oct17.com Blog

New passport: $75. New citizenship: $675

The nuclear family got new passports this week — a remarkably quick two weeks after we applied at the local library. (Extremely cool that they have a passport office in there after hours. Love this library.) The new passports are cyborgs; they are stiff with embedded electronics, colorful with holographic etchings, and full of … no stamps. Luckily they return the pages of your old passport so you can reminisce about your globetrotting. Brij’s passport is good for 5 years. Saloni’s and mine are good for the usual 10. Each one costs about $75 to process.

Also this week, the Sarins are filling out their applications for U.S. citizenship. (We spend enough dinner-table time arguing about politics that it’s really overdue, I think.) Lots of information to supply, and most shocking was that the fee to move from Green Card holder to Citizen costs you $675 per person. And I seriously doubt these will get processed in two weeks.

• Saloni says: We’re sending out economic-stimulus package right back to the government.