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| Norway |  Review on August 6, 2010: |
Zenda
Rating:  | Review Topic: K1 Visa
My appointment was at 9.00 but I arrived at the embassy at 7.30. This turned out to be a good thing, since I was the second in line. However it turned out that my place in line wasn't important; they will call groups of 4 or 5 people at a time, no matter or when your original appointment time is or what type of visa you are there for.
After lining along a fence, a guard came up to us on the other side of the fence and asked our reason for visiting the embassy and for certain papers depending on the reason. When I presented my appointment letter and my DS-156 paperwork, it turned out that the DS-156 form is no longer valid to enter the embassy. This was a surprise to myself and to a high number of people who were also there as we hadn't known about this; apparently it is a very recent change. (You will still need the DS-156 paperwork inside the embassy, so bring it as well!)
The form needed is the DS-160, which is filled out online. The form can be found here https://ceac.state.gov/genniv/
We were went to a store right across the street from the embassy that had internet access as the ability to scan in passport pictures and print out the final paperwork.
The information needed on the DS-160 is the same information you needed to fill out the DS-156. I advise you to have the papers next to you when filling this out, since the web browser you use to type in the information "times out" rather quickly and sometimes doesn't save your work in progress.
One thing to note - the paperwork asks for your "Passport Book" number. This frustrated me for quite some time until a nice gentleman (who where there for the same thing) informed me that Norwegian passports do not have this number.
When that paperwork was done, I Went back to the embassy. Security met me at the fence, looked at the papers and let me straight in. Throughout the entire process, the security officers were very nice and very polite.
Once through security, I went to a room that had two of the walls covered with windows that had numbers over them. You want to go to window #1, your name won't be called. When you get there they will ask for your passport and then instruct you to sit and then wait until your name is called. It will be hard to hear so be sure to pay close attention both when they call you up.
When my name was called next, they asked for the affidavit of support. It turned out we went way overboard on how much proof-of-relationship we prepared; they didn't ask for our chat logs or our skype call summary. What they did ask for, and were very interested in, were pictures. I handed them two sets of pictures (my pictures from a visit to the US and pictures one of his visits to Norway). This part took about ten minutes to sort out.
Now I was asked to sit back down and wait. They did call me once to ask when I intended to leave for the US, then sat back down. I ended up waiting about 15 minutes and then it was time for the actual interview. This part was conducted by a person I hadn't met yet (not one of the people who previously asked for papers).
These are the questions I remember :
How did you meet? (He and I met in an online game. The interviewer and I spent a few minutes talking about that, what kind of game it was. She mentioned that she was very used to people saying that they met that way.)
When did we first meet in person? When did we travel to see each other? (I'm bad with dates but the interviewer was understanding and we sorted out the dates in a few minutes.)
Did we start a relationship before he was divorced? (I made it clear that we met online and talked, but we didn't meet in person or start a relationship until long after his divorce and she understood.)
Why did his previous marriage not work out?
When I was explaining why his prior marriage didn't work, I ended up mentioning his daughter's name. She asked a few questions about that - was she his daughter and where did she live.
When did you plan to become married?
How did he propose to you? (When I told her, I got an "awwww" and a big smile. I think this was a major plus in our application.)
Where does he live (north/south/east/west) from Los Angeles? (Los Angeles is the closest major city and major airport to where he lives. I couldn't answer this one and I told her that, but I was able to tell her that his house is about an hour and fifteen minutes away from LAX and she accepted that answer.)
That's about it... she told me that my application was accepted and to go sit down. They called me right back up to explain to me that if I had a stamped padded envelope with my address on it, they would mail my paperwork to me. I hadn't thought to get one (I expected that I was going to have to go back to Oslo later to pick up the paperwork), but they gave me directions to a postal store two blocks away where I was able to buy the envelope and about 300 kroner in stamps. For size, imagine the packet that you got from the embassy... that's the size of the padded envelope you'll need.
I was able to bring the envelope back to the embassy and hand it to a security officer. They had a lot of fun with the dazed and happy expression on my face as I went to buy the envelope and return.
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Consulate / USCIS Member Review #6443