|
|
| London, United Kingdom |  Review on April 1, 2009: |
darkequitus
Rating:  | Review Topic: IR-1/CR-1 Visa
My Wife, my Son and I arrived in line outside the embassy at 6am! My wife was determined to me first in line.
We started our journey from home at 5am, missing rush hour, circumventing the congestion charge and parking deep under Hyde Park.
It was rather cold that morning. My son (21 month old) refused to cover himself with his trusted blanket as we pushed his buggy toward Grovenor Square. It seemed he decided today of all days to start his terrible 2s early. My wife and I feared it would be a rather long day for him.
On arriving outside the embassy, we query a security guard as to where we should stand. The queue barriers created a snake of many mouths. He directed us to a standing stop with a wry smile. He soon left for home as his late arriving relief took over. Not before expressing his disgust at his colleague’s time keeping.
As time went on, the queue grew behind us. As the queue grew, my Son’s patients begin to diminish. Impatience turned to mischief; mischief into a series of tantrums.
Then a spectacle-wearing male began a separate queue behind us. Odd he seemed to know something we did not. A female joined him. Then Another. And another. Before we knew we were the only one left in our queue. Great one – explains your wry smile, Mr security guard.
At that point, my son made a run for it. When I managed to retrieve him, I turned around to see that my Wife had managed to wrangle her way to the front of the queue again.
Promptly at 7:30am, a slime my positioned a plastic plinth before us and ushered usher us towards him. He then directed us to the queue we started at. We then asked to step forward and present our passport and appointment letter. “Did you not get a letter with a barcode” the security woman said. My Wife and I looked at each other shouting “what barcode” telepathically.
Next was the airport style security area. “I can seen now that you have an electronic fob built into your key” the security man said. I would have booked the key into the pharmacy if it open earlier than 7:30 am. No trouble, I was allowed to sprint over to pharmacy deposit the key and return to join my wife and Son in the Embassy.
We were allocated number 5003. I suddenly became very nervous. I could not take my eyes of the monitors and jumped every time a number was verbally called. I had to use the loo.
I was finally called to window 1. Handed over my documents as requested and fingerprint taken. I was told my medical result was fine. I paid the £277 processing fee. Maybe not in that order, it was all a blur. I was given a ‘Welcome to the United States booklet’. Premature, I thought.
After a 90-minute wait, I was called to window 16 to for my interview. As I expected, I required a co-sponsor. I had by in-laws all lined up for this. The rather pleasant interviewer also requested documents to show my wife had intention to domicile as she had spent the last twelve years in the UK.. We had this with us. However, the interviewer suggested we have those documents couriered with the required _864 and I-864A. All in all, we thought it went well.
That afternoon, my Wife contacted her father. That same day, all the co-sponsor documents were FED-EX’d for the next day.
A minor hiccup, however. The last 3 pages of the I-864 were missing. So, there was another trip to the FEX-EX officer for my Father-in-law.
On Monday March 30th, Secure collected the documents and passed passport.
Today (April 1st) I received a SMS from Secure Mail stating I would receive a package tomorrow morning as arranged,
| |
|
Consulate / USCIS Member Review #4172