A trip to the American Embassy

27 October 2005 ~ 13:00

The Passport Services section is open from 8.30 - 11.00 for callers. I think they prefer people to deal by mail but, as we live in London anyway, and didn't want to let hubby's passport out of our sight or pay for a courier, we decided to just turn up (they don't make appointments for this service).

We caught a taxi from Victoria Station which was �5.60 (about $10). The Embassy is just off Park Lane. After seeing it on TV, I was expecting guards with machine guns. I didn't see any but there were a lot of police. There were two queues, one for visas and another in front of a sort of hut.

We went up to the (British) guard at the head of the first queue for visas. We told him we wanted Passport Services and he asked if we had an appointment. We said no. He asked Nightdragon to show his American passport, which he did. I showed him my British passport to prove I was his wife.

We were directed straight to the other queue in front of the hut. Here we had our bags X-rayed and walked through a metal detector. Then we went straight in to the front desk at Passport Services/Social Security Services.

I had to hand in my mobile phone but Nightcoon was allowed to keep his; I think because it is a very basic one with no camera or anything. We went straight into a large room with a ticket machine and lots of people waiting on seats. There were about 12 teller-type windows and a play area for kids.

We were told to go straight up to window 1 but actually a lady came up to us at window 2. Hubs had filled in the form I printed off the Internet for extra pages already, but they said it was an old form and gave him a new one to fill in. He filled it in and when he went back up to the window a young guy was there waiting for it. We were told to sit down and wait.

It was literally 5 to 10 minutes and Hubs was called up to window 2 again and handed his passport. The new pages are labelled with letters A-X (the originals are numbers 1-20). There was a very grand looking raised seal on the first of the extra pages. The service was free.

There are loos and baby changing facilities. I went to the loo, collected my phone and we left. It was really quick and easy and I was impressed with their efficiency. I'm glad it's done now and Nightdragon doesn't have to worry until 2007 when his passport runs out.

Stored nuts | Future acorns