Applying for Schengen visa

The introduction

Hello everyone, I hope that you are all doing well.

Well, I can’t really say that, because today I applied for my Schengen visa. I went to the embassy of Switzerland and handed all the documents. Some people told me that it was a great chance of rejecting the visa and I didn’t really get why. Perhaps, because of the reason the lady told me there. So, it seems that some people just go to the Embassy of Switzerland just to get visa so that then they will go to Germany and stay there. Well, I don’t get it, I mean, my flight is in Munich, so that I go to Germany, but I’m going to Zurich after that and I don’t stay in Germany, you know, so that it’s not the case, however, this lady told me, that the consul has to believe that and he/she is a very suspicious human being because of that, I guess. Well, what can I say, I’m really upset about that. I thought that I had everything well-organized and stuff like that, I mean I collected all the documents and stuff like that and I was doing that for weeks or whatsoever and then this lady just got me down, you know. well, to be honest, I did think, that getting to the Embassy of Germany would be a better idea, but they told me that I should get to that embassy where I would stay and things like that and so that I went to the embassy of Switzerland, you know. I must say, that this was the brave move, I mean, I’m not going to stay in Germany and why would I lie about that? I want to go to Switzerland and so that I’m applying for Switzerland and that’s all! It’s just so wrong, this system these days! People are talking about visa liberalization and stuff like that and many Georgians are waiting for that. It will be great, I guess, because, then people like me won’t get this kind of treatment for telling the truth. People lye and get the visas and I may not get the visa for telling the truth! That’s just ridiculous. Well, I don’t want to get my hopes up, however, they told me to come back for the answer in a week and then I’ll see whether I got the visa or not. It will be just really sad if I don’t get that visa. I mean, I have all those tickets booked and stuff like that and they are kind of non-refundable, you know. it’s this cheap air company called wizzair, which has flights from Kutaisi, Georgia to other destinations and they had a flight to Munich so that we bought that ticket, however, then we saw that Milan was closer to Zurich than Munich, so that we bought tickets from Milan and so now we have both tickets and stuff like that you know. they don’t really have reservations in Wizzair and if you cancel your tickets, you have to pay the price 70 Euros per person and our tickets didn’t even cost 70 Euros, so that paying that much for cancelling our tickets is just stupid. So, I really hope, that I will get a visa to go to Switzerland. Or else, I may apply for a visa for Germany, however, they say that there are queues in the embassy of Germany and there are many people waiting for their visas there, well, I don’t really know, but when I was there, there were kind of many people, I can say.

The procedure

Anyways, getting a visa is a pretty terrible thing by the means of the time and stress and waiting the whole time and guessing whether you will get it or not. First, you need to have all those documents prepared and ready and then they might even ask you for more documents, which I guess, they don’t even look closely, and I think, that they just glance at them and if they don’t like anything, they just reject you for no particular reason, especially that spreads around tourist visas, I guess, because tourism is not something that you can proof that you are going somewhere just to visit the place and then come back home. That’s just how they look at tourists. It’s really ridiculous , if you ask me. 

Well, there are all different kinds of visa. They can be for business, tourism, studying, visiting, short term, long term, etc. you should choose which one you want and collect the documents for it. it’s not as easy as it seems, you know. you may think that everything is just easy and stuff, but when it comes to collecting those documents, you may find some dilemmas about them and don’t know what to do next. And no one really can tell you what to do, because at the end it is your decision in all, you know. so that, you are the one going here and there and getting all those documents and stuff. It’s really good if you ask someone about them and know their opinion _ someone who knows the procedure and things like that, because it’s always good to know things from someone who has done that thing. The different embassies have kind of different approaches and that’s something you should consider, too. Some of them gives visas easily and some of them do not, so that you should know that thing, too.

Tourist visa

So, I wanted a tourist visa for my travel to Europe, so that I saw the documents’ list of tourist visa and stuff like that. I needed some documents for my visa that I had to take from different places. I mean, there are things to do in bank and university and the justice house and stuff like that, you know. so, everything needs to be done well in order your documents to be in  a good condition.

First of all, you need a valid passport and if you don’t have any, you can go to the Justice House that is near Baratashvili Bridge and your passport will be ready in 10 days or so. Or you can pay more and get it done even on that same day. Well, of course you need a biometric photo for that, too, and you can get it in that Justice House, where it costs you 3 Laris and you get three photos.

When you have a valid passport, you need to get a copy of it, too, and add it to your documents for visa. You also need to get copies of your previous visas if you have any.

Then, you need 2 biometric photos not older than 6 months, in general.

