Having all the documents mentioned in the first part of this entry is the first step of the process. After having all of them, let’s go to the Austrian embassy in Lisbon to apply for the visa. Although I put all of my experiences here, I still suggest you to go to the embassy once before handing in all the documents, or send them an email to LISSABON-OB@bmeia.gv.at
The Austrian embassy in Lisbon is located at number 43 Infante-Santo. It’s not far from Cais do Sodré. You can take the train from Cais do Sodré and get off at Alcânta-Mar station, the second stop, then walk from the station to the embassy in about 15 minutes. Another option is walking from Cais do Sodré which took me 40 minutes. I prefer to go to the embassy by train and walking back, because it opens at 9:30am and closes at 1:30pm :-) One thing needs to be concerned: go to the Internet and check for Austrian and European’s holidays before you decide to go. We had a painful experience going to the embassy on 28th of May which is a national holiday of Austria, then one morning was wasted just for going back and fort, paying transportation, and making ourselves tired :-(
According to the consultant in the Austrian embassy in Lisbon, it usually takes 3 months to get the visa. This information made me so scary that I tried to complete my documentations as soon as possible and handed them in on 12th of June. About one month later, I received an email from the embassy saying that my student residence permit had been issued by the authority in Wien and I had to go there to pick it up in person by 14th of September. This information was really surprising and I had to change my plan in order to adapt it. Later when I received my residence permit, I knew that it was issued on 15th of June which was just 3 days after my application process completed. It was quite quick and I think that the reason is that I am Erasmus Mundus student and we Erasmus Mundus students have lots of priorities in some administrative procedures.
So, depend on your situation, you should choose an appropriate date to hand in your document. For me, the best day should be some days in the middle of July, so that the due day for me would be in the middle of October, which would be really nice, then I would be able to go to Austria to start the winter semester and get the residence permit as well. Notice that in order for you to go to Austria to pick your residence permits up, the Austrian embassy in Lisbon will provide you a free Austrian national visa to enter there with a special reason and the period of this visa is 3 months, quite convenient :-)
In Wien, it’s quite fast to get the residence permit. Just go to the following address:
Magistrat der Stadt Wien (city administration)
Magistratsabteilung 35 (department 35)
Gruppe Einwanderung, Außenstelle der Bezirke 1sowie 4-9 (department of immigration)
Friedrich-Schmidt-Platz 3 / Erdgeschoß (ground floor)
1082 Vienna
and spend one morning here. Also the working time is important. It’s closed on Wednesday (another painful experience for me – you know why I say this :-P) and is open from 8:30am to 12:30am every other weak day, except on Thursday you can go there in the afternoon.
Hope that this entry will help you especially for your strategy to get the residence permit with a perfect schedule. You can combine it with a traveling plan as well.
Having fun living in Portugal and Austria :-)
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
Sunday, August 12, 2007
Instructions applying for the Austrian student visa in Portugal – Part 1: The documents you need
It’s quite convenient in applying for a European student visa when you already studied in a European country. In my case, I studied my first year of the MCL program in Portugal and I will move to TUW – Austria for my second year. Although I am going back to my country now, I preferred to apply for the visa here because I thought it would be faster and more favorable here. And in fact it was :-) However, there are some experiences and I think that it will be better to know it so that you will have a perfect visa applying schedule. Let’s see how my application was.
I knew that I would study in TUW – Austria for the second year in May 2007. Then the first thing I did was sending an email to TUW. Immediately I received a reply with instructions from … After that, I needed to register online for my second year and wait for the letter of acceptance from TUW. I was expected to arrive in 1 week, but in my case, it took 1 month because the sender put an incorrect address, Spain instead of Portugal. So the experience is trying to register as soon as you can so that you will receive your letter of acceptance as soon as possible. Then I also received another kind of admission letter from TUD mentioning about the scholarship and the insurance as well.
Next thing to do is to book for my accommodation in Wien via OAD. It’s quite fast and easy to book online. After that, you need to transfer 550€ to their bank account for a deposit. Try to book for your accommodation as soon as possible. The later you book, the more difficult to get a cheap place, event a single room. The cost you have to pay per single room per month is from 270€ to 350€. In my case, I got a single room with 350€/month. The confirmation letter from OAD will arrive late, so don’t expect it to be on your table when you go to apply for the visa. Instead, you can keep the bill of the deposit for a proof of having accommodation in Wien.
What else? You need a statement from your university saying that you are staying and studying here. I was studying in UNL at that time. It’s not difficult to get this document, just go to GAM office (for students in UNL only) in their office hours and ask for it. You can get it in 1 hour if the staffs here are not busy.
Also you need your Criminal Record which took me quite a long time. If you can speak Portuguese, it will be much easier :-). Just go to … and ask for it. It cost only 3.5€ (if I record correctly), just go as soon as possible in the morning so that you don’t have to queue for an hour or more. But the Criminal Record is in Portuguese and the Austrian embassy only accepts the German version. So what I had to do was to ask for the translating and certifying service in Wien. They will translate it into German, certify it and send the certified version to you by mail. You don’t need to send the original Criminal Record to Wien. It will be more time consuming and not safe. An easier way to do it is to send an email to the service and attach a photo of your document. This translating and certifying service cost me around 50€. You need to transfer the money to their account. Use your internet bank account is my suggestion for this transfer.
