In order to stay in Spain (or anywhere in the E.U., I think) for more than a tourist visit, we need a Schengen student visa. Copies are available on the website for the Spanish Consulate in NYC; unfortunately, the space to answer in turned out to be quite small. I just downloaded the PDF and opened it up in Photoshop so I could type my answers right onto it (in a small enough font to actually fit in the box). In addition to writing up the visa application itself, we had to provide our passport and copies of some documents: a letter from our host school providing proof of enrollment, a letter demonstrating financial solvency during our stay, proof of health insurance; they also asked for two passport photos, which went I know not where.

In order to submit your application, we had to physically turn it in at the Spanish consulate closest to us, which meant NYC. The consulate has a decent website, including a snazzy module for signing up for appointments. I made mine for Election Day, since I wouldn’t have to miss any classes that way. We were momentarily surprised that the consulate was open on Election Day, a national holiday, and then we remembered that it’s technically part of Spain and not really subject to U.S. holidays. Also, the Chinatown busses still ran on Election Day (driver’s nationality notwithstanding) — perfect!

So, my Election Day: get up early to drive over to my polling place, drop in my vote (for Change!), and peace out to drive up to Wilmington for the 9:05am dragon bus. Turns out that one was pretty full, since everybody else also had the bright idea of going to NYC on their day off too. They called another bus, which came forty-five minutes later to take up a dozen of us. Fine by me: I slept.

My visit to the consulate was nice enough. The man at the front desk directed me upstairs to the Spanish consulate: “[in heavy accent] floor thirty. three zero.” In fact, I got there a bit late because of my bus; but my sister logged on and changed my appointment time a few hours before. It was no big deal.

My interviewer woman only took two copies of my application. I had also made two copies of everything and stapled them altogether, but she split up the actual form + photo and the documents from UD/GR, photocopies of ID cards, etc. She also asked if I had any extra information about the SOS health insurance, since I had just given her the printout of card’s front+back from the website; but it was no matter. She took my money order (made out to the “Spanish Consulate of NY” — the website didn’t specify) and, after putting everything in its right bin, gave me my second copy of the application back with a receipt. In 4-5 weeks, my passport should be ready for pickup or to get shipped. I forgot to get a prepaid self-addressed envelope for the passport, so I asked her if my sister (who lives down in the East Village) could pick it up: if I gave my sister a signed letter stating that she is to pick it up, she can do it if she brings some ID, between 1-2pm. The whole process took me under 10 minutes, including chit-chat about the interviewer’s 3 year-old daughter.

Afterwards, I went back to my sister’s place and played RockBand with her boyfriend. A little shopping en route to the bus stop and then a quick 3-hour ride home, and that was all.

The visa came back from Spain a few weeks later, so my sister’s boyfriend (who works mostly evening/weekend shifts) went to go pick it up for me. He’s a nice boy. I heard later that if you asked hard enough, they could actually process the visa same day and get it back to you, but it was no big deal.

Now I have a nice shiny visa in my passport which will let me fly across half the continent, hurray!