lost and found

Many readers will recall my missing passport scare just before the Croatia/Serbia trip, which began on June 19. Well, I just found the old passport. It was in the University’s Lost and Found room. I had tried them at the time but they didn’t have it. Apparently I dropped the passport down a crack in one of the shuttle bus seats, and I suppose they must not have found it until whenever the bus was cleaned.

It’s strangely comforting to have found it, even though it makes no practical difference. There have been mixed messages about whether or not the old passport has been cancelled. But even if it hasn’t, it is so beaten up after 4 years of heavy use that even the Dutch passport controllers were beginning to scold me about it’s condition. (I say “even the Dutch” because it usually the British passport controllers who are the first and only ones to scold me heavily whenever my passports get too beaten up, which happens every few years for me. The Dutch are usually a bit more relaxed than the British about travel documents but in April they gave me no problems at Heathrow but a stern and frownign lecture at Schiphol.)

In short, I’ll need to apply for a new one tomorrow anyway. The emergency passport is only 5 pages long, and was completely filled up by the Balkans and Istanbul and England and the Egyptian residence visas in the past month.

Actually, the old one is full too. I should go to that travel bar near the Bibliotheque Mitterand in Paris where they give massive amounts of free drinks for those who come in with a full passport.