Stephane’s thoughts corner…

Stephane Bailliez's thoughts on everything

I’m stuck in France during august.

My company has its traditional forced vacations from august 1-15. I was brilliant enough to lose my passport a couple of weeks ago (I’ve never been able to figure how, when and where) which I’m pretty disappointed of since it was holding all my visas stamped during my round the world trip and I wanted to keep it as a souvenir.

Anyway, I went to the mayor house to have my passport made after having been to the police to declare my old passport lost (I actually had a scan of it, which is always handy). It will take them 3 weeks to process my request… which I find absolutely amazing considering I had my old passport made in 30 minutes in front of my eyes when I was living in Paris. I believe it is due to the new machine that is only available in a few places to make the new passport model. Oh and I’m actually not sure to receive it in 3 weeks time, since my proof of birth will maybe be considered too old since it was issued in 1998.

I find it amazing that I need myself to give a proof of birth not older than 3 months coming from the place I was born more than 30 years ago..in France. Is there any backup of these papers ? Otherwise I will maybe not be able to proove my identity all the archives are lost.

So basically I’m stuck in France unless I manage to get my passport in time and jump on a flight going somewhere far far away.