September 2, 2010

Reluctant Anglophile: Dealing With a Passport Snafu – Maiden Name on Passport

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Jonathan and I have been happily married since 2006. We took a trip to England shortly after we were married, before I legally changed my last name to Jon’s last name. My American driver’s license was still in my maiden name to match my passport. I did not have any problems going through customs in England or the United States.

When we got home from that trip we put our passports away and did not think anymore about them. When Jonathan called me last September to tell me that we had won the “Face of Opportunity” contest from British Airways, we were both over the moon. As we talked about the trip we planned what we were going to do, what we’d pack and who we’d meet. The last things on our minds were our passports – something you just don’t think about because you always have it.

That is until one night three weeks before the trip. I was laying in bed watching television as Jonathan came running into the bedroom in a panic. He remembered that my maiden name was still on my passport. We had forgotten to have it changed when I legally changed my name. Now all of my documentation saying who I was did not match my passport. Jonathan had booked the trip and all the tickets were in my married name.

We were unsure of what to do. With a three-week window in order to fix the name on the passport we knew it would be very risky to have the name changed. See, to make changes to an American passport, you have to send your current one in and they issue you a new passport. So, essentially I had a chance that I would be left without a passport at all in the amount of time before the trip. I called the British Airways trip hotline and explained the dilemma to them. They assured me that with the correct documentation, which I already had in my possession, that I could pass through customs without incident.

The documentation you need if your name on your passport is different that your married name:

  • Birth Certificate
  • Driver’s License
  • Marriage License
  • Social Security Card

As we prepared to leave for our trip, I assembled all of my documentation that would assure any customs officer that I was who I said I was. Having to carry it all around was probably overkill – but I wanted to be sure.

As we went in for landing at Heathrow I remarked to Jonathan that I did not want to see the room with the purple chairs. We are big fans of the television show UK Border Force. The room with the purple chairs is where customs officers send people with discrepancies in their documentation. In most cases, the people who sit in the room with purple chairs are often sent home.

Much to my relief, I did not visit the room with the purple chairs. In fact, I went easily through immigration as Heathrow and through Chicago when I returned home. The passports have not been put away since returning home, mine is sitting right next to my computer so I remember to have it changed. Like I said, I don’t want to ever sit in the room with the purple chairs.

Trip To England 2009 – Recap of All Posts

Editor’s Note – In case you missed any of the posts about our recent trip to England, here’s an aggregated list of all the posts so you can check out what you didn’t have a chance to read. Enjoy!

Trip to England 2009 – Day One – The British Airways Face to Face Events – In case you’re new to the blog I thought I should give a brief explanation as to how we got to go on the trip. Basically we won a contest. British Airways held a contest called the Face of Opportunity – and it’s premise was the businesses are more successful if you conduct meetings and deals face to face instead of via the phone or e-mail. So, they launched a brilliant contest to help small business owners achieve their goals by facilitating those face to face meetings. Click to read more.

Trip to England 2009 – Day Two – London Arrival and More British Airways Face to Face Events – Every time I’ve landed in London, I’ve always had to get off the plane on the tarmac, pile into a bus and drive to the terminal, which was old, dingy and usually involved a lot of walking. It was never a pleasant experiece – especially after being on a plane for 8 hours. Click to read more.

Trip to England 2009 – Day Three – Being a Tourist for a Day in London – Due to the shortness of our trip to England – we were only going to have one full day in London and we wanted to make the most of it. As Dispatches from the North Columnist Lisa Coulson wrote about in the weeks up to our trip, she’d had a tempestuous relationship with London and wanted to get the grand tour from me – someone who had a passion for London despite it’s warts. Click to read more.

Trip to England 2009 – Day Four – Leaving London for Salisbury and Shaftesbury – Even though we’d had an exhausting day touring the sites in London the day before – I still woke up around 5am. I blame jet lag and excitement. We had another busy day planned and I couldn’t wait to get it started! Click to read more.

