All fun things come to an end, so just as well to our visit to the Netherlands. Our flight back to Hawaii, through Seattle, left from Schiphol Airport last Tuesday, March 2 2010, at 11 in the morning, and so we had to get up at around 6 AM since we had to be early due to the enhanced security checks.

By the way, I will write this story in several parts as I have to tell quite a bit, and it will become quite a large article if I had to write it all at once

For some reason I was already awake by the time I was called to get up, but still I had a lot of trouble to get out of bed haha. It’s no wonder really, I was just getting used to the new timezone, a time difference of 11 hours in the winter. Nah, it was not much fun to get up so early. Once we washed ourselves and got dressed, my mother, sister, my daughters Larissa and Isabella, and myself, went towards Schiphol Airport at around 6.30 AM. Of course we got in several traffic jams (which are, in my opinion, the worst in the world in the Netherlands), and somewhere between 8.30 and 9 AM we arrived at the airport.

I wanted to check Isabella and myself in at one of those self-help desks, but we got a notification that I had to go to a manned desk for an additional check. Once we got helped, it turned out that it was about the ESTA (in short: this is some system that has to give non-US residets and non-citizens permission to travel towards the US). However, since I am a greencard holder, I don’t have to request permission, but for some reason they did not know about this (but now they do haha). They had to overrule the system at the desk, and after they did this, they took our suitcases, gave us our boarding passes and they checked the stroller for a ‘gate delivery’ (this means I could use the stroller at the airports between the gates, I really like this service).

After an emotional goodbye, Isabella and I had to leave towards the gate. First we had to go through immigration, where we could go through the EU passports row even though Isabella had to use her US passport (we used this when we entered the Netherlands, so we also had to leave with the same passports. By the way: she never received a stamp on departure, so I need to call to the Netherlands later tonight (it can be a problem when we go back to the Netherlands when her departure is not registered)).

After the immigrations we went on towards the gate, and on our way there I bought a bottle of water. However, after I bought it, it turned out they could not seal the bottle into a bag (you have to do this, otherwise you cannot take the bottle on the plane), so I wanted to return it but even though I never touched the bottle since I paid for it, they could not take it back, she was only allowed to throw it away… well do that then, I told her, I can’t use it on the plane so it is useless to me. It was, however, 9 bucks that I threw away because of that. Stupid. I had more luck at a different location, where they were able to seal the bottle into a bag.

There was a nice row of people waiting at the gate for the last checks, I joined the queue in the rear but a nice lady from Delta (the airline that I flew with) asked me to come with her so I could line up at the priority row, the line for people in first class and those with elite status. This was fun, especially since it went a lot more faster. At the securitychecks I didn’t have to go through the new bodyscanner, probably because I had a baby with me, but I did have to go through the metal detector and I got a full pat down search also. They also manually searched one of my carry on bags, probably because of the baby milk, but I found out in the US that they did not notice me having another bottle with hand sanitizer in my other bag. They shouldn’t have let that one go through security without any check I think.. It doesn’t exactly seem foolproof these new enhanced security checks. They did manually search the whole stroller, however, I also think they could have been more secure with this, Isabella was, for example, allowed to just stay inside her carseat and who knows what could’ve been put under there, it never went through a scanner.

After the security check, we were allowed to board as one of the first people, so we could strap the carseat into the seat. This was really nice, it gives you a lot of time to get the baby and yourself strapped in (and it is also fun to get on an empty plane for once haha). The plane would remain pretty empty, and I positioned myself a few days before the flight on such a way that I might end up with four seats instead of two, of course depending on what other travelers would do. Unfortunately luck was not with me as two other people joined my row of seats. The rows in front of me and behind me remained empty, but other people were faster than me and they could easily lay themselves down in those rows. Oh well, it didn’t matter much in the end as Isabella was awake a lot during the flight, I hardly had time to close my eyes.

We left about 20 minutes delayed, and after a long, but nice, trip with Delta #233, we arrived around noon, local time (9 PM in the Netherlands), in Seattle. This was about half hour ahead of schedule, so the flight was a bit shorter than anticipated, which is nice on such a distance.

