Surprise! I’m back with a random, unannounced, and completely unplanned post. My poor little travel blog has been so terribly neglected over the past year due to some pretty incredible developments in my life such as: getting engaged, traveling (irony), unexpected surgery, getting married, more travel (more irony), moving to Boston, and even more traveling. Planning my destination wedding and phenomenal honeymoon completely absorbed my time and commanded my attention for the majority of the time as well as helping my husband apply to graduate school (he’s a proud MIT student now) and coordinating his international (and my cross-country) move. However, now that I feel just even somewhat of being “settled”–despite having my furniture in storage in Indiana and unpacked moving boxes stored in our 800 square foot Boston apartment–I desperately want to revive some life into Seize the Globe. It’s been a combination of things really…friends asking me for advice on travel, credit cards, honeymoons, and all the photos sitting in my camera from my travels that have kept tugging at me to give more attention to my blog. Time to start adhering to Rule #76: no excuses–play like a champion.

Updating your US Passport

I decided to take my husband’s last name and I found the process to be relatively straight forward considering the fact that I found this sweet service called hitchswitch that basically sifted through all the obnoxious bureaucratic forms for me, filled them out accordingly, and provided pre-addresses and pre-stamped envelopes to send to renew all of my important documents: passport, registering to vote, etc. However, I ran into a bit of an issue with my passport that required further intervention on my part for a few reasons. The first being that I did not have any international trips planned until January (Puerto Rico–and that doesn’t count because if you’re a US citizen it doesn’t require a passport) until my friend surprised me with a trip to London for the Rugby World Cup and the fact that I am a Global Entry member. I’ll briefly shed some light on how I handled this below:

* Side note: I am like the least photogenic person in the world and somehow managed to get a semi-decent passport photo in one shot while I was getting my MIT spouse ID card. It’s not every day that convenience, luck, and a flattering PASSPORT  (no smiling, no expression, straight forward, dull) photo just happen.

Timeline

9/22/2015 – Mailed passport renewal package from Boston, MA via USPS with tracking to standard processing PO pox (Usually takes 4 – 6 weeks for regular service)
9/23/2015 – Best friend calls and invites me to travel to London for the Rugby World Cup–PANIC because I didn’t apply for expedited service. Call 1-877-487-2778 and get a live human being almost immediately. I ask her if it’s possible to upgrade from standard processing to expedited processing even though I didn’t include that fee in the check I mailed. She assures me that I can and it shouldn’t be a problem, but wait until they receive my passport in their system which usually takes 5 – 7 days after delivery.
9/24/2015 – Passport renewal package is received in Philadelphia, PA
9/25/2015 – According to online passport status tracking, my passport has been received and marked for standard processing
9/28/2015 – Check cashed
9/28/2015 – I call the same number again and tell them my situation. Give credit card number over the phone to pay additional $74.85. Representative tells me that they will not charge my card until they are sure that they can meet my travel dates and give me a passport.
9/29/2015 – Apple Pay alert that credit card has been charged
10/1/2015 – E-mail from State Department at 6:50 PM:

“We have finished processing your passport, and it has been mailed to you.
Your passport application locator number is **********************.

You paid for overnight delivery. This means you should receive your passport on or about 10/04/2015.”

Online status updated to:
“Thank you for submitting your application for a U.S. passport book!
Your passport application locator number is *******************************.
We have finished processing your passport, and it has been mailed to you using overnight delivery.
You should receive your passport on or about 10/04/2015.”

10/2/2015: New passport received in the mail at 11:30 AM
This went INCREDIBLY fast and I’m really impressed/shocked by it considering I didn’t use any private service or need to provide proof of booked travel. As someone who feverishly and impatiently searches the internet for answers to all of my problems, I figured these data points may be helpful to someone else down the road.  As for Global Entry aspect of passport renewal, I’ll write about that entire process and all the benefits in a separate post along with my Rugby World Cup shenanigans (we’re flying Delta so that will be interesting).

It’s good to be back, despite the long break.

Ready for the Rugby World Cup!

UPDATE: The Rugby World Cup blew away all of my expectations!