Frankfurt detour

We left Freiburg on Sunday in order to make a detour to Frankfurt (details of that roadtrip to follow when I have a chance to download photos). The only time I had spent in Frankfurt previously was at the airport in 2000, when I was pregnant and Lufthansa accidentally deleted our return flights to the U.S. and rerouted us on a three-leg trip home. Twelve years later, a last-minute need to revisit the financial capital of Germany beyond its airport at first didn't sound like such a bad thing. Suffice it to say, we're thankful we got an early Monday morning appointment at the U.S. Consulate, so that we didn't have to stick around Frankfurt for a whole day futilely attempting to discover its hidden treasures.

The reason for our trip begins with last year's passport snafu. Stefan, proud German papa that he is, decided last summer to inaugurate Elias's German passport, and he boldly left Elias's U.S. passport at home. How pleasing it was to see his son enter the Vaterland on that spanking new burgundy Reisepass! Unfortunately, the nice security people at the Munich airport wouldn't let Stefan and Elias board the plane coming home. What? A man traveling with a child and no mama (I had flown back earlier), no return ticket to Germany, and no proof of U.S. residency? Turns out it takes FedEx two days and $70 to express-deliver a U.S. passport from Durham to Munich.

This year's trip began with us knowing not to repeat last year's error. Elias would travel on his U.S. passport. It was thus with understandable panic that at 2am the day before our departure, Stefan woke me up to report that he had gotten the passports out and Elias's U.S. passport had expired a week earlier.

U.S. passports for kids under 16 are valid for five years. I swear it felt like just a few years ago that we renewed Elias's passport--probably because it was just a few years ago. Plus there was that German passport we added to the mix in 2009, and my passport renewal last year. So many passports, so little attention paid.

Thus, how both pleasing and nerve-wracking it was to see our son once again enter Europe on his shiny burgundy Reisepass. How relieved we were that the nice entry control officer in Zurich didn't suspect that Elias was anything but German and didn't care that he didn't have a U.S. visa.

If all goes well, a shiny new dark blue passport will wing its way from Washington D.C. to the Frankfurt Consulate to Helen's house in Steinebach before Elias and Stefan are scheduled to fly home. If not, like last year, they get to extend their trip for...as long as it takes.

Scenic Frankfurt