Colombia Club Part III

[Ready to do it 101]

That's probably not going to be enough time as you have to pick it up at a DHL location. Ours took 6 total days, 2 business days (2 days were weekend and there were 2 holiday days). A friend on this board, that I also met in person at the medical is still waiting on his. It looks like his is going to end up taking at least 12 total days (4 weekend days, 2 holidays, and 6 business days).

It's irrelevant that you are picking it up in Bogota. Once they give it to DHL, DHL "supposedly" has it to whereever you request it be sent... I.e. Bogota, Cali, Medellin, Cartagena, etc the next day. In our case we couldn't pick it up until after 2pm of the 6th day (which was technically the 2nd business day)... and it does look like DHL at least had record of it... not the day after the interview, but the following day, Friday (which was a holiday)... and then there was Sat and Sun, and then Monday was a holiday, and then we could pick it up after 2pm on Tuesday.

I would give yourself at least a week (and hope there isn't a glitch, as was the case with my friend's fiances Visa)

Thats great to hear, my wifes interview is thurs dec 1st and we are staying in bogota until mo. dec 5th so we can pick up the visa in bogota.

[MONI-GUILLE 0]

Hello to All

Our cases ( CR-1 AND CR-2) were closed by NVC on October 4, 2011. The interview date is scheduled for December 20.

The problem is that we need to rescheduled out interview for or after the second half of January 2012. According to the Dr. Gonzalez secretary their office will be closed after December 15 . My kid need to have the tuberculin exam and it takes 4 days to obtain the results after the exam. Therefore my wife have to extend her trip to Bogotá for more than 8 days.

Currently we are trying to reschedule the interview date , as per our conversation with the clerk t the embassy , she said that they will reschedule the appointment for 8 to 10 weeks. (this is crazy ) .

Does anybody know if this is the standard procedure? (waiting for another 8 to 10 week)

Does anybody had requested to reschedule the appointment at the embassy

Please advise

Thank you

[9520G 0]

Have you tried calling the other doctors to see if they can exam your kids since the one doctors that sees kids will be closed?

That's probably not going to be enough time as you have to pick it up at a DHL location. Ours took 6 total days, 2 business days (2 days were weekend and there were 2 holiday days). A friend on this board, that I also met in person at the medical is still waiting on his. It looks like his is going to end up taking at least 12 total days (4 weekend days, 2 holidays, and 6 business days).

It's irrelevant that you are picking it up in Bogota. Once they give it to DHL, DHL "supposedly" has it to whereever you request it be sent... I.e. Bogota, Cali, Medellin, Cartagena, etc the next day. In our case we couldn't pick it up until after 2pm of the 6th day (which was technically the 2nd business day)... and it does look like DHL at least had record of it... not the day after the interview, but the following day, Friday (which was a holiday)... and then there was Sat and Sun, and then Monday was a holiday, and then we could pick it up after 2pm on Tuesday.

I would give yourself at least a week (and hope there isn't a glitch, as was the case with my friend's fiances Visa)

Well thats interesting I know the weekends dont count but I thought from the 1st to the 5th(we are leaving at 4pm) was plenty of time to pick up in bogota. I guess worst comes to worst she will just have to fly back to bogota to pick it up but we will be taking the risk hopefully it works in our favor.

[OnMyWayID 1,489]

Have you tried calling the other doctors to see if they can exam your kids since the one doctors that sees kids will be closed?

Well thats interesting I know the weekends dont count but I thought from the 1st to the 5th(we are leaving at 4pm) was plenty of time to pick up in bogota. I guess worst comes to worst she will just have to fly back to bogota to pick it up but we will be taking the risk hopefully it works in our favor.

That is only two business days.. The interview is on Thursday.. if DHL takes receipt 2 business days later that would be Monday.. possibly in the late afternoon (as was the case with mine) possible but if I was putting money down I would be betting against you.

[9520G 0]

Yes it is a big risk, worst case scenario will give up our flight and well just take the bus back to pereira.

[OnMyWayID 1,489]

I wish you good luck.. I took a lot of guff from the "Don't plan till the visa is in hand" folks but if I had followed that advice my cost would have been $500 higher and the Vegas trip of three days on the way back would have been another $350 without the blue man comped tickets

One more big gamble left for me: tomorrow we have only a 90 minute layover at the POE ... 6:00pm on a Friday how crowded could it be??

Edited November 18, 2011 by OnMyWayID

[OnMyWayID 1,489]

One thing I wanted to mention that I noticed from the DHL packet.. The brown folder that had all of your information is included (not in the immigration envelope) along with anything they are retuning that they do not need that they neglected to return at the embassy. In my case this included a few months of pay stubs (they only kept the last one). There was a sticker on the outside of the folder that was placed there by the first "pre" interviewer that says "PETITIONER IS HERE"..

[9520G 0]

Im so nervous about this, I just hope I can be here with my wife for the holidays.

Edited November 18, 2011 by 9520G

[Ready to do it 101]

Does anyone know the rules/laws about my fiance (or even me as I'm going to fly to Colombia so she doesn't have to enter into the US alone) bringing into birth control? I.e. Yasmin. Can we bring as many boxes as she wants? i.e. A year supply or so.

