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| London, United Kingdom |  Review on June 3, 2010: |
Y&E
Rating:  | Review Topic: K1 Visa
My interview was smooth, if somewhat boring. Nothing of note happened except for waiting 4 hours to talk to 2 people for less than 15 minutes.
I arrived in London on Tuesday and stayed at the King's Cross Royal Scot Travel Lodge. This is about a 5 minute walk from the tube and it was cheap. The room was fine, nothing great or awful about it but the decor was tired in general. However, this is a recent aquisition so things might improve.
Anyway, on Tuesday I went to Gould's Pharmacy to get my photos and to suss out the lie of the land. The embassy is on your right looking down towards the park from the pharmacy - I discovered this after I walked around the entire square (by this time it was pouring rain). The state flags confused me because the only US flag I saw was on top of the building. So, now I knew where to go. I'm glad that I did this because otherwise I would have been very confused!
On Wednesday I went to Euston just after 7am to check my luggage in as this was the station that I left from. I caught the tube to Marble Arch and arrived at Gould's about 7.45. I was queing to get into the Embassy by about 7.55 and I entered the embassy about 8.20. The first thing was to show a lady my appointment letter and join another que. Then I showed a second lady my letter and passport and was let into the line to go through security. I got through security (behind a man who was debating with them the difference between a watch battery and a car key battery being electronics - why bother?).
I entered the embassy and went to the front desk and got my I9XX number from the lady there. Then I sat and waited, and waited some more and listened to all of the N numbers being called and the few I numbers that were ahead of me. I worked out that booths 1 and 13 were processing the first part of the interview and booths 15 and 16 were conducting the second part. I got so fascinated by trying to see who the I number people were that I almost missed my first interview!
I was extremely over-prepared for this part. All the guy asked for was: Passport, Birth Cert, UK Police Cert, I-138, 2009 tax return and I gave him a W2. I kept asking if he wanted anything else but he said no. Then took my fingerprints and sent me to pay. The girl was annoying - he hadn't ticked 1 K1 visa to pay so she sent me back - as if I didn't know what visa I was getting!
Anyway, after that I showed him I'd paid he gave me the pink courier form and sent me off to fill it in and wait some more.
So I waited, and waited... finally after the two people ahead of me took forever I was finally called up. The lady wasn't particularly friendly but she wasn't nasty either. I swore my oath, answered her questions - where we met, how long we'd been dating, when he proposed (that's a tale in itself), where we were going to live. I think that's all. Anyway, she must have got sick of my yabbering because after about 5 minutes of these questions she said: 'I think I'm going to approve this.' I said great - am I likely to go into AP because of being born out of the UK - she looked at me funny and said she didn't think so.
And that was it! I am approved and I was out of there by just after 12pm and had wasted 4 hours of my life for 10 - 15 minutes of talking... oh well
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Consulate / USCIS Member Review #6164