HI GUYS! HAPPY LONGGGGG AFTER EASTER! ^^

I hope you all had an amazing Easter break. Now school is back in session, lectures started on Monday and for some reason I’m quite excited…I know…..I know I’m weird like that.

Well I’m back with my weekly banter and this time its about my trip to Belgium and Paris for the break! Today, I’ll give you guys details about the steps I took to apply for the Schengen visa you know, the whole visa application process, and the other juicy tales of the trip would come up on the blog next week so STAY TUNED!….and trust I have pictures 😉

Lets get into it, so first step for an international student who would like to apply for  visa to visit another country would be to get a letter from the Student Services Centre that proves you’re a student here at the University of Surrey. This letter also shows that the uni is aware of your plans to visit the country and that they can vouch you would return to your studies after the trip. So how this works is, you go to the the Student Services Centre, explain that you would like to apply for a visa to travel, the receptionist would hand you a form to fill there. On this form you state what ever country/countries you wish to visit, your travel purpose and the duration of your trip. For me these were Belgium and France, for leisure and 10 days respectively. It didn’t take up to a week before getting the letter. So the plan was to spend the holiday at a friend’s house and her parents were to drive us to Belgium through the Eurotunnel.  I needed a letter from her parents stating they were responsible for/providing my accommodation and my transportion there (this was her dad’s Eurotunnel booking), I also needed my flight back to the UK booking and my bank statement as proof that I could sustain myself financially for the trip. For people staying in hotels you’ll need to give in your hotel booking or documents stating where exactly you’ll be staying.

With all these documents printed and at hand I booked an appointemnt at the Belgian embassy in London for 11am on a Wedenesday if I’m not mistaken.  I didn’t spend a long time waiting as I thought I would which felt so good, I was done in 2 hours! Coincedentally I met a college friend I hadn’t seen in 2 years! We ended up spending the rest of the day together touring London until around 3pm when we both separated to head back to our universities.

When the visa was ready for collection, it was posted to my address as I had earlier chosen that option. You could either collect it at their office there in London or ask that it’s posted to you.

All in all it was a really smooth process. The visa application costs £94, £15 for  postage and about £15 for my travel ticket to and from London.

So yeah that’s how the application process went! I promise its not stressful, just ensure you have all the documents needed for whatever country you’re planning on visting. Get there in time for your appointment and you’ll be fine. And thats all for this week folks, stay tuned cause next week I am going IN on that blog post!

Theresa Olloh xx