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| Montreal, Canada |  Review on August 3, 2011: |
ralyse
Rating:  | Review Topic: K1 Visa
Left Brampton at 8am the day before, with only a few stops at rest stations for gas/food we made it to Montreal by just after 2pm. Stayed at Hotel la Tour Centre-Ville, which is by no means fancy (really outdated, not the most comfortable bed, weird room layout) but was relatively inexpensive and we were on the 15th floor and had a really nice view out the huge windows! There's also free wifi if you ask for an access code, but it is slower than dial up. The best part though, it's literally across the street and around a corner from the consulate. Unless you have to wait for the light to change, less than a minute walk! The parking lot for the hotel is much further away than the consulate is, even! We checked in, I went over all my documents and then we headed out with a friend of ours that lives in Montreal (friend from the site where Ramon and I met even, it felt fitting.) We had some dinner and saw some of the downtown area since it was a beautiful evening for walking and then headed back to the hotel. I checked documents again, took a shower and tried to relax and get some sleep.
I have a chronic punctuality problem, so we left the hotel at 6am. We weren't in line more than 5 minutes before there were two more people behind us, so I'm glad we were that early. The line grew and grew, I heard some others talking about VJ behind us which was nice! (Hi!)
They opened the doors at 7:30, asked for my appointment confirmation and both of our passports (as my fiance was with me). They then sent us up the stairs and asked for our belts and everything from our pockets. We went through the scanner and then were sent down the stairs to the basement where we sat right by the elevator. We talked to a couple other VJers and then we were all herded to the elevator, where any order we had arrived in got completely torn apart, which sucked. We were crammed in there pretty tight (all the smart VJ people at the back of the elevator, facing the doors) and when we arrived on the 19th floor is was a bit of a stampede to get out and get put in line for numbers.
I ended up with number C2. Very wuickly they started calling us by putting the ticket number and a booth number on a screen. I went up and was asked for my passport, my medical, my passport photos and they took fingerprints. He also wanted my appointment confirmation since it showed I had paid. I'd accidentally left that in the shopping bag I'd been carrying so I had to hop back to the waiting room to get it from my fiance, but the officer didn't seem to mind. He then told me they'd call me again when they were processing my file.
I sat back down and they kept calling numbers on the screen. Then a very fuzzy announcement said what SOUNDED like "C2 to window 11" but I wasn't entirely sure. Huge thanks to the fellow VJer who confirmed to me that's what they had said! So I went up and spoke with a nice lady who asked for my birth certificate and a copy, my police check, my fiance's letter of intent, a photocopy of my passport's biographic page, and the affidavits of support + supporting info. I confirmed that all she wanted for my fiance was the form and a letter of enrollment for school and from his mother the form, her 2010 tax transcript and statements from her retirement (since that's the bulk of her income).
She looked over everything and told me to take a seat, they'd call me shortly, but as I was turning away said "Oh, I forgot! Are you registered for DHL?" I told her I was.
I wasn't sitting very long before my number was called again, I went to a both where a nice woman with long dreadlocks did my interview. She swore me in and confirmed my fingerprints and asked a few questions:
-How did we meet?
-What book series the website we met on is about?
-Confirmed what year we met. (She said 2006, I confirmed it was 2004 online and 2008 in person)
-Asked where Ramon goes to school and what his major is
-Asked how he proposed.
She was very soft spoken, so I had to ask her to repeat herself a few times which made me feel awful (I'm half deaf in one ear, so it may have just been me). Then she flipped through the file and frowned at her computer in silence for a couple of minutes. I was starting to worry, but she confirmed that she'd taken my fingerprint. I said she had then she laughed and said the computer was just being silly. She then congratulated me and said she could approve my fiance visa and gave me the welcome to the US letter and the K1 FAQ sheet and said she hoped my wedding went well.
All told, we were back at the hotel by 9am :D
It really is the easiest part of this entire process.
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Consulate / USCIS Member Review #8045