Once we landed, I wanted to call my mother and Michelle to tell them that we were safely in the US, but unfortunately I found out that I forgot to charge the battery of my phone (I kind of didn’t expect the battery to be empty after three weeks of having it turned off, guess I was wrong..). So ok, that had to wait until I was in the terminal and could use the internet to call them with Skype. I hoped this wouldn’t take too long because I knew they wanted me to call once I got on the ground, but unfortunately that didn’t go so easily either…

Once Isabella and I left the plane, we had to wait for our stroller at the entrance of the plane. It came up after a short wait but it turned out that the wheels were missing. There was a nice lady from Delta also at the entrance of the airplane who asked the people on the ground to look for the wheels. Once the wheels came up, we tried to attach them back to the stroller but unfortunately it turned out that this was impossible. After a while we found out that a piece inside the wheels was broken. This happened somewhere in Amsterdam, during the flight, or in Seattle. Personally I think the stroller fell out of the plane once they opened the luggage compartment of the plane, and that the wheels broke off at that time.

This was not fun at all. How did I have to bring Isabella around? Carrying her? That could turn out to be fun, I also had the necessary carry-on luggage with me. Fortunately the nice Delta lady offered me to meet up with me behind the immigrations check at the luggage claim belts, and to go to a Delta baggage claim desk after that, to see what they could do and to possibly give me a spare stroller.

I will tell a bit later today how this all ended in the next part of this story, I first have to go to the airport in Honolulu in regards to the broken stroller.

Impressions, feelings and such… well, there are quite a few of course.

Let me start by saying that the feeling I currently have is a sick feeling as I got a fever here

How did the fever start? Well, at first I couldn’t really get into the new day and night schedule, a jetlag so to speak. A jet lag isn’t that bad, as long as you sleep and try to get into the new rhythm, and if that goes well, you can get rid of that jetlag in no time. But unfortunately there is a little girl that wakes up at the most impossible times (well, in Hawaii, because of the time difference, these are the normal times) and who then needs to be fed. So I stayed tired and my natural resistance became pretty bad too. My other daughter, Larissa, had a pretty bad cold, and she got us also infected. My mom got the cold a few days later, the same with Isabella, and me too. However, unfortunately I also got a 102.2 Fahrenheit fever (39 Celsius) next to that, and that’s something that I still suffer from..

Nope, that aint much fun if you ask me.. I haven’t been in the Netherlands for almost one and a half year, and when you get ill for 2/3 of the time that you’re here, that isn’t so much fun

Right, did I get some impressions and such besides the fever and cold? Well, first I want to say that it was extremely cold here!! It is becoming a bit warmer outside, but oh oh oh, this was much worse than I expected at first. You can really get used to the warm weather as it shows. Here a picture of the cold air:

Something else I noticed, and this I noticed quite fast after we left the airport, is that it seems as if everybody is in a hurry. Especially on the freeway people seem to have turned crazy. Of course I know that it isn’t much different than when I was still living in the Netherlands, but it looks so much worse since people are taking their time more in Hawaii.

Sometimes, on Hawaii, you can hear people say that there is hardly any ‘aloha’ left between the people on the islands (’aloha’ has many meanings, such as: love, compassion, affection, peace, mercy, etcetera), but when I compared it with the Netherlands, I always knew there was still aloha between the people on Hawaii. And now that I am in the Netherlands, I noticed this again. The people here are much more turned inward, which gives a very distant feeling in my opinion.

The lack of aloha here in the Netherlands is something you can see with more things. When you want to cross the street, for example. When you’re at the curb with a stroller, do you think anyone stops for you? Of course not. In Hawaii, about 99% of the people will stop for you, but it looks like 99% of the people in the Netherlands just drives on. Of course this is pretty dangerous for people like me, I got used to people breaking and I really had to be careful when I crossed a street over here.

Of course there are also other things in traffic which you have to be careful with after living in Hawaii for a while. For example on the highway when I went to the Hague, I drove on the third lane (out of four), and kept myself to the maximum speed.. what do you think, somebody drives a little bit faster on the far most right lane, comes all the way to the left to gain on me, and then goes all the way back to the right again, just in front of me. At that point I realized that it is not normal to keep your lane in Europe, but that is a bit different in the US.

I also forgot to let someone go first at a crossing, even though he came from the right, but I was like ‘I am first on the crossing, so I’m in my right to go first’, like it usually is in Hawaii: first come, first served. And then I became a bit ticked also when that guy honked at me haha.

