Losing Your Passport 101

Losing your passport in a foreign country, even one as welcoming as Austria, can be an upsetting experience--especially when travelling alone. So allow me to share with you my new gained knowledge regarding what to do when this happens to you:
1. Try to do this in a country where you speak the language. It can be very helpful when you are at the police station trying to tell them that you lost your passport, but no one there speaks English. Although there was a very nice elderly lady who was there as well, and did her best to help. The police officer would tell me something in German, I would say I didn't understand, and the very nice lady would look at me, and say *exactly the same thing* in the hopes that I would somehow understand it from her. I didn't, but it was sweet.
2. Try not to lose your passport at 4pm. Everything closes at 5pm. It makes for a very long night during which you can do very little to fix the situation.
3. Know how to contact the embassy. And then know that you probably need to go to the consulate, not the embassy. That way you don't waste your time going all the way across town to the embassy (which is a very scary, intimidating looking building) when you really need to be at the consulate, which is on the opposite side of town (and in the Marriott Hotel, a much more welcoming place).
4. In fact, call the consulate before going there. Hopefully someone will have found your passport, have called the consulate, and they will be able to tell you where it is. Saving you about 2 hours on public transportation.
4. Have a photocopy of your passport. It was very helpful in multiple steps of this process.
5. Don't panic. People are very nice. And is it really that bad being stuck on vacation for a few extra days?

So after 4 hours and a trip to the lost and found office, the embassy, the consulate, the Imperial Apartments and finally Schoenbrunn Park, I was reunited with my passport. I think I may turn into one of those dorky Americans who travel with their passport in a pouch around their necks. For details of my journey, please see the map below:

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