Easier in Black and White.

Hello beautiful people,

So, this last week I happened to have my visa appointment! After all the stress about having such and such paper, what order the papers should be in, what color of pen to write in, and don't forget having to write in all capital lettering, I finally completed all my paperwork a little over a week ago. I also received all of the support papers that AFS had to send to me about a week ago.

After I finished everything, I kind of realized how un-complicated that all of the forms and such were than I originally thought it to be. When you first get the AFS email with all of the directions on how to get your visa, you're like "CRAP, what did I get myself into?" But honestly, if you compare it to the AFS application it is quite simple.

My advice to anyone still working on it, or future exchange students, is to READ THE DIRECTIONS. Follow them exactly. Especially the directions on the consulate's webpage.

I had a little bit of trouble the two days before my appointment, and I thought that I wouldn't be able to get everything approved by (I went to the honorary consulate in Salt Lake City, Utah) the honorary consulate. Want to hear about it?

So, two days before, I was going over the list of things I needed to bring to the consulate's office, and realized that I was missing one thing: round-trip flight reservations. So, I called the AFS office, and asked what I should do, the woman who helped me said that she would get right back to me. She called me the next day, and told me that she couldn't get me a letter explaining why I can't have round trip reservations, because I technically wasn't supposed to have my appt. for another couple weeks. I ended up still going to my appt. without the paper, and the very nice lady at the consulate said that one of the papers in the whole pile had the dates of which I would be returning, and didn't need anything else. She then stamped all of the papers, signed them, and gave me some instructions on sending the papers to San Francisco.

So, now I just have to wait for the SanFran consulate to send all of the papers and my visa back to me.

I think all of us exchange students just make things way more complicated than needed.

By the way, I leave in a little over a month♥♥.

Arrivederci-
Rachael


P.S. The woman (Nancy) at the honorary consulate told me that there is one thing that you have to know when going to Italy. She said "just say NO" and she held her hand out in front of her. She said Italians sometimes don't understand that you are being serious unless you use hand gestures. good to know:)