Nah, I am already happy that I did think on time to stop in front of a red light when turning right, which is something you mostly don’t have to do in Hawaii (after a full stop that is) haha. I think I would hear a lot more honking if I did ignore the red.

I finally understood why Michelle always told me that she didn’t dare to drive in the Netherlands. I have no problems driving, but I do see where the fear came from haha.

And well, I don’t think there are many more new impressions, most of the things remained the same. I also followed the Dutch news all along while I was in Hawaii, so there were not much new things for me, I think. It might be different when we’re a few more years down the road, though.

Isabella already had her United States passport (otherwise she couldn’t join me to the Netherlands, of course), but since she is also a Dutch citizen (because I hold the Dutch nationality), she can also get a Dutch passport and I thought that she should get one also.

I wrote it a while ago that requesting a passport for the Dutch in foreign countries would not be the easiest thing to do, I was kind of afraid that I would forget something, or that we would have to deal with some bureaucratic mess (especially after importing Flamey into the Netherlands). Fortunately it turned out to be a lot easier than expected.

In the morning of February 15, Isabella and I went to The Hague as this is the only place where we could request a passport for her (foreign consulates and embassies not included, but we have to fly a long way to get there.. the easiest is still to do this while we are in the Netherlands, like now).

Once we arrived in The Hague, we went straight to the city hall and asked for a place where we could make a passport picture for Isabella. Normally this is also possible inside the city hall, but they don’t take pictures of babies as these are much harder to take (according to them), so they told us to go to a photographer at the other side of the street (which turned out to be a cigar store that also made photo’s) who might be able to make the photo. The man who helped us (with an enormous Hague accent) asked me right away if Isabella was half Filipina, that was pretty incredible, not many people can guess this right.

After a short wait of about five to ten minutes, we went back inside the city hall to request the passport for Isabella, and to get her foreign (American) birth certificate registered in the Netherlands (if we ever move to the Netherlands, we wouldn’t have to travel all the way to Hawai’i for a birth certificate, but then we can also request one in the Hague).

Once it was our turn, it turned out things would be much easier than expected at first. I gave them my documents, they entered some information in the computer, they looked for a second if Isabella was really her, and the request for the passport was approved. While she (the city employee) copied the necessary documents I went to pay for the passport, after which I received all originals again. Everything went really smooth.

By the way, these are the documents that I needed:

- Passport photo (we only needed 1)

- Birth certificate with apostille (certified)

- Marriage certificate with apostille (certified) (I didn’t really needed this certificate as the Hawaiian marriage certificate was already entered into the Dutch system, I just brought it with me to be certain)

- A signed approval by the mother (and notarized by a notary public) for the passport (as Michelle was not there)

- Identification of the three of us

- My greencard (to prove my Dutch citizenship (a Dutch passport does not prove you are still a citizen))

I turned this into a expedited request as it normally takes about 10 days to pick the passport up again, and since that was a bit short on time. Now it would only take 3 days. It costs a bit more but it is better to be sure with these things (plus, it is always cheaper than 2 airline tickets of minimal 450 dollar each (not to mention the extra costs) when we had to get this in the US).

I hope things will be just as easy in five years from now, when Isabella and I have to renew our passports, but I am afraid it will take a bit more effort by then as, by then, I will (well, when everything goes according to plan) hold both the Dutch and the US nationality, and then I will have to bring extra documents to prove my Dutch citizenship. That might turn out to be pretty exciting again by then, but fortunately it is a long way from now

On February 9, 2010, Isabella and I went to the Netherlands for a visit of the family. They had never seen Isabella before, and they haven’t seen me either since 2008, so it was about time to do this. Michelle was unable to join us as she lost all her days off when she gave birth to Isabella.

So I went alone with the baby to the Netherlands. I can tell you that I was really nervous because of that trip as you have to travel for almost 24 hours. Will Isabella cry or not? That was my biggest fear, that Isabella would cry her heart out while we were in a plane full of people. Fortunately it wasn’t all that bad.

Michelle’s last cat, Flamey, also joined us on the trip as she was a present to my mother. Michelle has a pretty bad cat allergy and we decided that we should give this cat to my mom instead, so it would end up in a nice home. That was another factor of my worries, of course, will everything go well with that little one? Cats can be really stressed, and this was a pretty long journey.

