Today I got an email from the agency that takes care of all of our official French government paperwork. They cannot get me a new carte de sejour (the French id card I must have to live here) because my passport expires in June.
Im going to London next week. Were going to Germany 3 weeks after that. Were going to Italy two and a half weeks after that. We havent gone anywhere outside France since November. It would have been really nice to have known that my passport expiration is too close for the French governments liking.
You cannot expedite a passport application from here. The consulate says it takes 1-2 weeks. Thats already faster than the estimated time for an expedited passport within the United States. Oh, sure, you can lose your passport and go and have an emergency temporary one issued. I know someone whos done that…. (see entries for 5 july 2007)
I guess Im going to send in my paperwork (and my current passport) the day I get back from London… then cross my fingers that the new one arrives in time for the trip to Germany. Ill be afraid to leave my house and miss the delivery. Its gonna be a long 3 weeks.
The good news is they use email, and you may actually communicate in a timely way, explaining the situation and maybe they’d actually expedite it (???). Or if you pay extra would they send it back via overnight courier (???) And let you know when they do (???) I realize all this is shooting for the moon, but (???)