Another document is your birth certificate translated and certified. It’s better bringing some of these papers when you study abroad because you will never know when you will need it, and it’s cheaper doing the translating and certifying at home :-)
Sounds enough… see my process here
I knew that I would study in TUW – Austria for the second year in May 2007. Then the first thing I did was sending an email to TUW. Immediately I received a reply with instructions from … After that, I needed to register online for my second year and wait for the letter of acceptance from TUW. I was expected to arrive in 1 week, but in my case, it took 1 month because the sender put an incorrect address, Spain instead of Portugal. So the experience is trying to register as soon as you can so that you will receive your letter of acceptance as soon as possible. Then I also received another kind of admission letter from TUD mentioning about the scholarship and the insurance as well.
Next thing to do is to book for my accommodation in Wien via OAD. It’s quite fast and easy to book online. After that, you need to transfer 550€ to their bank account for a deposit. Try to book for your accommodation as soon as possible. The later you book, the more difficult to get a cheap place, event a single room. The cost you have to pay per single room per month is from 270€ to 350€. In my case, I got a single room with 350€/month. The confirmation letter from OAD will arrive late, so don’t expect it to be on your table when you go to apply for the visa. Instead, you can keep the bill of the deposit for a proof of having accommodation in Wien.
What else? You need a statement from your university saying that you are staying and studying here. I was studying in UNL at that time. It’s not difficult to get this document, just go to GAM office (for students in UNL only) in their office hours and ask for it. You can get it in 1 hour if the staffs here are not busy.
Also you need your Criminal Record which took me quite a long time. If you can speak Portuguese, it will be much easier :-). Just go to … and ask for it. It cost only 3.5€ (if I record correctly), just go as soon as possible in the morning so that you don’t have to queue for an hour or more. But the Criminal Record is in Portuguese and the Austrian embassy only accepts the German version. So what I had to do was to ask for the translating and certifying service in Wien. They will translate it into German, certify it and send the certified version to you by mail. You don’t need to send the original Criminal Record to Wien. It will be more time consuming and not safe. An easier way to do it is to send an email to the service and attach a photo of your document. This translating and certifying service cost me around 50€. You need to transfer the money to their account. Use your internet bank account is my suggestion for this transfer.
Another document is your birth certificate translated and certified. It’s better bringing some of these papers when you study abroad because you will never know when you will need it, and it’s cheaper doing the translating and certifying at home :-)
Sounds enough… see my process here
How to apply for the Portuguese visa in Vietnam?
Applying for a Portuguese visa in Vietnam is rather painful. In this entry, I would like to share my experiences getting my student visa for studying in Portugal in 2006-2007. The first reason bringing difficulties in applying for a Portugueses visa in Vietnam is that there is no Portuguese embassy in Vietnam. It is not a big deal if you just want to go to Portugal for less than 3 months. In that case, you can go to the German embassy and apply for a Schengen travelling visa. But for student visa for 1 year, it is obligatory to apply for the Portuguese visa in Thailand. In general it takes about 1 month to get the visa. My experience is to prepare your documents carefully along with contacting the Portuguese embassy in Bangkok to make sure that your only sending will be enough. My package sent to the Portuguese embassy in Bangkok includes:
- Visa application (ask the embassy for the application form)
- Letter to the embassy (this letter is not required, but it's safer having this letter and describing your situation in it)
- Passport (sounds dangerous, doesn't it? But we have to send anyway. If you want to be safe, let's travel to Bangkok, stay there for 1 week and hope that your visa application will finish in that period)
- Photocopy of data of applicant
- 1 color picture (size 3.5 x 4.5 cm)
- Criminal Record authenticated by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (in my opinion, this is the most time consuming document. Some of my friends could get their criminal record in a short period, but for me it took almost 1 month to get my criminal record. It might depend on the city you are from which is HaiPhong in my case)
- Medical Record authenticated by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (don't go to some international clinics such as SOS for this document. Because you need the authentication from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, this medical record must be issused by a Vietnamese organization. For me, I went to Saint-Paul hospital, benh vien Xanh Pon (in Vietnamese), and got it in 1 day)
- Letter(s) of admision (depends on what scholarship you get, there will be different kind of letters. In my case, I got 3: letter from UNL certifying qualification (stamped and signed), letter of admision from TUD, and scholarship confirmation from TUD)
- Letter of the employer certifying authorization for leaving (if you are student just finishing your study and get a scholarship to go study abroad then this letter is not necessary)
- Airplane reservation (easy, just go to any booking office and ask them for an airplane reservation. You don't need to buy a ticket right the way)
- Certificate of birth
- Academic transcript
- University degree
- Money for the application fee and for sending back the visa to you. You should ask the embassy for the amount of money. It's safer transfering the money or asking someone you know in Thailand to bring the money to the embassy.
All the documents must be translated into English and notarized at any notary public's office. Then for the Criminal Record and the Medical Record, you need to go the Ministry of Foreign Affairs at No 40 TranPhu street - Hanoi to get them authenticated. To be safe, send your document using the most pretigious express transportation service such as DHL or TNT. It will be a bit expensive but it's worth because all the documents here are very important. I hope that this entry will help you to facillitate your visa procedure. Contact me if you have any question. Cheers.
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