Our plane would leave from Honolulu towards Los Angeles at 9.40pm, where it would make a short stop in order to fly on to Minneapolis/St. Paul, where we had to board another plane towards Amsterdam.

We arrived way ahead of time at the airport, but there was already a long row of people who had to be checked in. Because of the cat, we also had to line up in that same row (otherwise we would check in online). Once it was our turn, we had to fill in quite some papers and we had to show them the (health)papers of the cat, and we also had to deal with a broken printer (I wanted to get a receipt for bringing the cat, you never know haha).

So we had to wait for quite some time, and at the end of it all, after a short but emotional goodbye (like said, Michelle would stay all alone on Oahu), I had to hurry towards the gate. Once Isabella and I arrived at the gate, it turned out that everyone was waiting for me, everyone else already boarded, and they wanted to depart.. I can tell you, you will feel pretty embarrassed when you get on the plane at that time.

I quickly installed Isabella in her carseat on the seat next to me, and after one of the flight attendants told me that the cat was also safely on board, we were ready to depart.

Isabella remained pretty quiet during take off. I fed her during the take off, to avoid the popping of her ears. However, she did cry when the seatbelts light turned off. What I personally think is that Isabella was way too tired, she had been awake for most of the afternoon before our flight because her grandmother wanted to see her. Anyways, I grabbed her and walked up and down the airplane with her in my arms, and thankfully that calmed her down (I thought it was terrible, first to hold up a complete plane, and then a crying baby on board.. oh oh oh).

Next to me there was a man, and his family (wife and two kids) sat on the other end of the walkway in the same row. When Isabella and I were walking for a bit, the lady asked me if she could hold Isabella, and try to calm her down. I gave Isabella to her and I got some time to get some things done for myself, and Isabella calmed down even more. The man next to me said he would move to a seat more forward in the plane (the plane was pretty empty), so he could get some sleep and I would have more space to get in and out of my seat. I can tell you that this was very nice.

Isabella calmed down after a short while (fortunately) and I put her back in her seat where she slept for the remainder of the flight. With that, I had two seats for myself (and of course the space under the third seat of Isabella, to stretch my legs) and I had a pretty relaxed flight. Like said, Isabella slept for the remainder of the flight and after about 4.5 hours, we arrived in Los Angeles.

I ate some breakfast in Los Angeles, changed Isabella’s diapers, fed her and shortly after that all it was time again to leave towards Minneapolis.

I was curious to see how the flight to Minneapolis would be, especially because I did not know if I had someone next to me or not. Well, it turned out that this flight was even emptier than the flight coming from Honolulu (and Isabella stayed quiet also, she also slept most of that flight). We left at dawn and a few hours later we arrived in a very white, and very cold, Minneapolis.

In Minneapolis we had to wait for a few hours, which turned out to be ok as the Delta employees needed Flamey’s papers again, the vet that took care of her during that stop needed it. Once it was time to get on board again, we got into a very full flight. Because Isabella didn’t cry so much, I didn’t know exactly what I could expect, it could stay like it was but she could also become restless. The flight attendants were immediately sold by her and didn’t want to give her back, but yeah, they had to work so that was bit of bad luck for them haha.

Isabella also remained pretty quiet during the long flight to Amsterdam. A few times she wanted to cry, when she woke up from some noise for example, but a quick reaction helped a lot. After a long flight we arrived in the dark, and light snow, in the Netherlands. There was only one runway open at Schiphol Airport due to snow earlier that night, and since the wind came from our side, we went from left to right during our approach (I could especially see this when we drove home on the freeway, the planes landing at that time were bouncing a lot).

We got off the plane and went towards customs. At the passport check, I went through ‘all passports’, because of Isabella’s US passport (it turned out later we could also take the other line) and apparently I have a Dutch face because they greeted me in plain Dutch haha.

