Previously on Barbie's 50 New Things....

New Thing #13 Recap:

Sequoia and I applied for our passports at the downtown Tacoma post office. 

We were last seen eagerly watching our mailboxes......

Over the next few weeks, I kept forgetting that I was waiting for my passport. And when the thought did come to mind, I'd get a little worried. That maybe it would never come. Maybe I had filled out the papers incorrectly. Or my information didn't check out. Maybe "they" discovered the truth about me. That I'm really a twelve-year-old girl, goofy and without a clue, child of gypsies, masquerading as a grown, albeit short, woman.

Then one day it came. It came! "My passport is here!"

I kept thinking of the movie, The Jerk with Steve Martin.

Navin R. Johnson: The new phone book's here! The new phone book's here!
Harry Hartounian: Boy, I wish I could get that excited about nothing.
Navin R. Johnson: Nothing? Are you kidding? Page 73 - Johnson, Navin R.! I'm somebody now! 

So, appropriately enough, with Magic Child from Middle Earth on my lap, 

we open the official envelope from the U. S. Government...

My hands are a little excited (shaky)....

Sequoia gets it started, softening the corner...

We work together...taking our time...

....until BB can't stand it anymore and rips right into it....

We open the front cover of the pretty little blue book..... and start to read...

"Once upon a time, there were two brave travelers...

The new passport is here! The new passport is here!

I'm somebody now!

It's a strange feeling. Possessing my passport. I'm not nearly the travel enthusiast that Ciara has always been. There are locations on the planet that some people long to visit. Something in their chest pulls them over borders and across oceans. Fascination with foreign lands.  I understand and respect this nature but I do not exactly share it. In fact, there are some very popular and cliche destinations that I could live my entire life without visiting and never miss.

What I do long for, however, is to test my courage and my proclivity for comfort. And that will involve international travel. With Sequoia leading the way.

The possibilities are wide open.

"Yes, yes," wondered Sequoia. "But let's see if it tastes like a passport?"