International Nesties
Publius
member
Dear Community,
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Shits
My passport is gone. I last saw it a few days ago and now I can't find it anywhere. I new it while driving so I generally just keep it in my purse but now it's not there. I'm close to hyperventilating. I don't want to even think about having to redo my visa for living here.
Re: Shits
Yikes! Glad you found your passport.
So glad it was a false alarm! It's always scary to not be able to find your passport.
My sister couldn't find hers when we were in the airport in Paris trying to check in for our flight home. We were all freaking out (a family trip) and finally we found it at the bottom of a bag under the hard plastic that came with the bag to make the bottom hard. For about 10 minutes though we thought we'd be stuck in Paris trying to get her a provisional passport or something of the like.
Can't imagine losing it with a visa in it!
I misplaced mine at one stage when I was living in London. I knew it wasn't lost lost, just couldn't find it - I'd put it somewhere "safe". This was for a couple of months. As it was pre 9/11 days I just traveled home on my drivers licence a couple of times - no need for a passport between the UK/Ireland technically (it is a free transit zone). Nowadays, you can't do that on flights as the airline looks for passport as ID whereas previously it was a photo ID...
A police report, and a trip to the embassy. In most cases, it's not really that bad if you don't have any imminent travel plans and you live in a country where filing a police report is straightforward.
Unfortunately, I got to do this in China, and it was a complete PitA! The importers our company hired to deal with our household shipment insisted that they needed my original passport for the customs clearance. I didn't want to do it, but all the other ex-pats said, "Yeah, I was nervous too, but it's not that bad." The next day I got a call, "I'm sorry. We cannot find your passport." WTF?! I would be resigned to the hassle if I had actually lost the thing myself, but someone else lost it?! Grrr... I forced them to drive me around and translate through the whole process - not to mention paying for the replacement. I was so pissed off!
First I had to go to the local police office in charge of the area where my apartment was. Explanations, forms, paperwork, signatures, etc. Then I had to take that paperwork to the central police office downtown. More explanations, forms, signatures, etc. Then I had to go back a few days later after the police(not surprisingly) failed to track down the missing passport. At that point I got the form to take to the embassy.
Luckily, I had a photocopy of my passport, which I showed to the embassy guards to get them to let me in. There are a million checkpoints getting into the Beijing embassy, and at every one, "Why do you only have a photocopy?" "Because the original was lost and I'm here to replace it." I filled out the basic application, and they said it would take a week. When I came back to pick it up, I got the same suspicious looks about only having a photocopy. "Uh... I'm here to pick up my passport!"
That is exactly the kind of ridiculousness I was imagining.
And you know damn well those importers knicked your passport just because they could. Do you know how much you can get for an American passport out there?! I am surprised other expats had done it successfully, though.