Of course, you need a properly filled out application form for your visa. That is available in Internet and you can print it out and fill it out and then sign it, and, if you don’t sign it, the application form won’t be accepted, so that you should not forget that. Well, you might sign it when applying, I mean , at the embassy at that moment, when you are getting those documents to that embassy lady or whoever it is. The filling out of that  application is pretty exhausting. I mean, there are some questions about who you are visiting or who is inviting you or where you’re staying or the hotel address or your employer’s address or where you study and how you are going to pay and your visit period and everything, you know. it’s just tiring, I guess. And if you don’t get it right, it might easily get you rejected, even if your all documents seem fine! That was a good thing about Switzerland embassy. They had this online application form that you could fill out and so that you wouldn’t get anything unfilled that was necessary and stuff like that. And I really liked it. you can either take that online application form and fill it out and then print it out and take it to the embassy with you signature on it, or you can print out the usual application form and fill it out and get it signed and take it to the embassy. It’s all up to you, however, I recommend the online application form. Well, at least , we live in a world of computers and, in general, we live in a digitalized world and I prefer everything online and stuff like that. It’s better somehow. Because you can register your application and then make an appointment online and get there on the scheduled time and everything. That’s just easier, than to call the embassy and talk to them on the phone and then you may forget to ask something until you hang up and that’s just embarrassing to call them again and stuff like that, you know. that’s one of the reasons why I hate calling on the phones. Especially to those kind of places, like embassies or offices or something like that.

Anyways, you also need your financial guarantees from the bank. You have to have a bank account in order to be “valid” for travelling, because they need to know that you have enough amount of money to cover your journey. It was 100 CHF for a day for Switzerland, that’s something about 90-100 Euros for a day. For example, for Germany, it is 100 USD per day. So, you need to go to your bank and ask them for the statement of your bank account and stuff like that and they will print it out and stamp and sign and everything. I don’t know, whether it’s better that you  have the money for some months, or if it’s okay if you set it on your account just now, but I guess, it’s better if you have had it for a long time or whatever.

Well, if you are a student you also need a statement from your university about your faculty and which year you are studying now and you need it signed and everything. And you should have it in English or German, I guess. I had my statement translated at the university into English. That’s pretty good, I mean, you should pay for translating any document elsewhere and our university offers us that thing, that they can translate this statement of studying there free of charge. Though there is this lady there who sits like a rock and when you ask her something, she just hmmms and doesn’t really answer you anything really if she’s not in the mood. And she is never in a mood, if you ask me. However, this lady who translates those stuff is really cute and sweet. I just met her once, however I remember her as a pretty nice one. This time I got that statement there and this moody lady told me to leave it there and didn’t even know when to come back for the translated statement, so that I just assumed that I should come back two days later or something. It was Thursday, so that if I got there on Monday, it should have been ready. However, when I got there on Monday it was not ready and, well, what could I do? I just went back home. The next day, they didn’t have it there either and then it was cleared that those statements were in dean’s office or whatever and we had to go there to get them. You might be surprised, how many statements are being translated every day. I mean, when I looked at all those statements and tried to find mine in there, they were pretty heavy, not to mention how many statements there were. Some of them were even very old and, I guess, people didn’t need it then and didn’t take them then.

Moving on, you also need a medical insurance for the whole time of being abroad of at least 30 000 Euros. There are some insurance companies here in Tbilisi that you can go and get that insurance. The most popular ones are Gpih and ImediL. However, I took Unison insurance now, because it costs 50 Tetris a day and it was pretty cheap, if you want to know the truth. I mean, when I told them that I wanted an insurance for 4 days, they told me that it would cost 2 Laris in all and I was like “what?” and so then I told them to make it a week, so that I would pay 4 Laris in that. I didn’t really expect it to be just 2 Laris or something like that and I was kind of shocked, as you can see.

Also, it’s very important to have a round trip flight ticket reservation, because that’s how they know that you are going to be back to your home country, I mean, they need some kind of proof that you won’t stay in that country and never come back. Well, those things happen, I guess, and that’s why they have these regulations and stuff like that. So, with this Wizzair company, as much as the tickets are pretty cheap from Kutaisi, you need to buy them and there is not really a reservation or something like that, I mean, you need to pay for it and there’s no refund or anything, until something goes wrong or the flight time changes or it gets cancelled or something like that. For example, I have bought these tickets for 16-th of December and the company wrote this e-mail to me announcing that my flight got cancelled and the time was changed and they could do the refund or something like that if I was not fine with the flight change and I had to confirm it if I was okay with it and things like that. I didn’t really expect any flight changes, however, I’m still waiting for my visa answer , which is due the day after tomorrow, and I hope that I will get the visa, however, I’m not really going to confirm or deny anything about the flight yet, until I see my passport, you know.