A whole year?

At least she got it before she leaves

The next time you're cursing American bureaucracy while restraining yourself from throttling the mother of the screaming monster sitting next to you while you and the rest of the herd wait for your numbers to be called while hanging around to get your driver's licenses renewed, think about this just before you slash your wrists: Chloe just got her Spanish student residency card. The one she applied for in September because the temporary one expired in December. The one that required several trips to the police station to be told to bring more documents, more photos, more money, and wait longer. The one that will be useless in less than a month and a half. But it's a nice memento, even though it screams FOREIGNER across its face.

Cough::nerd::cough

Another geeky travel tip that you might have read elsewhere. It's a good idea for all travelers to make copies of passports, plane and train tickets, visas, etc. and bring one copy with us and keep one copy at home so that if we toss our luggage overboard in a fit of borderless exuberance while abroad someone can get the copies to us by mail or fax. Just try convincing immigration officials that you don't need documentation because you are a citizen of the world. Imagine there's no countries . . .

A photocopy of your passport is not going to work where a real passport is required, but it can make getting a replacement easier. Although, on her trip to the south of Spain, Chloe brought the photocopy of her passport just in case she needed it for identification because she didn't want to worry about losing her actual passport. They ended up staying in a hostel in Madrid unexpectedly (and were left to their own devices to find a place to stay for the night) and the management accepted her photocopy as proper ID.

I'm bringing copies with me, but rather than leave another set of copies at home, I'm scanning all of my tickets, hotel confirmations, and passport and e-mailing them to myself. If I lose anything, I can get to my Gmail account from any computer anywhere in the world and print out the lost documents myself. If you do the same thing with all of your exchange student's documentation before she leaves, she'll always have access to it. Of course, not everyone will have Internet access on their exchange, but chances are that someone in a nearby village will.

Polish up your hoop-jumping skills

The Spanish visa business hasn't gotten any better since last August when we had to fly, at the last minute, to San Francisco to apply for Chloe's visa (the story of that nightmare a lifetime ago starts here). Recently I was reading some things by future Rotary exchange students, and one of them said he wasn't going to bother with the financial-guarantee form (one of the required documents for a visa) because it was stupid. Maybe so, but not as stupid as him. So I thought I'd check to see if it's gotten any easier.

In all of the states covered by the Spanish Consulate in Boston, the student must appear in person but can have the passport, with the visa affixed, returned by express USPS mail, but only if the student brings a self-addressed, stamped express mail envelope. Don't even think about FedEx, UPS, or DHL. In Washington, DC and New York, it can be applied for in person by a parent or guardian with a notarized something or other in place of the student, and it can be mailed home by express USPS mail. In Chicago, however, it can be applied for in person by the student, parent, or guardian, but must be picked up by the student in person. In all cases, the student, parent, or guardian must appear in person at some point during the application process. For most people, this means an extended road trip or more air fare. The rest of the Spanish consulates in the US (including all of them on the west coast) don't have Web sites, but I'd call for verification of the procedure even if they did.

And that's for a temporary 90-day visa. When the kids get to Spain they have to pay more money, supply more copies of documents, and provide more passport photos to apply for a Spanish Student Residency Card at the local police station. Chloe and Abby applied for that in September, and it took several visits because, of course, each time more documents or copies of documents were needed. Their visas expired in December. Abby is all but gone, in Paris and Rome with her parents and grandmother now, and is leaving for home with them on May 6. Chloe just got a letter from the Pamplona police department telling her to bring certain documents with her to the police station on April 29 at 10:00 (missing school is always cause for celebration, whatever the reason). She's assuming her summons is to pick up her residency card, a mere two months before she's scheduled to depart Spain.

Bureaucracy

If you read this last August, you know that getting Chloe's Spanish student visa was a nightmare (the gory details begin here). After a last-minute trip to the Spanish consulate in San Francisco, she got it on time, but the visas issued in the US are temporary, lasting only 90 days. The students are to apply for their permanent student visas when they get to Spain.

The travel agent said to bring USD$15, one passport photo, and a copy of the visa affixed to the student's passport. Because the requirements change so fast, I harbored no illusions that the officials in Pamplona would be happy with only that. They weren't.

Originally they went to the police station to get their visas. But they needed four passport photos and a lot more information. Chloe's not sure what because Alicia's mom took charge of gathering the correct documents, which included information about the host parents. She was happy because she got out of school early to travel to the police station. Ana was given a list of documents to provide and another appointment, in November, about six weeks hence.

Again, they got to leave school early for that appointment, but Ana didn't have everything required, including multiple copies of the documents requested the first time. Chloe said she and Abby didn't have to go back to the police station a third time (no more leaving school early), but that Ana could send whatever else they wanted. And that's the last they've heard.

It's now nearly the middle of February. Chloe's temporary student visa expired the first part of December. She heard that sometime in February or March they'll be contacted to provide fingerprints. They'll believe that after their fingertips are blackened. None of the other American Rotary girls have their visas, either. Are they there illegally? Will anyone ever ask to see the visa? What happens if she never gets it and we're traveling among European Union countries? The two times they've been to France was no different than driving between states here, but are all countries like that? How about traveling to a non-European Union country, the kind that's fond of border patrols?

We complain about US bureaucracy, but everything I've read and the limited personal experiences we've had indicate that the US is a bureaucratic cake walk in comparison to just about every other country.

