my old passport
Oct. 14th, 2004 08:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beige_alertI just mailed out my passport renewal paperwork, which had me looking at my old passports. It’s my first one that has all customs and immigration stamps in it. It was issued in 1985, shortly after my 13th birthday. The photo is of a much, much younger me. It was 17 Mar 1985 when we arrived at Heathrow, the 20th when we arrived in the Netherlands, and on the 25th we departed from Charles de Gaulle for JFK, where we changed planes for the trip back to O’Hare. It was a very busy nine days. Though there was lots I’ve forgotten and much I didn’t appreciate at that age it was a wonderful trip.
What do I remember? A trip in a London taxi cab with a driver who had lots of stories about weird traffic encounters, such as the person traveling the wrong way on a one-way street and who, upon encountering several cabs and a double-deck bus headed the other way in all lanes assumed, naturally, that they were all in the wrong. Amsterdam was beautiful, and I remember eating a very large (considering my size at the time, at least) and very tasty fish in a restaurant. In Paris we went to the top of the Eiffel Tower, as is required of tourists, and it really is an amazing structure. Someone was selling rubber-band-powered plastic ornithopter (flapping-wing) models at the base of the tower. I bought one recently with this memory in mind when I saw them for sale here.
I do need to go back someday, as an adult, and for more than nine days.
What do I remember? A trip in a London taxi cab with a driver who had lots of stories about weird traffic encounters, such as the person traveling the wrong way on a one-way street and who, upon encountering several cabs and a double-deck bus headed the other way in all lanes assumed, naturally, that they were all in the wrong. Amsterdam was beautiful, and I remember eating a very large (considering my size at the time, at least) and very tasty fish in a restaurant. In Paris we went to the top of the Eiffel Tower, as is required of tourists, and it really is an amazing structure. Someone was selling rubber-band-powered plastic ornithopter (flapping-wing) models at the base of the tower. I bought one recently with this memory in mind when I saw them for sale here.
I do need to go back someday, as an adult, and for more than nine days.
