Passport

I went to renew my passport today and it was another adventure. The place is next to an U-Bahn station near where I live. So I took the bus to the nearest U-Bahn station and the bus driver announced something about the U-Bahn station. Of course, I didn't understand but when we got there, there was a huge crowd in front of the station. After I got off, I realized that the trains must not be working. There is currently a strike going on. So I got on another bus with the rest of the crowd and took that instead.

When I got there, there was a line in front of the Embassy. I was really sad until I saw that everyone in line had maroon colored passports. I read the posting for American Citizen Service and realized that this line was for Visas and I can just go to the front. So I did and they basically waved me through. All the guards spoke English and happily directed me up to the American Citizen Service room, which was much nicer than the Visa Services, with carpet and nice tables. And there was no line. I got help right away. They even charged my credit card in US dollars. Which is really good since they're still using the old exchange rate of $1.25 to 1 Euro (it's now $1.35). So had I paid with Euros it would've been a lot more expensive. It was expensive nevertheless since I wasn't 16 when I got my last passport. Missed it by 2 months. They changed it now to 14. Sigh. Oh wells, I appreciated the nice service anyway. My new passport will arrive in 2 weeks and I just have to go and pick it up. They gave me back the old one so I can travel outside of Germany. I was worried about this before. Yup. After this though, I will have to stand in line for the UK visa...