Near the luggage belt, I asked how it would go with Flamey, where I could expect her, and they told me that she would either be brought to the belt, or to the desk where I was at that time. I then went on to the luggage claim to get our suitcases and once I had those, they also brought Flamey’s crate to the desk. The KLM employee (I think she is from KLM as she was dressed in blue) asked on the radio if it was my cat, and they confirmed it but it looked like there was no cat in the crate…

No cat in the crate? How is that possible? They gave me a confirmation in Minneapolis that she was on board of the plane. But what do you think? Flamey got scared during the flight (I can’t blame her, it is really something for such a creature) and she hid herself under the blanket that we put in the crate for her, so it looked as if there was no cat at all. Luckily she was there, and fortunately she looked healthy also.

The comments from the girls at the desk were nice. Such a beautiful baby and beautiful cat, I had to be a very happy man haha. That was nice, I received a lot of compliments about Isabella anyways, that she is so beautiful, and that she was so nicely quiet during the flight and also because I was so brave to go on such a journey alone with a baby and cat.

One of the ladies offered me to walk me towards the exit, because I had so much with me (you could say I brought too much haha), and once we got to the exit, the customs stopped me. If I had all papers for the cat…

I did my homework and had all kinds of papers with me (USDA papers, EU papers, all kinds of certificates and so on) that one could think of. The woman who asked me for the papers took them with her, and together with 4 or 5 people they looked at them. I really got the impression that they did not really know what they were looking at, or that they knew at all what they were doing. A bit later they told me that they had to make a phone call, and after that call she came back to me and said she was impressed, it did not happen often for someone to have all needed papers.

At that point I felt a bit like “nice, I can see that I am back in the Netherlands”. I also noticed, during my wait time at the exit, that the customs only stopped a certain kind of people for a luggage check.. Welcome to the Netherlands…

Once we were cleared and got out, my mother, sister and daughter Larissa were waiting for us, and after an emotional reunion we went towards Breda.

My first impressions of the Netherlands at that time? It was extremely cold and it looked like everyone was mad on the road. Everyone was in a hurry and went from left to right on the freeway. It is possible that me being tired had something to do with it, but at the other hand, we are not that much in a hurry on Hawaii and we drive a lot easier. I finally could see why Michelle was scared to drive in the Netherlands when she visited me in 2007.

Yes, I could really notice that I haven’t been in the Netherlands for some time, I felt a bit like a tourist in my own country.

Time is flying, today I am in Hawai’i for exactly a year. On October 2nd, 2008, around 8.15 in the evening, I landed on the airport of Honolulu. Did I miss the Netherlands the last year? Yeah, from time to time I did but fortunately it wasn’t as bad as I expected it to be. I used to have a serious case of homesickness whenever I stayed away from home for a bit, sometimes even so bad that I could become really really sick of it. But this year, far away from the Netherlands, it all wasn’t so bad, I don’t think I was really homesick. Nevertheless I do look forward to see my family in the Netherlands again, haha.

I wrote about the new rules of the Dutch passport a while ago, that it wouldn’t be so easy to renew the passport because the honorair consulate in Hawaii is not longer allowed to renew passports somewhere this year because of the new fingerprint rules and such, and that I will have to fly to the mainland US, or get my passport renewed in the Netherlands when I would be there.

It is something very nice again from the Dutch government, even more because I have heard that people also need to pick their passports up again at the location where they renewed their passports (they normally send them), this because they need to check on the fingerprints inside the passports, if they’re made correctly or not. That’s going to be fun, so we either have to return to the mainland after a certain amount of time, or we have to be lucky and receive it in the Netherlands before you leave the country again. The result: double costs. Like I said in my post back then, it will cost us thousands of dollars (or Euro’s, whatever you want) for real if we need to do this within the US. (And another ‘nice’ fact: Foreign Affairs is saying that the machines for the fingerprints are too expensive, or something similar, and that they cannot install them everywhere for this reason… but what seems to be really happening: the ministry of internal affairs is paying for them and not the ministry of Foreign Affairs.. so what about that? Foreign Affairs doesn’t even have those costs as they said in the beginning.. it is really outragious.   hoe vind je die? Die extra kosten zijn er dus helemaal niet.. I think it is becoming a more and more scandalous story.

But oh well, I thought to myself, about a week ago, that it would be wise to renew my passport already as I would still be able to do this within Honolulu (until somewhere in September, normally it would be until the end of June but they are delayed in the process). My passport is then valid for another five years (why isn’t it valid for ten years, like in most countries?), and when they give us troubles in The Hague when we request a passport for our daughter later on, then we do not have to go to the mainland within a few months because I would have to get a new passport myself. We would still have some years time until we need to renew my passport and then we can also request the new passport for our daughter. She will get an American passport right away so a Dutch passport isn’t needed right away.

