Five years ago, in researching colleges, I discovered some interesting tidbits. One was that many Dutch universities teach courses in English these days. The other was that, if you’re a Dutch citizen, they’re dirt cheap, and you get a government stipend while you study. I wouldn’t have given it all that much thought except for an article in The Economist that I read around that time, discussing the fact that the Dutch government is so generous with benefits like this that they were starting to take steps to disallow dual citizenships.
It wasn’t clear to me whether or not the new rules would apply to The Child, but since it did make sense to try to ensure that she try to maintain her dual nationality at least until her education was taken care of, I contacted the Dutch consulate, who contacted The Foreigner, who within a few days had located all the documents and official stamps required of him. A few months later, The Child and I flew to the nearest Dutch consulate, in San Francisco, to deliver our portion of the documents, as required, in person.
A few months after that, The Child had a second passport, locked in a drawer, where it remained until I looked at it one day early last February and realized two things: first, that it was going to expire with in the year, and second, that The Child and I would need to fly to either San Francisco or Los Angeles to get it renewed, unless of course I wanted to fly to the East Coast.
I emailed The Foreigner, and let him know, so that he could get the documents and I could plan the trip.
I received no reply.
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