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| France |  Review on July 1, 2013: |
Clemjam
Rating:  | Review Topic: IR-1/CR-1 Visa
We arrived at 12.40 and went through security. I had no electric items, though they did take my car keys away. The children's colouring books and comics were safe 
We arrived up the ramp and a kind smiling lady gave us our ticket: A105. We were then invited to go and wait.
To my surprise, the waiting area looks more like a post office lobby than what I had imagined: tens of windows with staff and a machine ringing to sound out the ticket numbers (by the way, the bell sound which the machine makes gets really annoying after a while, as it keeps on ringing and you become paranoid that you've just missed your number!).
We waited for half an hour to be seen by a lady who checked our appointment letter and told us to go and sit back, that we would be called 'shortly'. The short time dragged to 2 long hours, when a nice lady (with a Spanish-American accent) checked our documents. I started to get a little worried as our applications were a little complicated. My children are born from a previous relationship, in England (though French as the father did not want to give apply for the dual Brtish French nationality for them) and out of wedlock so I do not have any legal documents to prove that I had full responsibility of my children. When asked upon this, I replied that under the British law I had full responsibility and that I had no legal documents to prove this. The lady then replied that I may be asked to rpovide more documentation, but that it would be up to the consul officer.she also appologised for the long wait(ticket numbers do not apply, we had A107, A110, then bacl to A101 and A104 before we were called)
I was asked to go and sit back again and wait. By that time, it was close to 3.30pm. A security officer arrived in the waiting area and tried to sort out the people still waiting (work and study visas were told to go in 1 queue at the first desk and other visas were told they d be seen to very shortly). I was under the impression that consul officers were starting to hurry things up as it was getting close to home time.
We were called one final time at 3.55. The consul officer was a nice young lady ( I think her name was Lisa as it was in her signature) who looked at me, skilled through some paperwork, asked me how long we had been married, how we had lived together, then she turned around to my daughter, asked her what her brother s name and age were. She came back to me and asked me who my co-sponsor was, then asked me how much my husba,d earned the previous year, question which I was unable to anwser, mymind had gone blank. I explained that to her and at the same time, my son randomly started hugging his sister and gave her a peck on the cheek. The consul officer was moved by the scene, smiled and said 'I can see you are a very close family and that you love each other, Congratulations you will receive your visas within 7 to 10 days'.
I asked whether I had some kind of paper to confirm what she had just said, to which she replied that it was the first time she was asked such a question, then smiled.
In all, my experience with the staff was very pleasant, the long dreary wait amongst others including a really annoying extremly loud American man who had lost his Id papers whilst on a trip here in France made the experience not so great. But the most important is that we were approved, and to keep in mind that consul officers also have emotions
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Consulate / USCIS Member Review #12243