Post 2: Delay

In the first week of August, the Spanish consulate contacted me to explain that my visa could not be processed because a certain document did not meet their requirements. This was a bit scary, but I contacted AFS, and they assured me that they would try their best to resolve the issue.

Flash forward about a month. Today is September 7th, 2015, and I don’t have my visa, which also means I don’t have my passport. Because I didn’t have the one thing that I needed to leave the country, I wasn’t able to leave on September 3rd, which was my scheduled departure date.

AFS explained that during this time, they could not get into contact with the right people to obtain the document. For some reason, the people we needed to talk to weren’t available until September 1st.

My mom and I had a phone call with two officials from AFS on September 1st, and we were told that I was being marked as a late departure. They explained that it would be extremely unlikely to have a visa processed and returned in 2 days. After some discussion, the one official said that they estimated to have me leave the USA for Spain on September 25th, 2015. I honestly couldn’t believe this was happening. That’s almost a whole month!

I found out in February that I selected to study abroad, and on April 9th, 2015 I was notified of my departure date. Since April 9th, I have been counting down the days to studying abroad. I was devastated to find out that I would be leaving late by about 4 weeks 2 days before I was scheduled to leave.

The AFS officials explained that once I received my passport and visa, they would be able to schedule my flight to Spain. Until then, they couldn’t guarantee a date for me to leave. September 25th, 2015 is just an estimate that they thought would best suit my situation.

My mom and I contacted IFC, which is the organization that gave me a scholarship to study abroad through AFS, the same night that my mom and I talked with AFS and two people, Mrs. McGuriman and Mr. Knauss, were trying to help me resolve this issue. Mrs. McGuriman had told me to try to contact the consulate the morning on September 2nd. I was able to get into contact with a kind woman, but unfortunately my visa will not be ready. AFS had already told me this, but I had some hope that it would all work out in the end.

After finding out that I would definitely not be able to leave on time, my mom, IFC, and I started to contact AFS and get serious. We knew that September 25th was too late for a departure, so with some persistence and a LOT of phone calls and emails, we were able to get in contact with a higher ranked official. Now the process not only seems to be moving faster, but also in a more reasonable direction.

AFS is going to resubmit my visa to the consulate when they receive the needed document, because it was denied again last week. I’m hopeful that it will be accepted by Thursday, so AFS can schedule my flight. I’m estimating that my new departure date will be on Saturday, September 12th. It’s probably a long shot, but I think that it’s possible.

Abrazos y besos,
Taylor Young