Passports, do you have them?

No, i don’t. Or rather, i did but now i don’t.

My passport expired quietly two years ago, and i didn’t care because i was only working in EU countries, where my national ID card is enough.

But now i’m planning a trip to Redmond (Microsoft confirmed my attendance), and i need a suitable passport to travel to the USA. This isn’t as easy at it seems.

The time limit is a given, and i can’t order an “old style” passport without biometric data on it. Biometric passports however take a lot longer to get than normal passports. There is a program for “emergency passports”, but these are not biometric, and thus not suitable for travel to the USA.

I spoke with the Gemeindeamt Horgen, and apparently it should be possible to get this done quick enough. The biometric passport costs 255 CHF total.

On Thursday i can go to the passport bureau and get my fingerprints and mugshot taken. Or something like that.