How to Get a Spanish Visa the Hard Way – Part Five

1.  Thursday:  Oooh!  The kids’ birth certificates finally came back from the passport office!  Now I can get the Apostille forms for them and have them translated!

Call my doctor to try and get an earlier appointment.  Nope.

2.  Friday:  Okay, it’s been 4 days.  Our fingerprints should be ready.  I have to work up north so I can pick those up after and zoom down to the Secretary of State for the Apostille.  Hmm… no lines at either place.  Wow!  Everything is going so smoothly!

Except that I forgot the birth certificates.  (Soy muy estupido.)  Run to pick up kids.

3.  Monday:  Go to work.  Zoom to the Secretary of State with the birth certificates.  (“Wow!  That’s so strange,” says the lady at the desk. “There was someone in here last week with your name.  It’s not very common!”  Um… that was me.  I live here now.) Done!  Pick up kids.

4. Tuesday: Our marriage certificate Apostille arrived!  Whew!  Now we just need it translated.  My years of working for a language institute have paid off.  My old boss is going to give me a deal on translations.

3. Wednesday:  Call my doctor again to try and get an earlier appointment.  Nope.

Run up north to drop off the translation paperwork.  (Why is everything up north?)  Stuck in horrible traffic.  My old boss isn’t there.   Hover over the grouchy translation coordinator (I did tell you I’m going to be late picking up my kids, right?)  Blanch at the quote:  $650?  Are you kidding me?  Most of these pages are duplicates, aside from different names!!  How do normal people afford this service?  

Thank them for their time and flee.

4.  Thursday: Get ready to leave town for a week to visit family.  Secretly panic.  Research other translation services.  Continue to be shocked at prices.  More secret panic.  How can we go anywhere right now?

6. Monday:  Vacation!  Snow!  Family!  Death defying driving!  Freezing temperatures!

Actually, I think I recommend taking a break at the tail end of a visa process.    Plus my boss just wrote and overrode her coordinator to give us an extreme translation discount: $195!  Woohoo!  Glad I didn’t pull the trigger on other shady-looking translation services.

We can’t do anything else until my doctor’s appointment.