We’ve arrived at the not so fun part of our plans. Apparently day dreaming of all the wonderful experiences we’re going to have isn’t actually going to get us very far. There’s the tedious, the painful and the slightly scary that needs to be accomplished first.
Our current pain is passports. I’ve just returned from a jaunt down to Sydney to apply for my Greek passport. Apparently the Consulate up here doesn’t have the whizz bang finger printing thingummyjigs. So the reasonable cost of $126 for a five year passport suddenly became $326 when including the flights. But I should be thankful that it’s all happening and I’ll soon be swanning around Europe with my EU passport and looking pityingly on the poor souls waiting to get through Customs in the “non-EU” line.
And it will be genuine pity as it is looking increasingly likely that Eoin will be in the non-EU line as he won’t get his passport in time. Apparently there’s a backlog in processing citizenship applications. It’s been slightly delayed … a year or so. I know what you are all thinking – those Greeks and their inefficient bureaucracy. In this case however it’s the feckin’ Irish! Alex’s citizenship took only two months to process a few years ago and Eoin’s has been there for 12 months. When we finally do get it then it’ll take another 2-3 months for the passport to be processed. Considering we hope to leave beginning of March it’ll be cutting it very close.
On the bright side, I got to wander through the Sydney Botanic Gardens while I was in Sydney and found these lovely statues flanking a staircase. They were a delightfully charming antidote to the pain.
kouklahouse.com 