Today was the dreaded and exciting day of applying for my student visa. It can take anywhere from 5 to 12 weeks to come back in the mail, so hopefully it will be back sooner rather than later. Like many things involving Spain, the process is super decentralized. There are nine different consulates in the United States, and each one gets to decide its own variation of what it needs to have to give you a visa.
For those of you who may be wondering, the DC consulate requires you to have:
-1 copy of the Visa application form
-a passport sized photo
-$160 in cash
-a Medical certificate saying you are healthy & free of contagious diseases (NOT notarized/apostilled, more on this later)
-an FBI or State Background Check saying that they have no records for you (notarized and with the Apostille de Hague)
-the letter from Spain with your school information
-your passport + a copy of JUST THE PICTURE PAGE
-copies of pretty much everything just mentioned
The process to even get to today was intense to say the least. At first I needed a Medical certificate with the doctor's signature notarized. Try finding a doctor with a notary on staff. Not an easy task. Then in the middle of trying to resolve this dilemma, the consulate went and changed the requirements. Problem solved! But also typical Spain...
With time getting shorter and shorter until I leave for Spain, I rushed to DC after swim practice today to try to make it the consulate before 1 pm, when they close, because of course everyone has to go home for siesta. I waited until the last minute and had to go get my passport sized photo and then suffered the consequences. We get all the way to DC only to discover that the lady at CVS didn't actually give me the photo. I know, I know; I should have double-checked. We sprinted down the street to a CVS nearby (thank the lord), but they didn't do passport photos. I was about to die of desperation (after going back to the first CVS at home to give that woman a piece of my mind) when the woman at the DC CVS took the paper I had and pulled the passport photo off the back. It was stuck to the back the whole time.
We raced the five blocks back to the consulate, which was actually really kind of cool and official-looking. Basically I continued being my usual self. I handed the people my stack of papers and nervously announced, "Necesito un visado estudiante." Oh yeah, I can speak Spanish! And that was as far as I could get. I totally froze and reverted to English, all the while breaking out into a nervous "OMG, how do you say that in Spanish?" sweat. They dug their way through my stack of papers, handing me back nearly half of them (because they never needed them in the first place). I'm sure they got a kick out of the copy of my passport. I thought they needed a copy of every single page, so I basically gave them a book. The guy took the stack to his superior, who pulled out the one page they needed, the one with my picture. Ooops. Oh well, can't be too prepared, I guess!
So basically, I am probably definitely really going to Spain in two and a half months! And I better start preparing to spend several months in a nervous sweat every time I have to use my Spanish, AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
