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| Sydney, Australia |  Review on April 12, 2006: |
kaffykat
Rating:  | Review Topic: K1 Visa
Well after all the stress of 'The Interview' it turned out to be easy peasy. So easy it ended up being a fun day, go figure. It felt so good to walk in there and have a pretty good idea of what was about to happen. The only hiccup I could forsee was the fact that both Mike and I had been married a couple of times before and may get 'grilled' on that. It wasn't even mentioned...
Anyways to the embassy gungadin!! My appointment was for 8am so we (my daughter and I) made sure that we were up there with plenty of time to spare. Note you go to the 10th floor, turn right when you go out of the lift foyer and around the corner til you can't go no more, that is where you first wait, but the security guard doesn't show there til 7.45am, people were already queueing when we got there, we were third in line. BTW on the bottom floor of the MLC building they make really really nice coffee, I suggest you have one or two if you have time, I did!! The guard goes through and checks any bags, folders etc you have on you then runs the magic wand over you. You are then directed to sit down and await another security guard at a different set of lifts to allow you to go up to the 59th floor where the consulate actually is.
Once you get up to the 59th floor you are then greeted by another couple of security guards and you have to take out any electronic devices and place them into a tray, for which you will get a ticket, and you pick them up after you have finished your interview at the consulate. I was informed by the guards that this part is harder than the interview, they kinda figured I was nervous, musta been the big dopey smile on my face that gave me away. You then walk through the metal detector whilst your bags etc are put through an xray scanner, like they use at the airports.
As said before when you walk into the consulate offices you look straight ahead and to your right and you will see this nondescript little ticket machine, I saw a lot of people miss this and not get a ticket, so told them to get one before they got too comfortable. For K1 you need an immigrant visa ticket, top button. Then you take a seat and freak out every time you hear the 'dun dun' when the number changes on the screen.
It took about a half hour to get to the first part of the process, handing over the paperwork, we were second in line for the immigration visa. Super nice lady at the window, she checked through everything got me to sign the ds156k, signed off our passport photos that we had there and then said to take a seat whilst she went through all the paperwork properly and she would call us back up to the window once this is done.
About 15 or so minutes later 'dun dun' we got called back up, told that everything was in order, THANKYOU EVERYONE AT VISA JOURNEY YOU MADE IT SO MUCH EASIER, and was told to then wait for our number to be called for the final interview. So we went into the other room and found just about the last seats available to park ourselves. By this time pretty much all the seats were taken, prolly about at least 50 people there.
Anyways we saw the lady that was before us get called up to the guy at window four who was doing the interviews, now we are back to non immigrant status. Then he did a B1 that had come back on a RFE and then it was our turn. Totally nice guy and a real joker. We pretty much knew early on in the piece that we had got approved, cause he asked if my daughter or I had ever lived outside of Australia, I answered she hadn't even been on a plane to which he replied "well she will be going on a very long plane trip soon". So that kinda gave it away.
He got us to do the right hand holding up and swearing everything is true, my daughter had a 'blonde moment' and forgot which hand was her right, and that made us all start laughing about it. Then he started going through the paperwork and spotted how Mike and I met, in the online game Sims Online, which he thought was quite interesting and decided to ask me about it. gawd... pretty much the only questions he asked was had I been to Kentucky, had my daughter (she hadn't) had she met Mike, to which she replied only on the PC with the webcams and mics. I also said about her and Mike's 14 yo had been talking for a while on AIM and already called each other sisters.
He continued looking through the paperwork whilst chatting away, it was nothing like I imagined it to be, very very friendly and very informal really. Then he found the photos, "Oooh Goody, Photos!" he says and then had a good look through them holding them up and seeing if I still looked the same as in the photos or something, he was just being a dill.
I had my 'evidence folder' the one I had agonised over thinking I didn't have enough because we used MSN to communicate mostly and phone cards, so no real evidence, a few cards, some notes that Mike had sent me when he sent me copies of the paperwork and the I-134 stuff and some more photos from when I was in the US last year and printouts of e-cards I had received, it wasn't even asked for....
And then he said, "well the visa doesn't get issued same day so you can come back tomorrow afternoon and pick it up if you want". I said we were leaving to go back to Brisbane that afternoon so he said that they would require a 3kg express satchel to send all the documents and visas out to us. I told him it was there in the folder already addressed. Then looked at him blankly, "That's it?" I said. "Yep, congratulations you should get your visa within the next week, if it hasn't arrived give us a fax, have a nice day" I nearly passed out, it was that easy!! I walked out in a daze.. and was a smiling fool all day, still am...
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Consulate / USCIS Member Review #514