Pretrip

Yay Europe!!

Grrr visas...

I've got the travelling bug. Soon after my trip to Ecuador, I was already looking up flights to Europe. Why Europe? Well, I have a lot of family in Holland who I haven't seen in 15 years and I now have a lot of friends all over Europe that I met during my trip to Ecuador.

My trip to Ecuador was 3 months, which was great for a first trip by myself, but I realised that I wanted to be away a bit longer (not to mention there's a lot more to see in Europe than Ecuador) so I decided to take a semester off, stay until December and go back to school in January. One downside to a longer trip : the visa. No, I don't need a visa to travel around Europe... as long as it isn't more than 3 months. Most countries in Europe are in the Schengen area, which acts like one big country : no borders, but the normal tourist visa lasts only 3 months. Since I wanted to learn Dutch, I figured I could apply for a working holiday visa, stay longer in Europe, and work in Dutch. If you ever want to apply for a visa, give yourself a lot of time. I've been working on this since January and I should be getting it soon. To avoid the biggest headaches in the process, look at the list of what you need, call the helpline, and ask exactly what they're expecting. For example, I arrive in Europe in Stockholm and leave Europe from Amsterdam. You would think this is good enough when they require your flight itinerary, but what they actually needed was a document saying when I would arrive in Holland. Another example, they require proof of financial means for 6 weeks, but they don't say how much is needed nor how recent the proof needs to be. Save yourself a headache and ask all these questions up front!

More to come.

Cheers,
Chad