On almost every trip abroad i have had some sort of unfortunate experience. In Japan i almost got ran over a few times, on the way to Australia I was over weight on my luggage so i had to wear multiple layers of clothing (which gets very uncomfortable after 2 hours of travel let alone 18 hours), Canada we've had issues crossing the border many times since my mother is a Canadian citizen, on my 7 country Europe tour i found out information that I rather had not (put a strain on the relationship with the guy that i was spending the entire trip sharing a room with), in England i lost my carry-on bag (which i later found), In Uganda i got in a motorcycle accident, in Tanzania I went to the Hospital, in Kenya i got my phone stolen, and now i can add China to the list with something other than my initial travel.
Ok so the title of this post pretty much says it all. About 2 weeks into the semester I went to do
my laundry and I had been carrying my passport around because in case the
police stopped us (pretty much would never happen because we are white) and
asked for documentation, and I apparently had left my passport in my
pocket. I had checked all my pockets but
I guess I had missed one or had not done a very good job at checking. After I had gotten my clothes I was wondering
what all the red and white bits of paper were on my clothes. It was really odd, but then I saw the
source. In the middle of my clothing was
my passport, opened wide and soaked. The
pages were sticking together, the outside was falling apart, and I no longer
had any of my visas, all gone, Australia, Kenya, Uganda, and China. It was mortifying and depressing at the same
time. All of those Visas from the places
that I had visited gone, and on top of that, I technically was no longer legal
to live in China. So when my loans came
in I decided to deal with it. The entire
process took over about a month. I had
to set up an appointment with the US Embassy to give them my info. I made the trip with Tim, who from BYU-I, but
isn’t even an American citizen. He was
allowed in with me and we went to the second floor to turn in the papers. It cost me about 734kuai ($125) just for the
passport. Later when I returned for the
passport 2 weeks later, they told me I had to apply for a new visa as
well. This would cost me 1260kuai ($200)
on top of what I have already spent to become legal in China again and so that
I could come home. Boy would that money
come in handy now.
All in all I don’t
mind as much. Yeah initially i was pretty freaked out on what i was going to do but i quickly realized that it wasn't worth stressing too much about it. I have a new passport, with a new picture, and the passport its self is bigger (more pages 52 instead of 24 for free rather than spending the 80 dollars to get more). Plus how many people have this
kind of experience? How many people can say that they have been to the US
Embassy because their passport was washed in their laundry let alone even have been in an embassy for any reason while abroad for a short while? And how many of us
in our group have been to the US Embassy? I’m going to gander a guess and say that most people do not have many reasons to go to the embassy on trips and that Tim and I are probably the only ones that have been to the Embassy. Yes it was unfortunate, I could use the money that i had to spend right not to avoid needing to watch how much I spend so that I have money for
the last bit of this trip, but it’s an experience and that’s what study abroad,
and even life, is all about. Everything
is taken care of, everything is alright, nothing to worry about, and no sense
on exclaiming “what if”’-s and “you should have”-s. I’m just glad for it to all be done and taken
care so that I am guaranteed to get home. Such is life right?
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