends ago (where I attempted to walk around to the extent that I always do when in a different city...and it was absolutely no fun, I had back pain that shifted to hip pain, then radiating leg pain, ending up in foot pain, nothing too severe, but in no way pleasant) will be enough to make me take it easy this time.

What's really sad is that the one thing I am worried about is whether I'll be able to blog everyday. That Blog365 thing really is an addiction. And unlike when I go for weekend trips, I have not written posts in advance for each day. I'd imagine I will be here as always (though more likely in the morning than in the night as is my usual), but if not, know that I miss each and every one, even those who don't read my blog.

*This is a companion photo to the one in the last post. That one is titled 'Bike with cat', and this one is 'Cat with bike'.*

Weekend in Europe, Part 4: Holland

It's hard to believe that I haven't posted a 'Weekend in Europe' themed post in almost two years. It's time to remedy that now that I've finally connected camera to computer and seen the photographic evidence that I was, in fact, in Holland just a few short days ago. Specifically in South Holland. Dutch tour guide/gracious hostess Annemarie provided a perfect balance between relaxing and sightseeing, and more importantly, put up with me continuously for two whole days. For which she deserves public acclaim, and possibly a medal of valor.


Friday evening through to Sunday mid-morning were spent in The Hague, where Annemarie currently lives and works. I wasn't sure what to expect from The Hague, and am pleased to report that I was impressed. It has all that I would want from a city: good restaurants (such as this one, inside a big church...no, actually inside The Big Church), cool museums, irregular rooflines.


As seems to be my habit these days, I don't have many photos of what we actually did, but if you have a day to spend here, I'd recommend doing exactly the same as us. Hightlights were the Panorama Mesdag, an 1881 painted view of Scheveningen, a beach area of the city. In counterpoint, that evening was spent consuming pancakes in a restaurant on the Scheveningen pier (with view to the raging North Sea in all it's wintery majesty, imposing even in the dark). The Escher Museum as well, a must see for any fans, as pretty much his whole portfolio is here, along with a floor of do it yourself exploration of Escheresque optical illusions and visual games. Oh, and of course, don't forget to check out Harry Potter's office (the round tower in the middle of the above photo).


We decided to spend some of Sunday in nearby Delft, reknowned for its canal-lined streets, and its old and new churches. We were not disappointed by the overall level of cuteness. We headed straight from the railway station to the Old Church. Which was impressive on the outside, but was for some reason closed to tourists.


Undaunted, we made our way over to the New Church. Which was closed to tourists (closed on Sunday apparently, which seems somehow unexpected). After admiring Market Square (in the photo below), and determining that most shops were closed, we sadly headed back to the station. All in all, we lasted about an hour. I for one would like to go back sometime, not on a Sunday.


Which brought us to Leiden. Leiden is a beautiful city, of that I have no doubt...but we were here mainly for the shops being open on a Sunday. And it was some pretty good shopping, though I do feel I've neglected the town itself, its museums (the Natural History Museum seemed like it would be particularly interesting), botanical gardens. But I suppose I can come back when I am next in Delft.


And that ends this virtual tour. All inclusive...except for the stroopwafels. And the windmills. And the mashed potatoes. And the krokets. And...actually, I'd suggest just going there and experiencing it all yourself. It'll be worth it, I promise.

More places I might take you if you visit me: Odense

A week or so after our drip to Dragør, Annemarie and I went a bit farther afield, to the neighboring island of Funen, and it's main city, Odense.


Odense's main claim to fame is as the birthplace of H. C. Andersen, famed as a writer of fairy tales, along with multiple other lesser-known talents (poetry, paper-cutting, theater come to mind). And though he didn't live his whole life here by any means, he's everywhere in this town, starting from a sculpture across from the train station, where a trio of H. C. Andersen figures play a mystical game of twister surrounded by a variety of motifs from H. C.'s original stories.


Of course, there are other things in town besides the fairy tales, but I, at least signed up for the journey in order to go to the H. C. Andersen Museum, in what may or may not have been the building in which he was born. O.K., truth be told, I used to work in Fredericia, which is on the other side of the island of Funen from Zealand, the island where one can find Copenhagen, and my house. Which is to say that I passed through Odense multiple times a week for many months...without ever leaving the train there. And it seemed time to see what I had been missing. And I was, in fact, missing lots of H. C. Andersen imagery.


