Sunday, January 27, 2008

How to get an Austrian student visa for >6 months: Part Two (or Three)

Melanie now has her visa, so it is now possible to explain how to get an Austrian Visa once again:
Summary of Steps 1-6 (as mentioned in Part One):
-Go to Los Angeles Austrian consulate
-Fail
-Go to Austria.


[Step 7 of Part Two begins a little after Gabe has gone through several extremely enjoyable steps, described in Part One]
7. Collect required documents.
8. Go to US Consulate during business hours of US Consulate.
9. Failure. Business hours are not the same as 'Hours when you can get an official paper saying that you PROOOOMMISSE(!!!) you don't have a criminal record'
10. Go back to US Consulate during aforementioned hours. Get stupid paper.
11. Find out that you already have the Gebührungen document that they said Gabe needed. Sweet.
12. Go to 8th district house of burocracy. Get number, wait, turn in papers, wait.
13. Name is called. Go into office. Failure. "You need a Versicherungsdatenauszug from your health insurance. It looks like this." "What? Why? My fiancée didn't need one." "Well I don't know why not, but you do. Also you need a new stamp on your passport." "Why? I've been here for a little over 2 months out of the three allowed." "Exactly - you haven't left the country recently enough" "But I can't leave the country soon, or else I won't be able to come back in, since my 3 months will be over" "Oh sure you can!" (You can't, technically) "Uh...ok" [Readers may note that Melanie's passport has the same stamp date as mine]
14. Go get Versicherungsdatenauszug
15. Debate going to Bratislava and trying to get a new stamp. Decide to hope for the best on upcoming trip back to the states
16. Gabe goes in to get completed Visa, which is a schüler (high-school) visa. Gabe asks about this: "Why is my Visa a high-school visa and my fiancée's a college visa? We're going to the same school." "Well you're going to the Konservatorium. That gives you a high-school visa." "And her?" "Uh..she should have one too. I'll look into that" [Readers may note that Melanie's completed visa is still a college visa, and mine is a high-school visa. We'll see what happens next year when we try and reneww]
17. Go to US. Go back to Vienna through Frankfurt. Frankfurt passport control looks at passport, makes stamping sound, gives passport back.
18. Arrive in Vienna, look at passport. Wait. There's no frankfurt stamp. The guy made a stamping sound but didn't actually stamp anything. No really, it's not there.
19. Go through hallways towards passport control, but there is no passport control on this side of the airport because its a domestic flight. Enter baggage claim and find nice security lady.
20. Security lady says "Follow me". Security lady takes Melanie illegally through the departure terminal, to the front of passport control, where she technically *leaves* Vienna, then takes her through a security backdoor into the arrivals terminal and gets her passport stamped again, entering Vienna. "Wir haben sie getrickt!" (We tricked them!) says the security lady.
21. Get home, find letter in the mail: "Your visa is ready. Please come in and bring supporting documents to pick it up"
22. Go get Visa.

-The End-

1 comment:

Adi said...

thank you so much Gabe for all this writing. i got accepted into University of Salzburg, and am having a nightmare of seeing what you went through. I am trying to figure out ( after million of things previously) what is the deal about health insurance ? they say they will give me one in Austria, but they want again health insurance from here ( USA )that will cover all medical expenses in Austria ?