Tomorrow night I will be in New York. I probably wouldn’t believe it if someone had told me 5 months ago. After 10 years living, studying, and working in Barcelona, I decided it was time for a change. For me, NY has always been THE city, and somehow I knew I would end up spending some time living there.
After searching for ways of getting a job, learning everything about visas, and making up my mind that I was really doing this, I found out about Architect-US both from my own research and through recommendations, so I had no doubt and contacted them, and began getting in touch with Sonia, who has been amazingly helpful at the beginning of this journey.
To begin with, I decided I wanted to try and get an interview by myself in some of the offices I knew I liked the most -knowing Sonia would be there to answer any questions or worries to me or my potential employers-, and to my surprise, after a few days and only a few emails, I had an interview with Eric and Mimi from nARCHITECTS, one of my favorite US offices, based in Brooklyn. I was nervous, it was through Zoom, in English, and with something really big at stake. It went great! And after a few days of agreeing on the conditions, starting dates, etc., the visa process began. It was mid-October.
After that, there were some moments of stress, for instance: when will my documents arrive? when will I get the Embassy appointment?. But I’m really happy to say everything was easy and smooth. I felt very secure every step of the way, and whenever I had any doubts I didn’t hesitate and contacted Sonia -or Pablo or Pati- and they quickly solved everything.
Finally, in mid-December, I had my Embassy interview in Madrid, and just a few days later I was receiving my brand new J-1 visa in my passport at home (and avoid Omicron), I could FINALLY BOOK THE FLIGHTS.
Now, everything is packed and ready to go on a crazy adventure for 18 months.
I will let you all know how it goes, this has just been the beginning, still everything to figure out, discover, and learn.