Even Hans Christian himself is there, waiting outside of a big hotel, always ready to talk to visitors. Here he is schmoozing with Annemarie. I got to schmooze with him as well, but we'll save that photo for another day, shall we? I have the idea that he is sitting there still, waiting for you to visit me, so that we can together make the pilgrimage to pay homage to the man directly, where you and he can sit a spell and converse.

Places I might take you if you visit me: Dragør

This weekend I am away, enjoying a delightful weekend break with a delightful friend. Which means that I won't have so much time to blog. Which isn't to say that I would dream of stopping with the daily blog posting. It just means I get to work a bit in advance. As this weekend is an Annemarie weekend, I'm posting with this theme, each day a post about a different place where Annemarie and I were over the summer...you know, that time of year with sun and warmth.


For this day trip, we chose a leisurely bike ride to the coastal town of Dragør . Getting there was relatively straightforward if a bit boring, taking us a bit less than an hour. To get back, we ended up taking a slightly more scenic route than we had perhaps intended, lasting well over 2 hours, basically circling the island of Amager. I wouldn't recommend it, except maybe I would; it was very picturesque (though the actual pictures turned out a bit blurry...just imagine fields with cows, and the vague outline of water in the far distance).


You don't have to wander far from Copenhagen to get to total countryside, with farms and horses, and just past those farms is Dragør, right by the sound, complete with view to Sweden. It has been in the past a fishing town, but is more a tourist town nowadays, not a place to see a lot of sites, but more to hang out in a downtown cafe and watch the other tourists. Oh, and there is also a fort.


After exploring the fort (such as there is to explore...but the view from the top is worth the climb), and once you've had your fill of people watching, then it's all about getting lost (well, sort of...it's not that big a town) in the narrow residential streets. It's very quaint, with bright buildings and just typical small-down Denmark.


We were also there in the middle of flower season. Brilliant colors, and even a butterfly or two. If you visit in the winter, I can't guarantee the flowers, but I can pretty much guarantee the quaint Danish charm.

Would you eat it?

I am worried about today's youth. But first, a story. Thor and I were travelling recently in Gold Country, when we happened upon the coolest candy store in the history of candy stores, in Placerville. Hidden among the homemade fudge, all the brands of sweets that I didn't realize were still made (Charleston Chew anyone? Or how about a piece of Bit-o-Honey? Or maybe I can interest you in a set of wax lips?), the back room of exotic jerky made from antelope, elk, ostrich, were the insects. Crickets, larva. Each available in two exciting flavors. Of course I thought instantly of Thor's nephews, two hard to shop for pre-teens. Not that they're hard to shop for because of any shortcomings on their part (they're nice kids), but...what on earth does one get for pre-teen boys? So, naturally we got the bugs, for each one a box of crickets and a box of larva, nicely flavored and everything. Instant street cred for Onkel Thor and his exotic (please note the ironic tone with which I type that word) American girlfriend.

And we got some street cred to be sure. Talk was made about taking them to school to show off to classmates. The only thing is, neither child would eat any. In fact, in a birthday party of people, the only ones who would even try them were myself and one other adult. I don't get it. I'm sure that I would have been more than willing to try them when I was younger. But then again, maybe I'm reinventing the past...I don't recall ever having the chance to try anything that exotic in my pre-teen days. Maybe I wouldn't have, but isn't there more street cred in actually eating insects than in just showing them to one's friends? Are Danish boys just squeamish that way, or am I glorifying the willingness of youth to do disgusting things, just for doing them? Would you have tried crickets, or larva, when you were younger? Would you try any now?

I should perhaps admit that, despite having flavor names on the boxes, neither type of insect tasted much of anything. They were just dry, bland, and vaguely crunchy.

8 thoughts on travel, related to me me me

This comes courtesy of the superbly inimitable Greg. In light of all my recent travels, I'll be doing this one with a travelling spin.

But first, the obligatory fine print:

The Rules are:
- We have to post these rules before we give you the facts.
- Players start with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
- People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules.
- At the end of your blog post, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.
- Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog..

1) I never thought I would say this, but I am honestly of the opinion that I've been travelling too much recently, particularly air travel. I am tired of flights, especially flights lasting longer than 5 hours.

2) I would admit to how much of the past 12 months have been spent out of Denmark, but it's a scary amount. It's also long enough that I worry about my visa status. It won't be a problem now, but might be when my visa is next up for renewal.