Trip to England – Day Five – The Heaven That is Shaftesbury, Updown Cottage, Weymouth – On Saturday I awoke in our warm, soft and comfortable bed in Updown Cottage. I woke up as the sun was coming up. I didn’t want to miss a beautiful Dorset sunrise as the Blackmore vale was filled with sunlight. That didn’t quite happen though, as it was raining and quite windy. But I still managed to take far too many pictures than were necessary of that early morning… Click to read more.

Trip to England 2009 – Day 6 – Final Bits of England and the Journey Home – This will be a rather short post and will be the hardest to write. I woke up again ridiculously early to photograph the morning in Shaftesbury. It was raining and blustery. One thing I was really looking forward to was picking up the Sunday papers and having a cup of tea on our last morning in Updown Cottage… Click to read more.

A Video Tour of Updown Cottage – The self catering cottage that we stayed in Shaftesbury, Dorset. Heaven on Earth. Can’t wait to go back.

Random Observations from our Trip to England – A collection of seemingly random thoughts about our trip and England in general.

Pictures from our Trip - Check out this post for all our trip related pictures.

A New Dream Achieved – Everyone I Know Must Read This Post – A special post dedicated to everyone who played a part in making the whole trip possible.


Random Observations from Our Trip to England 2009

Luggage is the worst part of traveling.

Driving on the left just feels right.

If you think you’re good at starting a fire – you probably aren’t.

Sometimes, it just makes more sense to take a cab everywhere.

You don’t have enough time to do everything you want to do, even if you think you do.

The British were the most friendly they’ve ever been to us on any trip before and made us feel very welcome.

Terminal Five is awesome. Enough said.

I love British Airways. So what?

I hated the movie ’500 Days of Summer’ on the airplane. Reminded me too much of previous experience.

Airplane food isn’t that bad after all.

I’m finally in love with drinking tea. I get it now. I now keep a tea stash in my desk at work of delicious Devonshire tea.

Yes, the Brits even do a bathtub tap differently.

Under no circumstance should you turn on international data roaming on your iPhone. Or send text messages.

Gordon Ramsey really knows how to run a restaurant. And cook a delicious steak.

Peep Show is the funniest show I’ve ever seen, it’s up their with Yes, Minister in my book.

When driving in the UK, watch out for Pheasant crossings. Yes, I said PHEASANT.

The fact that the Evening Standard is now free is awesome. It’s better than ever.

Don’t expect a restaurant you last ate at 3 years ago to have the same menu. That was disappointing.

If you want good fish and chips, make sure a local takes you to a place he frequents.

Cathedrals never stop being amazing.

WiFi really is essential to living. It’s up there with water.

If you’re flight from the USA comes in at 7 in the morning in London, take the Heathrow Express into London, don’t take a bus, car or taxi.

The US Embassy in Grosvenor Square is by far the ugliest building in London. On behalf of all Americans, I apologize for it. At least we’re building a new one!

No matter how much I love Britain – it still always feels good to have US Customs say to you “Welcome Home.”


A Video Tour of Updown Cottage – Self Catering Cottage in Shaftesbury, Dorset

While we stayed in Updown Cottage, I took the chance to use my iPhone to take a video tour of Updown Cottage in Shaftesbury, Dorset, so that you guys could get an idea of just how lovely the place really is.

If you’re looking to get away from it all and stay in your own Self Catering Accommodation in Dorset, then Updown Cottage is a MUST.

The tour is about 7 minutes long, please forgive the wind at the beginning and the Blair Witch style camerawork. Updown Cottage deserves better!


If you’d like to stay in Updown Cottage – then check out their website for details and to check on availability. Happy Travels!


Trip to England 2009 – Day 6 – Final Bits of England and the Journey Home

My Final Shot of Gold Hill – and England

Editor’s Note: This is the fifth part in a week long series about our fantastic trip to England two weeks ago. If you’d like to see the rest of the posts about our journey, click here.

This will be a rather short post and will be the hardest to write.

I woke up again ridiculously early to photograph the morning in Shaftesbury. It was raining and blustery. One thing I was really looking forward to was picking up the Sunday papers and having a cup of tea on our last morning in Updown Cottage.

