D.C. appointment day
Of course I think of two things I need to print and didn’t - well, one I only noticed this morning when I looked at my confirmation email. You are supposed to print the attached PDF…thankfully, the hotel has a computer and printer set up in the lobby. I also forgot to print my flight - it is for Dec 30 with return March 25, so not sure exactly how helpful that will be because I will have to return to get the visa and have a new set of flights, but who knows. Printed off my entire tax return based on a report by one person at the VSF in San Francisco, I believe. (yes, I made sure to really delete downloaded files, logout of email, and delete the cashe and login file).
At the appointment: was just down the road from the hotel, it was easy to get to. But I did look for the place the day before. The guard at the front desk asked what time the appointment was and sent me on up. The guard at the front of the screening kinda looked in my small purse and I walked through the metal detector.
They will ask you for your appointment letter, which was an attachment to the email - so make sure you print that out. There seemed to be a lot of people applying to France there and there were 3 windows for France and 3 for everywhere else. Unfortunately, I either got someone who is very new or just doesn’t know about Portugal. Things went downhill from there - I will go into that in another post, as I am still processing. I am hoping my apostille FBI form comes soon and I can send that in - it has been almost 3 weeks now, so should be soon.
Some things to note:
Passport photo - One of my ears was not completely shown, so he insisted he take new pictures (of course, this costs).
My copy of my drivers license was a little dark - he insisted to make a new photocopy (of course, this costs)
Bag charges - the woman ahead of me was charged $20 for her bag, but then it seemed was allowed to keep it. I’m not sure exactly. There were a lot of people with larger bags. Maybe they were more lenient because it was the day before Thanksgiving - or maybe D.C. office isn’t as strict.
