Since my last post, I have successfully completed the visa process, but not without its drama. Two trips to the NYC Consulate visa section were stressful, annoying, and the visa they gave me might very well cost me more money. Apparently, I can enter the Schengen Region (a group of European countries that has eliminated passport control for travel between their borders, France and Germany included) on my 90-day tourist visa (what it is called when you just go without a visa on an American passport, or other Schengen-approved passport). But, I need to reenter the Schengen zone on the date my visa begins (and for that, need to exit it for at least 24 hours). So, to translate all of this administrative, bureaucratic mumbo jumbo, this essentially means that the French are forcing me to take a vacation to London for 24 hours, no matter what that will cost. Either that, or somewhere else outside of the Schengen Zone.
In any case, after obtaining the visa, my mother and I drove an extra-long ride back to Buffalo. We got a flat tire somewhere around Scranton, PA and it took hours to get an appropriate replacement. It turns out that this was quite the expensive trip for everyone, but at least it's over now.
Me in the trunk after unloading all of my stuff the fourth time we thought we had finally found a replacement tire...
I leave for Berlin on July 10th, and should arrive (after a short layover at CDG-Roissy) the morning of the 11th. My friend Eileen will pick me up at the airport and take me to her apartment (after I give her a gift of Nerds, the candy—apparently that's all she wants!). From then on, who knows? All I have planned so far is a weekend trip to Vilnius, Lithuania to visit my friend Charlotte who will be studying Yiddish there, then tentative trips to Italy and now London. We'll see if this is all worth it!
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