A Wren Says

I had a trip planned for Nigeria. I had my passport. I had my itinerary. The next thing I needed was a visa. As a spoiled American, it confused me that this was a step that I needed to take, but I had to take it nonetheless. First step, finding a visa appointment. And wow, it seemed that the only place where I could get in for an appointment with reasonable time to get my visa back in time was New York. That meant more travel for me. Fine, I’d make a trip of it.

I made the appointment and completed the application. Then I went about getting a letter from my host and copy of her passport. I had passport sized photos taken. And after getting priority mail envelope, I thought I was ready to go. I remembered to pack everything with me and set off for the trip.

Thinking ahead, I made sure my hotel was walking distance from the Nigerian consulate. My goal was to get there early to not stress about the appointment. I power walked down the NYC streets, got to the location in time, only to discover that I was in the wrong spot. The visas are not processed at the consulate. I would need to walk several blocks the other direction. Power walk part two.

Once at the office, I was seen fairly quickly. They started to go through my papers it all looked good. Except:

“This signature [on the host’s invitation letter] doesn’t quite match the passport. Did you do it yourself?” No

Can you get them to redo it now?

That was confusing, because it seemed to silently assumed that I just made the first signature, so I could easily pop out to fix it. That was one issue I would need to remedy.

This address is wrong.

But that is the address from the website. I used the sample letter the consulate gave me.

And you need to make a copy of your passport.

But you have my passport. Why do you need a copy?

That brought the total of things I would need to fix up to three. And they didn’t even need those photos I paid for.

I left the appointment and made a mad dash to find somewhere to make a photocopy. My anxiety was ratchetting up as a I struggled to locate a Staples and then get back to the office. Only to find a family there who didn’t have an appointment get helped.  Then it was on to Starbucks to email my host to try to arrange a way to get a new letter.

Spoiler: I did eventually get things sorted out and get my visa. But to say the least, the process of getting my Nigerian visa was unnecessarily difficult. I don’t want the same for you. Tomorrow, I will provide you with some tips to make the process smoother.