Ten years ago I looked like a blond Rachel Maddow. I can’t wait to get a new passport photo, I’ve gotten too many bizarre looks from border gaurds with this one.
In 2006 I was on a train from Sofia, Bulgaria to Belgrade, Serbia. At the border the Bulgarian composer sitting in the cabin with my friend and I had to translate for the Serbian border gaurd who spoke almost no English. When he got to my passport he stopped, looked at me, looked at the photo, then looked at me and asked, in all seriousness, “transsexual?” Sure that was embarrassing to me, but if I spoke Serbo-Croat I would have come back with “why is that the only English word you know?” and then he probably would have shot me.
