By jfbarszcz
Greetings to you, Dear Reader. Unfortunately, I don't really have much to say this week about Prague, because I'm not there yet! (Hence the "Week 0" title.) However, it turns out that there's a good deal to say about NOT being abroad, because of how absurdly involved getting ready to leave is.
Obviously, there's a lot to do to prepare for spending a semester a continent away from home. First of all, there's all the paperwork, most notably my Czech visa. While the Czech Republic is part of the European Union and the Schengen Area, as an American I still need a visa for an extended stay in the country. Of course, the process of acquiring a visa, no matter what country, is only slightly more pleasant than waiting at the DMV. Actually, it might be even worse, because of all the time you need to spend on prep. I had to compile, let's see...
- A completed visa application form
- 2 copies of a recent passport photograph
- Passport + 2 photocopies
- Letter of acceptance from my program
- Notarized photocopy of my debit card (which had to be current through the duration of my stay; mine was going to expire at the end of August so I had to scramble to get my credit union to issue me a new one)
- Bank statement showing that I had at least $2600 in my account
- Document confirming that I have accommodations arranged with my program
- Notarized affidavit affirming that I have never been convicted of a felony
- Copy of my Czech health insurance policy (yep, they make you take one out. I suppose it makes sense but...)
- Finally, a prepaid, self-addressed envelope for them to overnight mail me the visa.
Needless to say, getting all that together was a project in itself. But of course, I wasn't done yet; I had to actually schlep to the Czech consulate in New York City to submit all this. Luckily for me, my house in New Jersey is about a 35-minute train ride from midtown Manhattan, so actually getting there wasn't terribly painful (I think technically you can mail in your application, but I wouldn't have wanted to do that in case I screwed something up and then would have had NONE of the application materials anymore). What WAS painful was arriving at the consulate one morning at what I thought was an early enough time only to be told that I had arrived too late to be seen that day. Peachy. Note that the Czech consulate only accepts visa applications for three hours a day, four days a week. So I had to come back next week, and at this point I'm worried, because we were told to submit our visa application at least three months in advance of our anticipated arrival date (this was back at the end of May). So next week I get there early enough to be seen and submit my application, crossing my fingers that the visa gets to my house in time. Of course, it doesn't even take two weeks to get there. I was in no position to complain, but still I groaned. I got all bent out of shape for that??? Well, at least that part was done.
So that's been out of the way for a while. Recently I've been doing something equally stressful: packing! We've all been there, and so we all know how packing is simultaneously one of the most boring and yet most taxing of all tasks. Doubly so when you've never packed for an extended stay overseas before. What with all the restrictions on luggage, you have to think long and hard about what's actually worth bringing. You want to have enough clothing so that you don't run out of clean stuff every three days, but you also have to have, say, enough pairs of shoes that you always have an appropriate one for the situation/weather (I'm bringing sneakers, running sneakers, desert boots, snow boots and flip-flops; I hope I can manage to cram it all in there). Plus books, power adapters, my computer, toiletries... it's a tough balancing act. I have everything put together, and when I'm done writing this I'm going to start actually packing. Seeing that I've rambled for some time now, I think I ought to go do that around now. Wish me luck!