And so I did. I called the Dutch Honoraire Consulate in Honolulu last week to schedule an appointment for today. They’re located in a big officebuilding, near the Aloha Tower (there where the boat parade was and where I made a video of the Queen Mary 2).

We (Michelle joined me, and even though it was not really needed, it does make it more fun) had to be there at 11 this morning, and we could’ve been there at 10.45 AM, but unfortunately we walked pass the building. This happened because the building showed number 1000 while we had to be at number 745. We knew the office was located on the 7th floor, so everything which was lower, was automatically not something we looked at, and so we passed those smaller buildings quite easily. When we checked the numbers, we saw the number 900 something, and we thought it could take a while until we would be at our number, until we suddenly were in the 1000’s again… yeaahhh, wait a second… that’s not right, it was going up…. Right, our conclusion was that we had to walk back and probably missed something. It turned out that the lower buildings, which we initially passed, were in the 800’s and that we did need to get the first building. And what do you think? It turns out that this was indeed number 745 but this number was hiding a bit, especially because the number 1000 was quite big and catchy. Hahaha, yeah that went smooth. We went inside and up to the 7th floor in a really fast elevator (you really notice that your bloodpressure changes, you will really be dizzy for a bit after the elevator stops).

Once we got in, I pushed the little bell on the front desk and an employee of the consulate came to the front, it turned out that this person would also be the one who handled the passport renewal for me. She took me to a seperate room, a bit like a meetingroom (they’re really in between other offices, in a big officebuidling, where they have some space, it really looks like some kind of company when you see it like that, it really does not look like something which you think of when you think of a consulate.. then again, it is a honoraire consulate, of course, so they’re already smaller). Here I gave her my papers, the passport and the passport (which were 55 dollar for 9 pieces, by the way (I just needed two of them but they gave me 9 haha), they’re so expensive because the Dutch format is different than the American passport photo format and so people have to go to a special photographer, and when you only have one official recognized photographer on the island, then you can expect that they can ask you what they want, of course).

Anyways, I talked a bit more with the consulate employee, mostly about the upcoming birth and how things would go when we wanted to apply for a passport for her, and of course about the whole deal of the passports what the Netherlands is doing right now. She said that she has hope that they will have more machines available later on, and that they would renew passports again for the Dutch citizens because, like she also said, there are more Dutch citizens in Hawaii then you would expect (she gave an example of the one time that they needed a person on the Big Island who would be able to speak both Dutch and Indonesian, and it aparantly had a lot of replies from people who were interested, and this was pretty specific because of the Indonesian part. And it seems to be like this on all the islands, there’s really a great deal of Dutchies here… it makes it pretty messed up that the Netherlands is leaving all these people alone with their passports, there’s enough people who are not able to fly to the mainland or the Netherlands but still need their passports). She also said that, even though there are other HC’s being closed, that she does not expect that Honolulu will be closed so easily, because, for example, what if someone loses his or her passport, then they would not be able to leave these islands as they cannot take a plane to the mainland.

And we talked about some more things next to this. Michelle told me later that I am pretty talkative at some moments haha. Poor child, she couldn’t do anything else but wait until I was done talking.

I have to say that the people on the Honoraire Consulate were very friendly. I will receive my passport again within two to six weeks (normally it would take about two weeks but because of the whole thing of the change to the new way of renewing passports, it might take a bit longer so they take it a bit wider), and oh well, I don’t need my passport right away so that’s ok.

And that was the story of my passport renewal, for now at least haha.

We also fed some fishes at the Aloha Tower today and we made a short video about the Pali Highway, when I brought Michelle to her work later today, but I will write more about this later on.. probably somehwere tomorrow or the day after that, it depends because I still need to convert and upload the video’s to Youtube. So, some patience please

I really have to get something of my chest.. The Netherlands has to be the first again with something, like always, and of course, the civilians will be the ones who will have to pay for it. Nobody has these things, the United States don’t even have those things in their passports as we as Dutchies already have (such as a chip), and now this… so typical for the Netherlands again…

It is about the following piece that I read a few days on the website of the Dutch Consulate General in Los Angeles (originally written in Dutch):

Introduction fingerprints and passport application

Starting mid 2009, passport applications will need to be accompanied with fingerprints of the applicant. This will have consequences for the Dutch living and working abroad (non-resident Dutch).

