Guus Bosman

This week I received my new Dutch passport.

It was quicker than I had expected, it took only about two weeks for my passport to arrive back home after I applied for it in the Consulate in Raleigh.

The new passport is valid until 2011, and it's issued by the Ambassador in Washington DC which is kind of cool. I received my previous passport back also.

The consul told me that the size of the holes in invalidated passports is defined by government regulations. All Dutch consulates worldwide were required to purchase expensive hole-in-passport-makers issued by the Dutch government; commercial products don't make the right type of holes.