I went to the American Consulate in Frankfurt this morning (45 min. drive) in order to renew my American passport.
My "appointment" was scheduled for 7:45 am....and this is a new system.....you used to just go to the Consulate and wait in line....so I expected that this might speed up the process significantly....well....I turned out to be wrong.
I arrived at 7:45 to check in.....that went fast enough....and by 7:50 I was waiting in line to go through security.....This is where the fun started....Security took about 30 minutes...out in the cool morning air....
And then, to my dismay, I still had to pull a number and wait.....WTH are the appointments for then?
That took another 30 minutes until I was called to submit my documentation for passport renewal. I was happy at that point because I thought it was almost over. Wrong again, I was sent downstairs to purchase a postal stamp because the Consulate doesn't pay for their mail....
And then when I got back from that, I was told to wait for my number to be called again. It took another FULL hour for that to happen.
For what purpose, you may ask? Well, the woman I gave my forms to isn't an "officer" or whatever....so I had to wait for an official to witness my SIGNING my application.....I waited a whole hour just to have somebody watch me sign a paper.....
And for this honor...I only had to pay $100!
Question: Do you hate these kinds of situations as well?