All I Want for Christmas is a Long-term Visa...

Happy Holidays, everyone. I hope you've all (all 7 people that read this, plus my mom) are having a joyous holiday season. I absolutely love Christmas, and it's nice to be home with my family (for the most part). But no amount of Christmas carols or homemade baked goods can quell my growing anxiety over my still-nonexistent visa.

To study in Bulgaria, you need a type D long-term stay visa, which requires about 30 business days to process. Theoretically, you have to apply in person for one at a consulate or embassy, which would have required me to go either to Chicago or NYC back in November. The NYC consulate agreed to let me mail them my application (and the fee and my passport and all the other documents that go with it) since I'm a full-time student and would have had to miss a lot of class to travel to a consulate. So I sent all of that in, but I still haven't received the visa yet. I don't know exactly if I got it in 30 business days in advance, since I don't know how much time the embassy has off for the holidays, and I'm a little afraid to try to calculate it since the result could make me more anxious.

I'm trying not to panic yet, since my flight leaves two weeks from tomorrow. The problem is that I am by nature somewhat of an alarmist, so the more I think about it, the more anxious I get. I sent the consulate a tentatively-worded email the other day asking if they could give me an approximate date of when the visa would be ready; however, a phone conversation with someone at the consulate a couple of months ago ended with me in tears, so I don't have high hopes for a helpful response. For the time being, I'm going to focus on trying to relax, pack, and enjoy my last few weeks at home. Hopefully, by the next time that I post, I will have in my possession a long-term stay Bulgarian visa...