At The Consulate

On Monday morning, we all took a little field trip across the highway to that charming and delightful part of town known as East Jerusalem.  Picturesque and welcoming though it may be, ours was not a pleasure trip.  Armed with a stuffed manilla envelope's worth of highly inscrutable beurocratic documents and forms (sloppily filled out between middle-of-the-night feeding sessions), we were abandoned by our taxi driver at the foreboding gates of the American Consulate. 

After weaving through a maze of security checkpoints (whose metal detectors managed to pick up on my Wig Clips of Mass Destruction-hate when that happens), we were ushered into the official American Consulate Waiting Room where, obligingly, we waited, along with several other bleary-eyed fellow Americans.  I spent a good portion of the time trying to remember the name of the guy whose picture was hanging right next to Obama's ("Oh!" I cried, startling the man sitting next to me out of his waiting room induced stupor, "It's Joe!").  My husband kept glaring at all the other couples with babies reconfirming that Adina was indeed the most adorable passport applicant of the day. And then it was our turn.

Two grumpy clerks and a courier service secretary later, we finally met with the Consul.  Turns out she is a very small, very sweet, kindergarten teacher-like lady from Louisiana (I would love to know her story).  She assured us that Adina is a beautiful baby and that her passport should be delivered well before our trip to America in February.  On our way out, we passed by a wall covered with pictures of America's Most Wanted, all of whom were Arabs with names that conjured up vivid September 11th footage in my panicked brain. 

"They probably all live right around the corner," I said. 

"They probably all work here," said my husband.

We learned three things from our visit to the Consulate.  One is that I don't know what all the fuss is about not being allowed to bring strollers. Seems like we were the only people who didn't bring their stroller-everyone just left them in the courtyard with Security Checkpoint Guy Number One.  I feel like I've been hearing people bemoaning the no-strollers-allowed-in-the-Consulate situation my entire life, and now I'm not sure why.  For those of you who plan on visiting the American Consulate in East Jerusalem with a kid any time soon, do yourselves a favor: bring a stroller.

The second thing we learned is that the Consular Report of Birth Abroad Form is apparently specifically designed to be completely un-fill-outable, and the Consulate clerks know that.  There's this one tiny box (for both the father and the mother) in which you're supposed to list in-and I quote-"exact detail" the dates of your physical presence in the United States.  Now, I may be only twenty-three years old, but I couldn't remember how many times I've been in and out of the United States if it meant getting free Huggies for a year.  And they want specific dates?  What do I look like-a border patrol officer? Consulting our passports was fruitless; my husband's was only a couple years old, while mine, with my married name on it, was only as old as our rather new marriage.  But I really shouldn't have worried, because after explaining my frustration to Grumpy Clerk Number One, he reassured me that I could just write "birth to present" for both of us, and we'd be just fine. 

So I did. 

I hope Adina gets her passport.

The last thing we learned is that instead of ordering a taxi to come pick you up from the Consulate (incurring a four shekel ordering fee), you can

just wait for the next American couple coming in from Ramat Eshkol and take their Bar Ilan taxi right back to where it picked them up.  Or, if you're feeling brave, you can actually walk. 

Just don't tell your parents.