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| Frankfurt, Germany |  Review on July 31, 2012: |
ljandjl
Rating:  | Review Topic: Direct Consular Filing
Arrived at 7:45, as directed - line around the block! But immigrant visa applicants can use the shorter line to the right, thankfully. For those of you who have been to Berlin, please note - Frankfurt does NOT have cubbies you can put your electronics/phones/etc in & you will have to go back to your car.....this cost us 4-5 places in line, unfortunately!
Also, the OF-169 form from the embassy webpage is wrong & as expected, the photo is a full frontal, not the wacky 3/4 frontal that form 169 says! Also, I might have just missed this, but IF you're using a co-sponsor, you need to prove that they are a US citizen. Sounds logical, but with a massive binder of papers it's easy to overlook! A copy of a US passport will do.
The process is slow but painless. First window is to hand in your photo & money, second window is to review your application packet & information, third window is for the interview. Our interview took about 5 minutes, tops. However, other couples before us took more like 15 minutes.
There's really very little to say, because it's as challenging as a DMV visit - the purpose for the visit is important, the 30 seconds you're actually being processed is important, and the rest is just a lot of waiting. From start to finish we were there about 2.5-2.75 hours.
Also - I highly recommend getting an appointment at a panel physician outside of Frankfurt, if possible. That was way worse than the embassy! We were there over 3 hours, the windows don't open, it was super hot, nightmare children screaming with their parents screaming back to them.......just unbelievable. It makes you really question even wanting to go back to the US if that's the way people are going to behave!!!
The dr appointment, though painfully drawn out, went fine. The German requirements for MMR are different than the US, so even though my husband's vaccinations were all current, he needed another measles vaccination (US requires it to be given twice). So we had to do that (out of pocket) and have it faxed to the consulate.
We'll get the 2 missing documents to the embassy this week & then likely have the gc 10 days later. Excited to be done with all the organizing and copies!
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Consulate / USCIS Member Review #10102