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Early risers line up at the Spanish consulate in hopes of being admitted to apply for travel or s

Deise Ponce, a UC Santa Barbara student, showed up shortly before 4 a.m., a full four hours before the Spanish Consulate on Wilshire Boulevard opened its doors.

Ponce, like many UC students hoping to study abroad in Spain this fall, was forced to make the early-morning trek to Los Angeles after hearing word that the consulate – flooded with last-minute visa requests – had begun turning people away.

The Los Angeles consulate – the only one serving Southern California and adjacent regions – now accepts only the first 25 applicants each day, forcing students to line up outside the consulate doors hours before its 8 a.m. opening.

“It’s just a hassle because I had to wake up early,” Ponce said, who lives in the San Fernando Valley and recently graduated with a degree in sociology. She is hoping to live in Alcala for four months this fall, finishing up coursework for her Spanish minor.

She had come to the consulate the Friday before, but was turned away at the door because of the institution’s new daily applicant cap.

“Summer is a really busy time for the consulates,” said Bruce Hanna, spokesman for the UC Education Abroad Program. “There are probably some cases in which students will not be able to go because they were not able to get their visas in time.”

Hanna attributes the system backup to a bout of one-upmanship among consulates that was triggered after the United States implemented stricter visa regulations following the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. “Both consulates are very much aware of what the other ones require, so there’s a natural tendency that if one country says ‘you’re going to need more documentation’ for the other country to respond in kind.”

An early-morning assortment of students, tourists and businessmen gathered outside the consulate has not been an uncommon sight the last few weeks.

Early one Monday morning in front of the mid-Wilshire site, some visa hopefuls drank coffee and others drank tea. Most sat on the pavement, though a few reclined on folding chairs.

By 6 a.m., the line had already stretched to a dozen people.

Many rifled through documents, including four Visa application forms with passport photographs stapled to each, parents’ bank statements and tax forms and medical clearance letters printed on doctors’ stationery.

Some newly added documents required by the Spanish consulate include guarantees of financial support, housing, insurance, health and a drug-free lifestyle, Hanna said.

Erica Schim, a fourth-year biochemistry student at UCLA, drove up from San Diego on Friday morning only to find she was the 26th applicant.

“I waited until 8:30, and then finally gave up,” she said, sitting outside waiting with her boyfriend close to the front of the crowd.

“It’s not as cold as I thought it would be,” she added, smiling.

Several students in positions similar to Schim’s have called EAP, worried they won’t get their visas in time.

Some of the 50 UCLA students who planned on studying in Spain will likely be stranded in Westwood this fall, Hanna said, adding that he expects EAP to refund any students left behind.

“There’s essentially nothing we can do to speed up the process,” he said.

Though the consulates of other countries popular with EAP students – such as Brazil, Italy and Germany – have experienced summertime booms in visa requests, the system backup at the Spanish consulate has been the most extreme, Hanna said.

Further down the Monday morning line outside the Spanish consulate, Brett Applegate sat with a friend who had accompanied her on a seven-hour road trip from Tuscon, where she lives and studies English and creative writing at the University of Arizona.

“It could be like Tuscon – 100 degrees, 110,” Applegate said, finding the cool morning air a relief from desert weather. She and her friend had spent the night at a motel on Olympic and La Brea.

Applegate joked with her friend that she was afraid she would be mugged while walking to the consulate. Her biggest fear was that someone would steal her paperwork, she said.

“Take anything but my passport,” she said.

Applegate said she had heard through a friend of a friend that the Los Angeles consulate had implemented the new procedure.

Students said the policy was not posted on the consulate’s web site, though it is mentioned on an answering machine there. EAP counselors recently informed UC applicants to arrive early to the consulate.

“I’m just glad I heard,” Applegate said, staring out across the street at a used car lot and Bob’s restaurant, whose sign boasts that the joint is Home of the BIG BOY Hamburger. “I think I would have come at 8. I’m really just kind of grateful that I knew.”

As Applegate spoke, she turned briefly to look at a commotion at the front of the line.

Several students and parents had wandered out to the middle of the sidewalk, their heads tilted upwards, eyeing the top of the gray building. At the front of the queue, Ponce stood wiping bird droppings off a textbook.

A doorman let everyone into the lobby at 7 a.m. About three dozen people shared the room with one bench, sitting on the floor and leaning against the walls, drinking lattes and eating breakfast purchased from a nearby Burger King.

Just before 8 a.m., a representative of the consulate began handing out numbers to applicants, in the order in which they had signed in.

Upstairs on the eighth floor, Ponce was first to the window.

She flashed a small grin to weary onlookers as she turned to head out after submitting her paperwork, and the room broke out in a light applause.