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| Rio de Janeiro, Brazil |  Review on May 14, 2007: |
nothel
Rating:  | Review Topic: K1 Visa
I flew to Rio to attend the interview with my fiancée. We stayed in "Hotel OK" (www.hotelok.com.br) which is easily within walking distance. On the morning of the interview, we woke up early, forced ourselves to eat breakfast (we were very nervous) and then arrived at the Embassy shortly before 7:30am. Not to our surprise, there were already people in line. The young woman behind us in line was alone but seemingly speaking to her fiancé because her English was a vivid contrast to the sea of Portuguese otherwise exclusively heard. Shortly before 8am, a woman emerged and began sifting through the belongings of those of us waiting in line. As soon as we cleared her inspection, we were allowed inside. Thanks to VJ, we planned ahead and left all electronic gear in the hotel so that we weren't required to leave anything with security. After passing through the metal detectors, wandered our way upstairs and a guard handed us a number from the "senha" dispenser. Shortly after 8am, a woman appeared and began passing out the order our documents should be arranged in (the list at www.visajourney.com/consulates/index.php?ctry=Brazil&cty=Rio%20De%20Janereiro matches the information given to us). She also instructed us (speaking only in Portuguese) that ds-156 could be signed if not done so already (my pen turned out to be quite popular). Again, thanks to VJ, our documents were already in order but we double-checked nonetheless. After a wait that seemed like forever (we were still very nervous), they began calling people to the windows to receive/verify our documents. Most people spent only about 5 minutes at the window but at least one woman spent significantly longer. From watching her, she seemed to have problems with her forms. She sat in the waiting area and continued filling them out but was apparently allowed to resubmit them. When our turn came, the agent behind the window (a man with a beard who seemingly spoke only very fast Portuguese) was generally satisfied with our documents. He returned an extra copy of my identification page from my US passport since I had already submitted that via the I-129F. Better safe than sorry! We also had a plethora of pictures to choose from since we had read how picky the Embassy can be regarding the ears. The agent ended up selecting the 5x5cm photos (as opposed to the 5x7cm Brazilian standard) probably because they featured the ears the best. The agent returned our "senha" back to us and we returned to the waiting area. After what seemed like an eternity (they thoughtfully provided a TV which was definitely more entertaining than staring at various pictures of US officials), the actual interviews began in room 3. From what we could tell, we were the only K1 couple. The others were apparently there alone (all young women except for one man). There was also an American man and his presumably Brazilian wife and their baby. They spent most of the time filling out paperwork. Window 4 was processing US Citizen-based services but we generally didn't pay much attention to that group. Waiting was painful because the interviews varied considerably in length and there was quite a bit of time between each interview. The butterflies left the moment our number was called and we opened the door to window 3. As the US citizen, I quickly asked if I could be there and the officer motioned for me to have a seat. The officer appeared friendly, had a clean face and seemed to be in his 30s. He asked Cristine if she spoke English and upon her approval, announced that we'd interview in English. I was thankful since her English is better than my Portuguese. He asked us both to raise our right hands and we were sworn in. He gave the various "do-not-sign-until-instructed" forms to Cristine for signing. Meanwhile, he asked me how and where we met. He sifted through the 4 original pictures I included with the I-129F and upon learning that we share the same religion, of which he's familiar with, we began to chat briefly about it. At one point he asked Cristine if she had any medical problems. Overall, I did most of the speaking. He then announced the visa was approved. We both smiled broadly and said thank-you and exited the booth with a stunned look upon our faces and the green paper in hand! I think the interview lasted about 5 minutes. In retrospect, our case was probably very straight-forward because we're young, only about 6 years apart, and neither of us having been married previously. The I-134 and supporting documents were also very clear-cut. We left the embassy shortly before 11am. The walk back to the hotel was mostly a blur as we were still in shock. Quite honestly though, the interview was a little "anti-climatic" because I had prepared a ton of relationship evidence and yet was not asked to provide any of it. Two days later, on Thursday, we were a little late to return to the embassy. The "green" card said to return after 3pm. It wasn't clear if they meant at 3pm exactly or sometime thereafter. It was 3:55pm when we finally walked up to the door. The guards weren't sure if they could let us in and after a few nervous minutes, they waved us in and we proceeded back upstairs and straight into a booth. The same bearded agent gave us the passport and he advised us to double-check the visa for correctness and then handed us the famous large brown envelope. We said thank-you and made a bee-line for the door. Wow!! We then returned to our new hotel on the beach that we had relocated to earlier in the day. One final thought, on the day of the interview, everyone was asked to fill out a survey. We gave the embassy generally good-to-high marks for everything. We did note that they should have sent packet 4 sooner. 
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Consulate / USCIS Member Review #1591