Anyone see a problem with putting a few boxes in her carry on, a few boxes in my carry on, a few boxes in her checked bags, and a few boxes in my checked bags? Is that a problem?

She was also told by a friend, who is a doctor, that if he writes her a prescription for the pills that she won't have any problem entering the US with as many month supply as he writes on the prescription.

Thoughts?

Has this topic ever been discussed and/or has anyone else been in this similar situation?

[Limarc 5]

Holaaa...saludos a todos los participantes de este foro.

Soy miembro activa en colombianos con visa k1 y vengo a compartir e invitarlos a un nuevo foro (latinos solo uno) q abri con el apoyo de las chicas....esperamos verlos activos por alla y hacer nuevas amistades.

http://www.visajourney.com/forums/topic/339245-latinos-somos-solo-uno/

Edited November 19, 2011 by Limarc

[kali1229 6]

Does anyone know the rules/laws about my fiance (or even me as I'm going to fly to Colombia so she doesn't have to enter into the US alone) bringing into birth control? I.e. Yasmin. Can we bring as many boxes as she wants? i.e. A year supply or so.

Anyone see a problem with putting a few boxes in her carry on, a few boxes in my carry on, a few boxes in her checked bags, and a few boxes in my checked bags? Is that a problem?

She was also told by a friend, who is a doctor, that if he writes her a prescription for the pills that she won't have any problem entering the US with as many month supply as he writes on the prescription.

Thoughts?

Has this topic ever been discussed and/or has anyone else been in this similar situation?

I have brought all types of medicine from Colombia (in copious amounts) to the U.S. I did get prescriptions just in case but no one even asked to see those. I came back without any issues. I also don't see any issues with birth control. Smart of you to think ahead. That stuff's expensive here!

[justwaiting4her 0]

For reference to people in the future, my ladies exam was done by Monica Caicedo, and she did accept her previous vaccinations.

[married2paisita 1]

Interview today, visa approved!

We had the "unfriendly" official that received my wife's documents, thanks to everyone here we were prepared. I told my wife to just take it, roll with the punches, keep your calm, and respond "si senora" with each response. No matter how prepared you are be ready for some "cantaleta" I was told to leave and she got chewed out, we were worried for a little bit after but it all worked out.

We were asked the same general questions that I've read from other posts, where/when we met, how long we've been married, and how long I've lived in Colombia. Wasn't asked for any evidence but we had a small suitcase to the brim. Once we were called to the second window, the official was very friendly. Asked to speak with me first, where I lived, what I did for a living, how we met, why I speak Spanish, a couple questions about our son, and then took my wife's fingerprints. He looked through some documents for a couple of minutes and told her we were approved. Couldn't believe it!

We called DHL to confirm our pickup location so now its just a waiting game.

Thanks VJ!

[justwaiting4her 0]

Interview today, visa approved!

We had the "unfriendly" official that received my wife's documents, thanks to everyone here we were prepared. I told my wife to just take it, roll with the punches, keep your calm, and respond "si senora" with each response. No matter how prepared you are be ready for some "cantaleta" I was told to leave and she got chewed out, we were worried for a little bit after but it all worked out.

We were asked the same general questions that I've read from other posts, where/when we met, how long we've been married, and how long I've lived in Colombia. Wasn't asked for any evidence but we had a small suitcase to the brim. Once we were called to the second window, the official was very friendly. Asked to speak with me first, where I lived, what I did for a living, how we met, why I speak Spanish, a couple questions about our son, and then took my wife's fingerprints. He looked through some documents for a couple of minutes and told her we were approved. Couldn't believe it!

We called DHL to confirm our pickup location so now its just a waiting game.

Thanks VJ!

Yes, my lady says they glanced at her evidence and gave it back. Congratulations!

[Mononoke28 134]

Does anyone know the rules/laws about my fiance (or even me as I'm going to fly to Colombia so she doesn't have to enter into the US alone) bringing into birth control? I.e. Yasmin. Can we bring as many boxes as she wants? i.e. A year supply or so.

Anyone see a problem with putting a few boxes in her carry on, a few boxes in my carry on, a few boxes in her checked bags, and a few boxes in my checked bags? Is that a problem?

She was also told by a friend, who is a doctor, that if he writes her a prescription for the pills that she won't have any problem entering the US with as many month supply as he writes on the prescription.

Thoughts?

Has this topic ever been discussed and/or has anyone else been in this similar situation?

I think you should be fine if you spread them out like that. My mother needs medicine to control her blood pressure and cholesterol and never had a problem until a couple of years ago when her POE was in Houston. For some odd reason one of the customs guy grabbed her suitcase and took everything out in front of everybody and chewed her out for having so many pills with her. No matter how many times she explained what they were for, he kept making sly remarks about her being Colombian and not believing her story. When she was on the verge of tears his supervisor came over to tell the guy to cool it and then they let her go. She had to put everything back in her suitcase and was humiliated in front of everybody. You have no idea how helpless I felt when she told me that story and I couldn't be there to put them in their place. That's one of the reasons why we avoid going through Houston as much as we can, never again. Oh yeah, and she's a naturalized US citizen.

Diana