I am starting this blog precisely to jot down my thoughts and work for the 10 day Europe trip me and Jeevan are taking. This will be my journal and I will keep updating it as I move on.
It all started in July. We have been longing to see Europe for a long time now. With visa and office vacation issues, we decided September this year would be the best time to go. Celebrating our 3d anniversary in the middle of the trip would be a added bonus.
Connected with my school pal Sangeetha who lives in Germany and worked out the initial details. Schengen Visa- Deciding on what country to get it for was the first issue. Germany was on the top of the list. But travelling to Houston, Texas to get the visa proved impossible. With no vacation holidays whatsoever, we started googling around for more options. Searched all the possible schengen countries and finally decided on Switzerland. As the youngest Schengen country they didn't have much hassles to get the visa and details could be mailed over. That’s a start, once we get into what documents we need, it gets more complicated. We need to have confirmed hotel reservations for all of the 10 days and a confirmed flight. With the help of a travel agent, we booked a flight(wihtout reserving it) and booked a total refund hotel at Swiss for 10 days. Then come the attestations. Every document you ever had,has to be attested. Spent another $60 on getting that done at FedEx Kinkos. It took 2 whole weeks for us to get this all ready and send it to LA through snail mail. To our surprise, they sent us the passport back in 8 days, but only with 10 days of visa on it. The exact 10 days that we asked for.