Where to apply for passports?

As non-resident Dutch you can apply for your passport at every embassy, every Consulate General and each Honorary Consulate (HC). In the future, when fingerprints need to be taken and it will no longer be possible to obtain a passport at the HC’s. To improve the service to you at the highest possible level, the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs decided to equip fifty HC’s with equipment with which fingerprints can be taken. This will mean the necessary investments in security and communications. In anticipation of the introduction of fingerprints in passports and because of the renewal of the equipment, in the United States of America, starting from June 28, 2009, it will only be possible to apply for a passport at the Embassy in Washington, the Consulates-General in New York , Miami, Chicago or Los Angeles and the HC’s in San Francisco, Houston, Orlando, Atlanta and Boston.

source: http://www.netherlands-embassy.org/files/pdf/PaspoortaanvragenOpmaak.pdf

So, in other words, it looks like I wont be able to renew my passport in Honolulu later on but that I will need to fly at least 5.5 hours towards the US mainland for an application.

You can renew your passport right now then? You might say, and you’re right, but Michelle and I will get a baby soon and that kid needs to get a passport also (after all, we want the kid to get a double nationality so it can choose for him/herself which nationality it wants to have at adulthood).

If you think about it, it is pretty crazy that we will need to fly 5.5 hours, and we’re not alone as there are more Dutch on these islands. Why does the Honoraire Consulate in San Francisco this equipment while it is fairly close to Los Angeles and why do we need to fly 5.5 hours to the closest location?

Just look at this will cost us to renew a passport.. A ticket to the mainland is about 500 dollar, a kid below the age of two is for free but he/she will not remain a baby forever, so when it is time, we can actually count on some 1000 dollar. Then we might have the cost for a hotelstay since not all airlines fly back and forth multiple times a day, plus are you sure you are done on time at the consulate? Then you will have possible costs for a taxi or rental car and there will be enough additional small costs. Come, let’s renew our passport.

And then they dare to say, in the last line of that document that these measures “are in the interest of both the government and yourself”. Well, it surely is not in my interest. The only interest that it gives me is that I can write something in my blog again, but yeah, some interest that is.

The messed up thing next to this all is that I wonder how expensive this equipment will be.. The Americans have these devices everywhere, the border, homeland security buildings, consulates, embassies, everywhere and then it is impossible for the Netherlands to add a few more of these devices? I would almost tell them to send the bill to me as I am almost sure that it will be cheaper for me to pay for those devices than to travel up and down to the mainland.

Oh well, maybe there will be some sunshine after all as you can also request a new passport in the Netherlands, if you are visiting there that is (we’re currently planning to go to the Netherlands around the holidays). But, of course, it has some conditions attached:

As you are not living in the Netherlands any more (or maybe never lived in the Netherlands), the city of The Hague typically does not know if you still have the Dutch nationality. Your old passport or identitycard are no conclusive proof of your Dutch nationality. It only shows that you still had the Dutch nationality at the time the previous travel document was issued.

Source: http://www.denhaag.nl/smartsite.html?id=21603

In other words, they will need to find out if you still have the Dutch nationality and this is something that you will need to prove with all kinds of documents such as a birthcertificate and proof of deregistration in the Netherlands.

And I get different worries about a certain part of the same website of the city of The Hague:

You usually will go to the Dutch representation in the country which you reside for a new passport or identitycard. It is important that you are known for a (later) determination of your nationality.

So does this mean that I will have to renew passport in the United States at least once, just in case if I want to get a double nationality later on? And there are so much more questions which arise with all this, such as the timeframe in The Hague. It takes about two weeks in the United States to renew my passport but how about the Netherlands? The site of The Hague states the following:

10 working days, unless further investigation to identity, nationality and/or fraud is needed; then up to 8 weeks.

