US Immigration from Ukraine

After a comedy of errors (all mine), Jenny's interview went well today.
Key take-away: Once you are in Frankfurt - push forward straight to the interview.

Once we uploaded everything to NVC, I sent the expedite request to the normal NVC in-basket. They finally responded today. Send it to NVCExpedite@state.gov. It goes real fast then

Our case arrived in Frankfurt. I think we were supposed to get an email telling us to how to schedule the interview. We did not. We are not getting emails for any activity in our NVC. That email tells us to go straight to https://cgifederal.secure.force.com/?language=English&country=Germany and schedule your interview. This is all you need. I got the email in response to a specific query.

Since we did not get the letter. I was waiting for our docs to get reviewed and approved. Don't do that. Somebody will look at your docs AFTER you schedule the interview. As soon as your case is in Frankfurt, schedule the interview..

I had trouble at cgifederal using Jenny's email. I see this error on VJ from years ago. I used a different email to schedule the appointment. Every time I log in, I eventually get an email from salesforce.com that the one I used has been changed back to Jenny's email: the one I tried to use. I thought the problem was because we were not DQ'd. Silly me.

You can schedule the medical independently of the interview. it is approaching 3 months out. If you do this, bring your photos to the interview. https://tinyurl.com/Medical-Frankfurt

A friend suggested we schedule the interview ASAP, get the 221G, and come back with the medical. That gives us confidence that the medical is the only outstanding issue. We scheduled for Friday on the prior Monday. Once I got my act together, Frankfurt is turning things around fast.

Jenny put the address into the Bolt (use Bolt in Frankfurt - not Uber) and it tried to send her to Berlin. Be sure to include the city, or just "US Consulate Frankfurt" will get you there.

Once Jenny arrived, everything went smoothly. She turned her phone off but was able to keep it. She waited over an hour for her appointment. I'm sure the consular officer was reading (and chuckling) over the rather extensive file. Jenny and I have a lot of crazy experiences - mostly from before we started dating. 7 minutes.

Given the age difference, I expected they would want me to show up for the second interview. Not so. They did not issue a 221G. Just told her to come back with the medical and the pictures (and address the RFEs in NVC).

I see there are faster medical's available in Vienna. Jenny's mom is taking a break from the daily bombardment of Nikolaev and taking a month long vacation. We will look at expediting the medical when Lena goes back to the war.