Chinese Consulate - Part 2

Bill took Devlin to camp this morning and Mac and Liam and I headed down to the Chinese consulate. We did not have Devlin's Chinese passport with us. Bill and I tore the house apart yesterday and could not find it anywhere. We found a bunch of other stuff - Devlin's pink pearls from China, Bill' Swiss Army knife, every piece of paper related to Devlin's adoption and her heart surgery, but no Chinese passport. We did find a photocopy of it.

So the boys and I took off at about 9:40 hoping that the rush hour traffic had mainly cleared. We were in luck and it had. We found a parking space just a block and a half from the consulate. It was then that I discovered that I did not have my wallet with me. I had put it in my beach bag yesterday when we went to the water playground and forgot to move it back to my purse. I found $.24 floating around the bottom of my purse, but the meter takes only quarters and $1 coins. The boys did not have their wallets with them. There was 3 minutes left on the meter and I decided that a ticket was worth not having to drive home without the passports and come back later in the day.

We got the consulate and learned that crowds are definitely longer in the mornings than the afternoon. I got on the pick-up line (I just cannot lose the NY way of saying that - I always use on line and not in line). I was very worried they were going to refuse to give me Devlin's US passport with the visa. While I was waiting on line a man asked if I had any dimes for the copy machine as he did not realize he would have to pay for them. I gave him the two dimes that had been floating around the bottom of my purse. When I got to the front of the line I said not a word about the passport, just, "good morning", and handed over the receipt. The clerk took it, told me the price and I handed him the cashiers check. He handed me the passports, I said thank you and walked over to where the boys were sitting and told them let's go. Before they could stand-up I was called back to the window. The clerk asked for Devlin's Chinese passort and I confessed that I did not have it and could not find it. I offered the photocopy to him. He took it and asked for her adoption certificate. He took them, walked over to a supervisor, photocopied both and brought the documents back to me.

We are all now clear to travel on April 16.