NYC Visa Trip!

On Monday (Nov. 10) we made a little trip to Spain...the Spanish Consulate in New York City, that is, which actually is property of Spain. We were able to apply for our residence visas (it has to be done in person at the Consulate), which has been a huge answer to prayer. Let us tell you more.

Last Tues. (Nov. 4), we knew that we wanted to apply by the end of November, so B.J. checked the availability of appointments at the Consulate (we figured that there would be plenty of open appointments for the end of the month). To our grim dismay, nothing was open until the middle of December! We will be in Colorado for our cross-cultural training most of December and then with family for the holidays, which meant that we wouldn't be able to apply until the end of December or beginning of January. Needless to say, we were a bit frazzled and disappointed, since we knew it would take at least 2 months to receive the visas after we applied; as far as we could see, this wrecked our schedule to be in Spain by sometime in January. So we decided to pray (funny how that came after frazzlement and fretting), asking God to work out what He wanted in His time...

After a night of election coverage and sleep, B.J. checked again for appointments on Wed. morning, wondering if anything could possibly have opened up before the end of this month. Lo and behold, a 15 minute appointment for Mon., Nov. 10th was available, and we saw God's hand at work on our behalf! So we made triple copies of all of our certified documents (killed a few trees in the process, we think) and headed off to the Big Apple, thankful for the open appointment but afraid that we might not have everything we needed (which could have meant that we would have to make another visa appointment--we had lots of people praying for us at this point). After a train ride from New Jersey, a short subway trip uptown, and a brief elevator ride up 30 stories, we arrived at the Spanish Consulate with plenty of time for our 10:15 appointment. Our interviewer, Hector, was super kind, and everything went better than we could have expected!

Now we simply have to wait for the Spanish government to process our paperwork, and hopefully we'll have our visas in hand sometime in January. Praise God for His goodness to us over the past couple weeks!

Below are a few shots from our day in the city:

Us in front of the building where the Spanish Consulate is located.

We found a Spanish restaurant where we had a lunch of ensalada (salad), patatas bravas (spicy potatoes), and bocadillo de jamón serrano (Spanish cured ham sandwich).

One of Rachel's high school classmates from Spain works as a sous-chef in Manhattan, and we got to visit him for a few minutes during his break.

The New Year's Eve ball was on display at Macy's on 34th St...we were actually a bit disappointed because it looks so much bigger on TV!