Getting ready to go there has been a bit bumpy. I sent my confirmation letter and fee to the Fulbright Commission almost immediately after I got the news that I had been chosen to go. Several weeks later, I was informed that the envelope never arrived. Grrr. So I sent another letter and check and all was well.
Then there was the matter of applying for residency permits. Oh goodness. I sent for a new passport immediately after getting our marriage certificate back. The new passport arrived very quickly. Then we went down to the consulate in St. Paul to be interviewed by an honorary consul and to have him sign off on our documents so they could be sent to the consulate in Chicago. Before doing this, we checked with my contact at the Fulbright Commission and with the honorary consul to confirm that we didn’t need our application documents translated from English to German.
So we met with the consul in St. Paul. Then we went to the bank to get a money order to pay the fee and sent our package of paperwork to Chicago. A few days later we received a letter asking that we fill out new application forms and send documents that have been translated into German. Oy. So I once again emailed my contact with Fulbright. She thought the translations were unnecessary and that there were other applicants who had already applied and had mentioned nothing about translations. She asked me to call the consulate and ask if they were really necessary.
So we called the consulate’s information line, for which you must pay about 15 dollars per call. The woman I spoke to said translations of documents that are in English are not necessary. I also emailed the consulate. The woman who responded said translations were necessary. Oh man. We called one more time. This time the person we spoke to told us that translations were, in fact, required. So we decided to buck up and get the translations just to get it over with. It was actually pretty convenient. We sent an email with the attached documents to an online company and received our official, notarized translations in the mail after about a week. However, it was rather expensive.
We sent the new forms and translations immediately on July 17th, I believe. The tracking number told us that it was delivered, but we heard nothing more about it. There is also no way to check on the status of applications, which made me a bit nervous. But, today I received an email saying the applications made it to Linz. They just need confirmation that we have enough money in an accessible bank account to cover our living expenses before they can process Will’s application. Not a big problem. In fact, it’s nice to know that the applications arrived in Linz and that they’re being worked on.
Yeah, it’s been nasty.