3) I used to not notice jetlag so much, in fact I was pretty cavalier about it, but on my trip in December, it was simply interminable and not fun, and that pattern seems to be continuing. I can't tell if the jetlag is actually worse, or if it just seems worse, perhaps in combination with #1.

4) On this last trip, I came close to doubling my life stats for missed flights, by which I mean missing my second ever flight. The first one was many years ago, from London Stanstead to Lisbon. The silver lining was that I gave myself an extra morning in Cambridge. At that time, I was working at a place called Cambridge School, and amused myself (if not my colleagues) by calling in and saying that I was 'in Cambridge...but the wrong one' and would therefore miss a day of work.

5) That Stanstead to Lisbon flight was missed through my own negligence (well, and letting myself be persuaded that there was time for that end-of-vacation lunch near Hyde Park). This last almost missed flight was due to a late previous flight, combined with increasingly surreal security at Heathrow (oh, and have I mentioned that I'm also tired of having to take my shoes off to go through airport security?), which led to me doing my very best O.J. Simpson impression through Terminal 4 to get to my connecting flight, which amazingly, I caught.

6) I do wonder about the political correctness of refering to those Hertz ads. Speaking of which, as I have never known anything about American football, it was only during the overshadowing trial that I realized that O.J. Simpson had been a football player. Since the Hertz commercial was all about how fast he could run, I had grown up assuming that he was a track star, maybe a sprinter.

7) I've always been of the opinion that the more stuff of sentimental value in your checked luggage, the more likely it is that it will disappear in transit never to be seen again. In real life, I have never had a bag lost by an airline for more than a few hours. Until now. I am still waiting for two suitcases, and have been waiting for almost two days now. In those cases are things like my mother's quite extensive collection of costume jewelry, and what for me amounts to an entire handbag collection. Nothing that will cause my life to end if it doesn't get found, but still, I consider my biggest travel superstition to be on its way to being realized. Of course, I'm still hopeful, but not too much.

8) I'm anxious to put a photo to this post, except, well I have good news and bad news. The good news is that my camera was in my carry on luggage. The bad news (for me, possibly good news for you, dear reader) is that the cable to connect my camera to my computer is in one of the checked bags. So, this will have to be photo free. I almost said 'visuals free', but that's not right. At least, I hope this post can be viewed.

O.K., and now I'm supposed to tag 8 people. I would, but I won't, not because of any aversion to tagging (though that has been known to happen), but more because almost everyone I read has done this one, and fairly recently at that. If you haven't done it, though, and would like to, then consider yourself tagged, and I look forward to finding out some things about you.

***Update, 20 July...for all who expressed concern, the bags are back, one a few days after this post, and another one the day before yesterday. Interestingly, some kind person or people in baggage handling decided that I was clearly becoming too fond of material possessions, and liberated me from the box with my mom's costume jewelry, as well as one or two other small consumer items of little value. All things considered, it's o.k., and sort of fits in with that part of my summer....***

Last Impressions of Southwest China for now: The River

Imagine that you are travelling on holiday...why are you where you are? There are lots of reasons to travel somewhere, for beauty, for adventure, for the search for the exotic. Or what about all of those things, in a place that will soon not be there, or not be there in the same way. That's exactly why we chose to cruise the Yangtze river. It was a long time ago, but how to express that feeling that everything you're looking at, won't be there next time? Constant reminders keep this in focus, the building work to shore up large cities and towns, periodic tape measures to show how much of the scenery will be submerged in a few short years. Join me on a virtual review of these few days (3 days and 4 nights, to be exact) as we cruise slowly from Chongqing to Yichang.

Not our boat, but a similar type

Cabin, sweet cabin.

Watching the gorge.

Watching the people watching the gorge.

Measuring the effects of the dam.

More dam adjustments.

I believe this is already underwater.


The dam from the top...tilt head for best view.

The dam from below.

Many more than 100 steps yet to be travelled

My blog, be it ever so humble (or perhaps be it not), is pleased to announce the publication of its hundredth post.



Dear Readers,

I admit, it's taken rather a long time to get to this point, but it's good to finally be here. To put this accomplishment into perspective, allow me to draw comparisons with the Buddha at Leshan, the world's largest seated Buddha statue.



