The Passport Appointment

Today we drove to our passport appointment in San Francisco. We had an appointment at 10am, which we were actually on time for (amazing). When we got to the 5th floor the guard said we could not bring any food or drink past the security checkpoint. So, down the elevator we went. Jess and Zoe finished the smoothie while I ran back to the car to put away the other snacks. In the mean time at least 10 other people passed the girls headed for the elevator. We finally made it to the check in window and received our number. It was #80. Apparently the appointment time meant nothing. They were currently processing #24. After at least ten minutes they were on #26. Yeah, it looked like it was going to be a very long day.

A quick calculation indicated that we could be stuck there for close to five hours, so we decided to leave, get some coffee, and walk around SF. We found a Starbucks a block away and a Quiznos, so after a downing the coffee and splitting a sandwich we decided to go back and check the number. Fortunately they were processing a little faster than once every five minutes. After almost thirty minutes they were on #55, so we figured we could leave for another thirty minutes or so and be safe.

There wasn’t much to do nearby, so we just hung out by a fountain. After 25 minutes of standing around on a street corner in downtown San Francisco we’d had enough, so back we went to the passport office. Now they were on #64 if I remember correctly. We grabbed a few seats and waited. And waited. And waited.

Finally #80 popped up on the screen and off we went to window number twelve. Ten minutes and $145 later we were out the door, without Zoe’s passport! Because of a new law that requires people to have a passport to visit Mexico and Canada, the passport office is overloaded and we were told to come back the next day to pick up the passport, if it was approved. Jessica and Zoe were leaving on Friday, and this was Wednesday. Needles to say we were both a little panicked. Well with nothing else we could do but hope it was ready on Thursday we walked to Yerba Buena Gardens so Zoe could play a little before we drove back to San Jose. Yerba Buena has a nice play ground with a 25 foot tube slide! It was a nice way to end the trip to SF. After a while we headed back to the car and returned to San Jose.

Tomorrow, Zoe and I will drive back to SF to pick up her passport.