I set out pretty early, grabbed a few pictures, but then the rain started pouring and by the time I’d stopped at the news agents to get the newspapers, I was soaked from head to toe.

But I didn’t mind. It wouldn’t be a proper British Holiday if I wasn’t miserably wet, right?

Our flight was at 3:30 in the afternoon, so we had a half a day to enjoy the rest of our trip. We planned 3 hours to get us to Heathrow by car, which ended up being plenty of time.

We read our newspapers, Jackie didn’t have as much luck with breakfast as I did the day before, so we just snacked, enjoyed our tea, the newspapers and our last glimpses of the Blackmore Vale from the dining room.

One thing I had been afraid to do during our entire stay was drive the car up the cobbles on Gold Hill to Updown Cottage – it just seemed wrong to do so and it was quite a narrow squeeze to get up the hill and I didn’t fancy finding out how good the insurance was that we’d paid through the nose for. However, I didn’t really want to lug all our luggage back down Gold Hill and walk them down St. James to our car to load it up.

So, with much bravery and gusto – I managed to drive all the way to the top of Gold Hill, turn the car around and park it in front of Updown Cottage to load up the car. I was quite pleased with myself.

With much sadness we loaded the car, tidied up the cottage, left a small gift for Simon and Jane and piled into the car and left Updown Cottage for the airport.

We’ll be back.

Driving to Heathrow

I was still a little bummed that we’d missed our chance to see Stonehenge, but as we went down the A303 towards London, I realized that the A303 actually runs practically next to the national monument.

So, about 40 minutes into a drive, sure enough there it was, Stonehenge. I wish I’d been able to take a picture but I was driving. One thing that struck us about it was how rather small it looked – from the road at 50mph at least.

Still, it was rather amazing to see and we’ll definitely have to make a trip their on our next journey to England.

The traffic to Heathrow cooperated and we made good time. It was a drive that I didn’t want to end. The scenery was amazing and I was quite enjoying driving the British way.

Traffic got worse as we got closer to the airport and bad signage in the airport complex meant we had to make a big circle through the whole placejust to find the rental car return lot. We dropped off our car and took the courtesy shuttle to Terminal Five.

Even though we were leaving, I was very much looking forward to going through Terminal Five again – and it didn’t disappoint. The departures area is amazing is it’s massiveness. There were no lines and we got right through baggage check. The British Airways staff were friendly and helpful. There was a slight problem with our luggage as I didn’t know I couldn’t carry my new umbrella onto the plane with me and I had to check it as oversized baggage and hope that it made it to Chicago.

After we’d made our way through security – our goal was to eat a full meal before we were trapped on a plane, hungry. So we grabbed a bite at a pub in airport. The food was all right but it took forever for it to get to us and we were on a time crunch. We still had souvenir shopping to do and time was running out.

We were a little disappointed in the shopping selection in Terminal Five – but that may have been because we didn’t have enough time for a proper walkabout. We were especially dismayed at the Harrods in Terminal five that seemed to only carry luxury goods and none of the touristy stuff we were used to in the old terminal.

Still, we managed to load up on souvenirs for everyone at a tatty store right before we had to make a beeline for the plane. One thing I was looking forward to was being to board the plane at the gate – as that was the selling point of Terminal Five. Sadly, that was not to be the case, we were loaded onto a bus and driven to the plane sitting on the tarmac. We were delayed taking off as Heathrow is quite busy and we had to wait our turn. But it was no big deal, we had plenty to keep us entertained. I wanted to stay in England as long as possible.

The flight home from England is always the worse – you’re sad the trip is over and it’s actually longer because the plane is flying into the headwinds. Still, the British Airways staff on board managed to make it go by quickly and in 8 hours we’d landed at home in Chicago.

My parents were waiting for us at the airport and they were kind enough to give a lift home, which was wonderful of them and was just what we needed after being cooped up on that plane for so long. My umbrella also survived oversized baggage.

After souvenirs had been passed out and my parents had left, it was just us as we prepared to go to bed.

It wasn’t Updown Cottage.

It wasn’t the Park Lane Hilton.

But it was home.

We both went to sleep with the same question running through our heads:

When will England be home?