The Buddha took a long time to build, and so will this blog. Stone displaced during the building was enough to calm the turbulent waters in front of the Buddha; comments from you, building blocks for the communitas of the blogosphere, have a similar effect, on me, and I hope on you as well.



I offer hopes for continuing the journey together, and remember, I will be watching your earlobes especially closely looking for signs of impending enlightenment.

With only the very warmest of best wishes,

kimananda's house of fortune

First Impressions of Southwest China

These are some images and impressions from our first few days in China, starting in Chengdu, and continuing first to Emei Shan, and then on to Chongqing. They are just a few small details to give you a feel for the experience.

Tropical Chengdu. Think overwhelming humidity. Think crickets in every tree, chirping like mad. Think sweat and gunk. Think a laid-back, beautiful city, filled with close to 4 million laid-back (except in traffic), beautiful people.

Not climbing a mountain. Yes, I gave up about half-way up Emei Shan, and we took a bus to the top. I wanted to be strong, but each set of stairs was more difficult than the previous one, and at some point, my legs wouldn't let me go any further. Imagine 3,000 meters of climbing stairs. Then go do it...it is worth it, I'd imagine.

Temples. Europe has churches and cathedrals, which I love. Asia has temples, which I love. They're all different, but similar. The above temple is in the middle of Chongqing, a working temple. The one below is one of many temples on Emei Shan.


The little details. I could spend my life taking photos of the lions guarding doorways and other entrances.

Signs. There's bound to be a post here sometime, so consider this a sneak preview. I am a fan of firepoof areas...you light a fire, and it all goes poof. Very logical.

Chongqing. 8 million laid-back, beautiful people here. Not as cool as Chengdu, but I could see living here, if I could live in this area.

The mist clearing. At the top of the mountain, the multifaced Buddha.

Next stops, the Yangtze River, Three Gorges, a brief stop in Wuhan, and then back for a few more days in Chengdu. Key words: big seated Buddha, hotpot, and the damn Dam.

My boyfriend the rock star

Actually, I'm also a rock star. Apparently, my Chinese stage name is Hello. I must be very popular in China as people, total strangers, call to me on the street there. They wave and look very happy to see me. However, my rock stardom is nothing compared to that of my tall, blond, bearded boyfriend, coincidentally also named Hello. He is a Chinese rock superstar.

Yes, people wave to him on the street. Yes, they call out 'Hello, hello!' They also ask to get their photographs taken with him. Sometimes they want a photo of themselves shaking his hand. Those who are too shy to speak to him directly will sometimes take his photo anyway. He's also been videotaped, for example at the summit of Emei Shan, because everyone knows that there is nothing to video way up there otherwise. On rare occasions, he'll have someone follow him around for a while, presumably to bask in the glow of his fame.

I'm not quite sure what kind of music my boyfriend Hello does, but it seems to appeal especially to tiny old toothless women, who will often come over to have a nice little chat with him. They find it especially amusing when he replies, which makes sense as he says really funny things, like 'I'm sorry, I don't speak Chinese'. His music also appeals to young girls, by which I mean under the age of 5. One little girl, walking on top of a small ledge, hand in hand with her father, was so excited to see the great Hello and so involved in calling out 'Hello, Hello' and waving, that she lost her balance and fell. We believe she emerged unscathed.

Because my boyfriend is a rock star, my penchant for always trying to take his photo makes me a papparazzi. As Hello tends to comandeer my camera, this is not an easy task. However, I was able to use the occasion of being on the top of the not-yet-completed Three Gorges Dam to get him to pose for a photo anyway.

More photos will be arriving shortly, not of Hello as he is good at evading my lens, if not all of the other lenses which were pointed at him on our trip; but of Southwest China, which, if it isn't also a rock star, deserves to be one.

When the mist clears, I may post photos

But as it is now, I'm just trying to get back into the non-holiday life, including blogging. And it's not easy - it's amazing what 2 weeks of almost no internet access will do to one's addictions routines. I will perservere regardless, and I will succeed, perhaps even soon. In the meantime, have a wonderful weekend.

*photo: Big golden multifaced misty Buddha at the summit (almost) of Emei Shan*

Long road to China

This is not our destination, and this is certainly not the weather we expect, in Chengdu, in August. But the saying still applies. The House of Fortune will be boarded up and locked until the 22nd of the month. See you then.

A minha vida, a week in review

This is purely an informational post on my first few days back in Lisbon...if you are not really interested in the minutiae of my daily life, I'd suggest moving on now.