Mission accomplished

After spending the better part of an hour at Bank of America trying to find out why they can't write a foreign draft for a noncustomer (the banker wanted to know, too), I gave up. After several phone calls to other bank personnel and several attempts at making it up as she went, the banker gave me several semi-plausible excuses, one of them that they couldn't take cash but instead had to debit the amount of the draft from the customer's account and she'd be happy to open an account for me so that I could do just that.

Today I called my sister-in-law, who banks there. She called someone at the branch inside Safeway. I've been under the impression that a grocery-store branch would be much more limited in its services than a full-on bank branch. I was wrong. I went to Safeway, told her who sent me, and she took my cash and gave me a foreign draft in the amount of 700 euros. And, waived the $25 fee. Took about six minutes, four of which were spent trying to figure out how to load the check forms in the new printer.

Currency nontransfer

I still need to pay for Chloe's trip to Madrid in March. Last week I checked around and decided that a foreign draft, express mailed to the Rotary office in Madrid, was the way to go. My bank, a savings and loan, has to order the draft so it would take too long and they suggested I shop around.

Every time I'd ask about getting a foreign draft or wiring money I felt slightly unseemly and wanted to explain: No, really, I don't have a brother in Helsinki who needs quick cash before his bookie breaks his legs and visits his wife's employer.

I was told to check Bank of America so I did. She asked if I was a customer (excuse me: client), I said No, she said Oh, and I assumed that I'd have to pay more. Fine.

Today I went back. Foreign drafts are for customers only. I mentioned that, had I been provided with that bit of information last week, I would not have made the return trip (honest, I was very polite and pleasant). She said she didn't know I wasn't a customer, so I reminded her that she'd asked and that I'd answered in the negative. She assured me that she would have told me I had to be a customer. No, she didn't, I thought, but didn't voice. Oh yes, she tells all the people who walk in off the street that they must be a customer to get a foreign draft.

But she was helpful and called other banks and discovered in the process that she didn't know as much about foreign drafts as she thought she did. I'm always happy to instigate a lesson. She didn't know why one had to be a customer, but at least she avoided using the specious "It's our policy." No, one must be a customer because they won't accept cash, but must debit the customer's account and would I like to open one? No, thank you. Must? I doubt it.

Schoolish worries

Chloe's two CDs of photos and videos came yesterday so I'll put some of those up and I'll make a space for links to videos.

She has comprehensive evaluations coming up (finals) and is very nervous. She's fretting again about having to take too many classes the summer she gets back or not graduating on time. As long as she's working hard there is nothing she can do or I can do about that. It's easy for adults to say that the experience of the exchange year is worth more than grades or graduating on time, and we're right. But it's quite another thing for the student to accept that.

Tomorrow she gets to miss Economics because they have to go the town hall to get papers saying they live where they live so Ana can take those back to the police station (for the third time) so they can get their permanent visas. That alone – missing class – will make tomorrow a good day.

Chloe and Abby are going to Anna's house (another exchange student, but different school) for Thanksgiving. Her host parents lived in the US for six months so they know about Thanksgiving. I think it's a school day, though, so that might make the experience even more odd – coming home from school to Thanksgiving dinner in Spain.

Visado

“Hello? I have an Express Mail here for, um, Chloe . . .”

“I’ll be right there!”

Let’s see, am I expecting any other Express Mail packages (even though I’ve received a total of about three in my entire life)? Could this really be THE package? This soon? Does the postmistress of our tiny little post office have any idea how important that envelope is? Shouldn't she be dancing for joy and screaming, “It's here! It's here!”

Yep, Chloe’s passport with the visa affixed to it was there, eight days after our trip to the consulate (which seems like a lifetime ago). This is it. Short of a bloody uprising staged by Basque separatists, there is nothing stopping Chloe from getting off a plane in Madrid on September 3. She may be dragging along her father, clutching her ankle while crying and telling her that she can’t possibly be gone for a whole year, but she’s getting off the damn plane.

I told Steve that the passport was back so this means business and he said he was kind of hoping there might be a delay and that she couldn’t leave for, oh, eleven months or so. I laughed and said, “Well, yeah, but not really.”

“Yeah. Really.”

No miracle worker

Got a message from the outbound coordinator with what she considered good news: she’d gotten a copy of Chloe’s final itinerary. We had a copy of that about two months ago and fat lot of good it did us, so that does nothing to assuage my anxiety. The travel agent even ordered the plane tickets – which we should receive in a few days – based on the message that the Spanish consulate e-mailed to A’s father. But Penelope Cruz could show up to personally escort Chloe to her hometown of Madrid on a private jet and it wouldn’t matter until she gets her passport and visa back.

The coordinator also said that she was proud of Chloe for participating in the last meeting for outbounds even though her exchange is still not a sure thing. Well, yeah, me too, but of course Chloe went to the meeting – as far as we were concerned she was going to Spain as promised, even if they weren’t sure how it was going to happen. Either they knew more than they told us, or they were ready to give up too easily. She also said that she heard I’d worked a miracle. No, I just worked.

It's outta here

The inbound guy at the district e-mailed a brief message saying that he’d just FedExed to Pamplona all the necessary documents for A to get her visa. I still haven’t heard how they are getting around the DS2019 age-limit problem so I hope this is truly it. He even included the tracking number. That’s the kind of concrete information that makes me happy, because now I know that it is in Madrid at the sorting facility at this very moment.