US Embassy in London

I had a delightful trip to the passport folks at the US Embassy in London today.

No, really. It was delightful.

Okay, maybe not delightful, but certainly simple and painless.

You see, my current passport is languishing at the UK Home Office somewhere waiting for an updated resident permit. Which is fine, no real problems. Except I am supposed to fly to Stockholm on Wednesday. And the Home Office has no idea when I will get my passport back.

So, after two phone calls and a fax to the Home Office, I decided to call the Embassy. Fully expecting to be told, "Sorry, you're out of luck," I was shocked to be told, "Sure, come in, bring two pictures and we'll get it taken care of."

And darned if they didn't get it taken care of. In less than 90 minutes I walked out of the Embassy holding a brand new, limited-validity passport. It's something between a second passport and an emergency passport, I think.

Of course, this practically guarantees the original passport shows up tomorrow.