Bad news, language: I had hoped that my Portuguese would come flooding back, drowning me in a sea of luso-ness. This has not been the case. However, I am constantly hearing, or spontaneously using, words or phrases that I suddenly recognize as old friends returned. Then I can dwell on them, turn them over in my mind, savor them. For example, the word 'pá'. Yes, I'd lost my 'pá', pá. I would never before have thought that possible, pá. Now if only I could come up with an acceptable and short definition of 'pá'. But I can't, sorry.

Good news, language: I feared that my Portuguese would be gone forever. This has not been the case, either. I've even had a couple opportunities to use Danish and then Portuguese, and could almost switch on command.

Bad news, food: the tosta mista (grilled ham and cheese sandwich) has fallen greatly in my esteem. I like it still, but not like my memory of it. And that alheira (a type of sausage) was really good, but I fear permanent arterial damage may have been done. And I seem to have forgotten the names of all my pastries, and have to order them by pointing.

Good news, food: The first time I ever ordered a meal in Portugal and it arrived accompanied by both rice and french fries, I thought I had died and gone to heaven. I still love my complex carbs, and still think that. The canja da galinha (chicken noodle soup, only different, and better) is still a delight. And Cerelac (yes, it's porridge for babies...but I long ago learned to love it just like all the Portuguese adults seem to) is everything I had hoped it would be and more. Though I used to buy that for myself in London, too, so I knew it would be.

Bad news, blogging: I haven't taken the time to get a cable so as to hook my computer up to the university internet, which means that you won't yet be able to see any of my photographs of Lisbon.

Good news, blogging: You won't have to see any of my photographs of Lisbon in this post. But soon, my lovelies, very soon (insert rubbing of hands and maniacal laughter here).

Pre-road trip road trip

In June, Thor will be driving to Le Mans, a trip which inspired him to get his driver's license. In order to break in this new license, he's borrowed a friend's car. Which means, pre-road trip road trips for us. Which is an odd idea really. I don't think I've been in cars more than a dozen times since moving to Denmark. But it's a good odd, I think.


Our first full day with car was a holiday (Kristi Himmelfartsdag, Ascension in English), and we took advantage of this by exploring a bit of North Zealand (Zealand is the largest of the hundreds of Danish islands, and where Copenhagen is located). Our first stop, Fredensborg Palace, the Danish royal family's spring and autumn residence.


The palace itself and some of the gardens are only open in July, but other parts are open year round. We walked along immaculately groomed pathways under tunnels of trees. Everything is green in Denmark this time of year. The weather was indecisive, sunny then windy then sunny then a bit misty, but it let us enjoy the palace fully before turning to rain.


After that, we drove along the North coast, and then moved downward back towards Copenhagen, using the rain as an excuse to keep the camera put away. Highlights were a working fishing village (Gilleleje) a touristy fishing village (Hornbæk), and the coastal road (Strandvejen) home, through some of the priciest real estate in Denmark, with views of the sound and, on a clear day, Sweden. The big question now is, where are we going next?

An elegy to the past, cancelled

Yes, it's true. I'm starting afresh, totally against my will. The event which triggered this? I went today and picked up my new passport. I'm gutted...well, that's an exaggeration, but I am horribly disappointed with this new, shiny, crisp, thin, empty identity document.

This is my third passport. My first one I wasn't ever that attached to, even though I made my first overseas trip with it (to Paris), and became an ex-pat with it (to Lisbon). But my second passport, ah, it was my eternal companion. We had adventures together. It brought me amusement; it brought me annoyance. I adored it. As an exercise in total self-centeredness, I would like to share a few selected memories, fond and otherwise, with you.

1) A story of beginnings. I used to be early. Really early, for everything. Then I got to Portugal, and found that not everyone was as prompt as I was. So, in order to evolve, I determined to be, no not late, but not so early. This is why, when I realized half-way to the bus station that I had forgotten my passport, I didn't really have time to go back and get it. Which wouldn't have been a problem except that the bus was to take me to visit a friend in Switzerland. In the end, I brazened it out, and made it past passport control on the border from Spain into France (not a problem as I wasn't stopping there anyway), and from France into Switzerland (I presented my California i.d., which got me a rather scathing 'you come to Switzerland with your...driver's...license?!', but which also got me into the country).

