Getting My Visa

This was the longest and most stressful part of the entire process. I had to jump through many hoops and dodge many bullets, but I finally recieved my Visa last week! Driving 6 hours to Chicago there and back in a day (so 12 hours total) was the easy part of my journey, and frankly, the most exciting! I'm not sure if anyone's experience was simpler than mine, i'm sure it was since I made it more difficult on myself at times, but this was an experience. As many of you can probably relate, I was taking classes to finish my degree, working, and trying to get all my paperwork together at the same time. I decided to wait a little while before I jumped to working for my appostile. Yeah, I looked at the suggested timeline and kept scrolling because it was "suggested." Then about a couple weeks after the suggested date to send my paperwork had passed, I got my shit together. In order to get my background check, I had to drive an hour into Michigan, so two hours of my day was spent doing that, but it was a nice drive and a nice day. I worked from 7:10-8:45am, drove to Michigan, got my background check, drove back to Bowling Green, went to the gym, and was at work again by 3:00pm. After work, I went to the public library to print out my background check and the application for the appostile. I was in and out of that library a lot because I forgot things, misread information, and overall had a lot of printing to do. I would've done it at home but my printer decided to croke out on me when I needed it most, so I tossed it in the dumpster next to my apartment and forged on. Finally, I managed to get all my paperwork together and sent it to get approved. Then I moved back home to Cleveland and there is where I recieved my appostile approval. While I was getting the rest of my paperwork together, I was also job hunting for the summer, and then my laptop decided to croke out on me, but luckily I was smart and saved all my important files I needed for my visa on a drive. I plugged that drive into my mom's computer and printed everything out. My laptop only took a couple days to fix and it was back up and working in no time. Everything was also saved on my computer so there were no issues. Once I finally had everything ready to go, I went to the post office and delivered my papers for my visa. After about 2-3 weeks it got approved and I drove to Chicago to get it! That day was so exciting. My mom picked me up from my dad's at 6am for our little road trip. We listend to the "Two Hot Takes" podcast and enjoyed some jaw dropping moments. We got to Chicago around 10:45am, parked the car in a sketchy parking garage, and walked to the building where my visa was waiting. I had a smile on my face as we rode the elevator up to the 15th floor. My mom pointed it out and was excited for me. We walked a few steps to the room and that is where I recieved my ticket out of America and into Spain! After we picked it up, we drove to my sister's apartment in Chicago and grabbed lunch with her at a suchi restaurant. Then we drove home. I was very mean and crabby at work the next day because I was so tired, but I had a great time with my mom picking up my visa. To anyone reading this who hasn't begun their visa journey, READ EVERYTHING VERY CAREFULLY AND FOLLOW THE TIMELINE! Although, I did get my visa a month before my departure, so there is a little wiggle room, but to be one the safe side so you're not stressed, follow the timeline.