And there is a way to make this faster, in this case it will take three working days, but that will cost extra again. And what about the last part? The further investigation? Do they mean the above, the documents that you need to show and such? I can’t wait for 8 weeks in the Netherlands for a new passport? By the way, one of the documents that they want to see is a ‘recent statement which proves my Dutch nationality’, this is something the Dutch representation in the country where the applicant lives will have to provide, so in my case the United States… does this mean I will have to get this in Los Angeles or is this also possible to get in Honolulu? If it is LA then I might as well just renew my passport over there.

No, I am not really happy with this new arrangement. I also emailed the ‘Netherlands Front Office’ with the question if Hawaii gets no equipment indeed, they wrote the following:

Indeed, you will need to travel to a embassy or consulate general to apply for a new passport. There are also a few Honoraire Consulates where you can do this. Hawaii is unfortunately not one of the possibilities.

So I am really not happy about this. It does not even matter much for myself as it takes a bit until I have to renew my passport (later next year), and I could do it right now so I could wait for another five year but I am also wondering about the baby which will be born later on, how will that go? I think I should ask that question at the Dutch consulate in Los Angeles, and possibly also at the city of The Hague.

Nice going again, Netherlands

Well, there you are at the other end of the world and still you can watch television.. the internet is a beautiful thing when you think about it. We, of course, have no Dutch channels but we can still watch almost every show thanks to the internet.. we watched Yacht Vision from RTL4, for example, the other day.. here are two pictures to prove it:

I did think it was something that I was able to watch Dutch television here… it’s pretty cool

I recently wrote in a message that I was eating a ‘bitterbal’ (Dutch for bitterball, some kind of fried meatballs) and, you might think, is that something typical Dutch? And then I have to admit that this is indeed the case and, no, they do not sell them here, I had to make them myself.

We cannot import any meat here, mostly because of things like the mad cows disease and that kind of diseases so in order to eat some typical Dutch things, I sometimes need to help myself and make it myself.

So, like said, I was eating that bitterbal while I was writing a new blogpost. I made these together with a couple of ‘kroketten’ (another Dutch snack). Unfortunately they did not taste as good as they taste in the Netherlands but, never the less, it still was very nice and Michelle and her mom agreed on that. I also made some pictures of these bitterballs and kroketten:

The first picture is of the krokettten, ready to get fried. The second one is of the bitterballs and on the last picture you can see the fried kroketten (in a bit vague photo but oh well, you can get an impression ).

Something else that I made some time ago was ’stijve rijst met suiker’ (stiff rice with sugar). This wasn’t so easy as in the Netherlands as we can buy ‘broken rice’ over there and over here we mostly only get the standard sticky rice (but in different flavors lol) but oh well, if you let the rice cook long enough, you will be able to break the rice and then you will be able to make stiff rice with sugar, which we did a while ago. Michelle and her mom also liked this food.. it is a bit too bad that Michelle is lactose intolerant, which basically means that she has a hard time with certain milk products and, unfortunately for her, the stiff rice with sugar contains a lot of milk. So, yep, she had to go to the bathroom a few times.

And what to think about ‘tompoezen’ (I am unsure if there is a translation for it, it is a sweet Dutch pastry with pudding and a glaced topping)? I have made these a while ago also haha. Ok I did not completely make them myself, my mom sent me some things which I could use to make the tompoezen but still, they were delicious and, indeed, Michelle and her mom also liked these a lot.

I hope to make ‘oliebollen’ soon for new years eve (oliebollen are another Dutch pastry, the main part is like what you find in doughnuts but sometimes there are raisins added to it (and, lol, doughnuts are actually brought to the US by Dutch settlers and made into that from oliebollen). I am curious what they will find of those

As you can see, I haven’t been in the Netherlands for a bit now but I can’t really say goodbye to the Dutch food.. I expect to make much more Dutch dishes later on also.. whenever I made a few more, I’ll probably blog about it

Even though I really like it here on Hawaii, sometimes there are certain happenings that make it less fun to be here, like now. It is a nice happening, yes, but still, it would have been nicer if we were there ourselves in person as my younger sister has given birth earlier today to a little baby boy which makes us an Aunt and Uncle of a new nephew

I hope we will be able to see our new nephew soon in the real life, either on Hawaii or in the Netherlands, it would be nice to see that little one

Luckily they have made pictures of our new nephew, Bjorn, after the labor, I assume they don’t mind it if I post a picture of him on the internet:

He is lovely, isn’t he?