Then, I started to worry. On the return journey, I was to arrive back in Lisbon just a few short hours before having to go back to work. Any passport related delays would be very bad. So, I made a day trip to the consulate in Bern (this was the day after my friend and I made a trip to the consulate in Zurich...to find that it no longer existed) to get a new one. At the consulate, the guard at the entrance told me, 'You can't get into Switzerland without a passport.' Then the woman behind the window counter told me, 'You can't get into Switzerland without a passport.' She had more to say:

Counter woman: We cannot issue you with a temporary passport. You should have brought yours with you.
Me: I didn't leave it on purpose. But in any case, I don't have it, so what should I do?
CW: Well, you'll have to get someone to send it to you.
Me: But I'm only here for a couple more days.
CW: Well, then you should have thought of this before.

This is the condensed version. At some point, I decided to give up gracefully and just leave, as I clearly wasn't getting anywhere.

CW: But you can't travel without a passport!
Me: Well, I got here without one, didn't I? So, I'll just have to go back without one.
CW: Wait a minute. Please fill out this form, while I check with a consular officer.

The consular officer was friendly and chatty...'Oh, so you live in Lisbon? Great city, Lisbon,' etc. I got to present some passport photos, pay some money, wait around a while and show proof that I was me (the driver's license, of course). And then I got my genuine Swiss-issued U.S. passport. The old-fashioned kind with the number stamped onto the front. As I couldn't prove my citizenship without my old passport, the new one was only valid for one year. When I got back to Lisbon, I went to the embassy there with both passports, had the old one cancelled, and the new one extended to the full ten-year term.

And, for what it's worth, I encountered not one single passport check on my way back from Switzerland.

2) A story of amusement. My passport's humble beginnings provided a good test of who's really paying attention to what they should be paying attention to. This because instead of the expiration date on the main information page, there was a 'see page' reference, to guide the reader to the extended date. No, actually two 'see page' references, the first for the original 1-year limit, which was crossed out and replaced with the reference for the extended limit. It's scary how many airport personnel and customs and immigration personnel clearly didn't look. Even more amusing are all the people who couldn't seem to figure out where to find the expiration. At some point right before moving to Denmark, I had to have extra pages put in...you'll of course kindly ignore the fact that 90% of the stamps that had filled up the original pages were from Lisbon, London or Copenhagen, and just think of me as a world traveller, yes? Thank you! Anyway, the extra pages were put in so that they cut off the page with the new expiration from the back where only the old expiration page could be seen. I have gotten such great quirky joy out of trying to guide middle-aged men behind glass in airports to where they could find that magical date...'no, it's not expired, the new date is on page 22...no, not so far forward...it's before the extra pages...no, no, the page before that....'

3) A story of annoyance. As my passport was issued same-day, it is not the usual cookie cutter format. It's what I believe is called a 'foreign issued' passport, which I'm not sure is done anymore, or maybe just for cases like mine. This was never a problem...except when I went to open a bank account when I first got to London. Apparently, it's difficult to do this in England, especially if you've just arrived and haven't set up residence yet. I could only go to one bank, because I had a letter from my new employer to that one bank (and in fact to that one branch of that one bank). Everything was done, and I was ready to move money into the account...and then my bank advisor made one final telephone call, about my passport. Not to check on me, but to check on the format of the thing. His end of the conversation included things like, 'no, the information is on the third page...typed...the photo is underneath, on page four'. After the call, he turned to me and said, 'I'm sorry, but we can't proceed because we are unable to verify your passport.' Excuse me? His final words (final because I couldn't stand to hear anymore): 'We're not saying that it's not a real passport, because it probably is.' In the end, I went in with my driver's license...well, it worked in Switzerland, didn't it...and made the very logical case that 'If I can't open a bank account, then where am I supposed to put my money?', which quite worryingly seemed to impress the person helping me...but got me special bank manager approval to open an account.

And now, it's time to start anew. I don't want to. I want to keep my old passport, and add more and more pages to it until it no longer fits in my carry-on luggage. But of course that's not possible. So, my new task is how to bond with this thing, which is so fresh it really appears fake to me. The bottom line is, it's time to travel. I've set my plans for the summer (July studying in Lisbon, and most of August travelling in the Sichuan region of China), but that's too long to wait. To anyone reading this, be prepared, I may show up on your doorstep at any time, ready to show off my first stamp in my new passport.

image credit: http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Image:Gov-us_passport.jpg