Spring Break Discovery #1 - PASSPORTS

While more than half of the John Felice Rome Center travelled through Africa*jealous squinty eyes*, we explored more of Italy. Emilie (Ellen's sister) and Elizabeth (Emilie's friend) accompanied us throughout our whole trip to Florence, Pisa, Venice, Lake Como and Milan! Along our journey, we made several discoveries-discoveries that we would like to share with you all.

NUMBER ONE: When Emilie and Elizabeth were staying in Rome for a few days, Nick served as their tour guide. He possesses a copious amount of knowledge from his on-site topography class and he was generous enough to reveal his learnings to us. He'll make an excellent professor someday. Anyway, after touring Rome for a bit, we decided to go to Emilie's hostel. We sat around and drank some wine with their roommates from Portugal and Spain. Then, Emilie out of nowhere asks us, "Are your passports ultra patriotic?" We replied, "No, they are just regular. Blue and plain. I guess there's an American eagle on the cover but that's it." Then, Elizabeth whips out her passport. The cover looked the same but we had no idea what lay behind that hard blue cover. Ellen took it in her hands compassionately, opening it with delicacy. As she fingered through the pages, she trembled. Nick leaned over and thought, "My, the world has changed." So, here it is. New passports.



This is just one of the many patriotic scenes that are now in passports. Mount Rushmore, could you lend us anymore national pride?



This shot is just above the
head shot. Whoa. Eagle.







If you can read that, it says, "This document contains sensitive electronics. For best performance, do not bend, perforate, or expose to extreme temperatures" What are these special electronics? A tracking device? Maybe we're just paranoid but Big Brother is definitely watching us.




Perhaps, one day we'll take our passports to space? I can't wait to get my stamp on the moon!






New Passports. What a discovery. Thank you, Elizabeth.