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| View of what I’m sure is somewhere in UT just a few minutes after take-off. |
Being a native Colombian comes with quite some responsibilities.
Exhibit A: the need to get an ID card by the time you’re 18. Pretty painless if you’re about to become 18, for some reason. But I’m almost (as of this Sunday!) 23, so it was a bit of a hassle. More on that later.
Anyways, Exhibit B: If you are a Colombian citizen (esp. a native Colombian como yo), you need a Colombian passport to visit the country. Period. This means I can’t play the “but I’m an American citizen already! Can’t I visit my native country freely like any regular American traveler would?” card… Because it turns out the answer is “no.” Actually we learned this morning that if I HAD to visit Col., I could enter with my U.S. passport but I’d HAVE to leave with some sort of “Emergency” Colombian passport. God willing I’ll never need to resort to those measures.)
Looong story short, my old passport expired in 2010. Had I had an ID card by then (or within six months of the passport’s expiration date), I would have been able to have it renewed without needing to visit San Francisco (where the Colombian Consulate is).
But, hey, I’m happy to visit San Fran any time for whatever reason! (And, as I told my mom this morning when we were taking off, I get somewhat of a “sick” pleasure from traveling–by air, that is. Long car rides make me car sick, so I’m technically “allergic” to road trips.)
No, really: The promise of new beginnings and the expectations of upcoming adventures make me giddy–even when I have to be at the airport by the almost masochistic hour of 6ish AM. Oh well…
Read more about our mother-daughter adventure in San Francisco by following the tag “SFFeb14“!