Passport Problem:

Last Thursday, January 14, I was in Lawrence, KS hanging out with my cousin Emily and my friends Kayla and Grant when I checked my email. I had a message from my advisor in the UK informing me that the Last name of my passport did not match my other documents that I had submitted.

My Passport read: Jane KEENN instead of KEEHN

I immediately called a passport hotline only to find out that the only way to get this error fixed was to go directly to the nearest Regional Passport Agency. Well that didn't sound so bad. Oh wait, it's in Dallas, TX and they scheduled my appointment for 8:00 am the follwing morning. Awesome.

I immediately left Lawrence with Emily to head for Manhattan to pick up my car. We get into Manhattan around 8:00 pm and I had to quickly say bye to all of my friends there which was really sad. (love you girls!!)

I sped to Wichita (literally) gatherd up my birth certificate, botched passport, and my itenerary for travel and hit the road yet again for Dallas. I loaded up on coffee and took off. About 12:30 a.m. I was nearing Oklahoma City where I have a friend, Nolan, who lives there, so I decided to pull off and catch a couple hours of sleep. Around 4:00 am I got in the car again, armed with 2 cups of coffee and headed for downtown Dallas.

I arrived at the agency at 7:45 am where they took my information and while waiting I fell asleep in the lobby. I woke up to a security guy poking me with his police stick, not necessary. As they fixed my passport, I wandered downtown Dallas alone for about 4 hours. It was actually pretty cool because I was able to visit all of the JFK monuments and sip on a delicious smoothie. However, I did receive numerous "hollas":

"Hey long legs, where you headed?" (my personal favorite)
"I know your man aint lettin' you walk around alone.."

It was pretty funny/terrifying all in one, especially based on the fact that I looked like I had rolled out of bed, gotten dressed in the dark, and been caught in a stampede. They must not be too picky, confidence booster all the same.

When my passport was completed with all of the correct information, I drove to Lewisville, TX to my Aunt Leslie and Uncle Brent's house where I caught a few hours of much needed sleep. Later that night, I met up with my sister, Mary for dinner and a couple drinks. It was so good to get to see her again before I left.

Well naturally, getting a later start than planned, I hit the road again around midnight on Friday planning on driving straight through to Wichita. I had my caffeine and full tank of gas, figured I was good to go. I made good time to Oklahoma City, and went through about 2:30 am. About 20 minutes outside of OKC, however, my heart started to beat super fast and my eyes felt like they were bugging out (I'm sure in no way correlated to the insane amounts of caffeine I had ingested in the past 24 hours)

I decided to SOS my friend Nolan again, and crashed at his place. I slept in until about noon and was back in Wichita around 4 Saturday afternoon.

By the end of the trip, I was completely exhausted. There was probably caffeine running through my veins. But if I had to pick one place for the Regional Passport Agency to be located, I guess Dallas wasn't such a bad spot. I ended up getting to see a few people that I might not've been able to!

What a way to kick off my European Excursion.

love

Jane