Trek for a Visa

My application to participate in the OCI scheme has not yet been approved and I leave for India in a week! To make sure that I can still go, even if the OCI passport doesn't come through by then, I made a trip out to the Consulate General of India in San Francisco. The process of getting a six month visa was fairly painless.

I took my brother and sister with me into San Francisco. The best way to get to the consulate from the east bay is to head over the Dumbarton (during carpool toll free time, of course), take the 101 North, up towards San Francisco. Then, take 380 West to 280 North. Get onto CA - 1, which becomes Junipero Serra Blvd. Turn right onto 19th street, follow all the way past Stonestown mall, Judah, Irving. 19th eventually becomes Park Presidio. Make a right onto Fulton, and then make a left onto Arguello. The Consulate will come on your right. It's a typical San Francisco home with a huge Indian flag flying out on the veranda. You will immediately smell Indian cooking as you approach.

Inside, there were a bunch of queues. I got into the first one. Once I got to the fron of it (only a 5 minute wait) I submitted paperwork that I had filled out and printed from the website. The registrar looked over my information and then sent me to the cashier. She collected my passport and paperwork, and then I paid her $60. She said to come back at 4 and she gave me a receipt.

We had about 6 hours to kill, so we wandered around the Stonestown Mall and then went to go watch a movie. "The Inconvenient Truth". The Al Gore movie... I thought it was interesting, although, I really thought it was more of a "this is what's going on" and "this is how the current administration sucks when it comes to dealing with it", more than a "what can you do" type of movie. I could have waited for that on DVD.

At 3:30pm, I returned to the embassy. They started handing out visas at 3:45pm. After waiting in line for about 10 minutes, I had my visa and was on my way back home by 3:55pm. All in all, not too painful a process.