Consulate Review: Montreal, Canada
Review Topic: IR-1/CR-1 Visa
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| Event |
Description |
| Review Date : |
October 9, 2012 |
| Embassy Review : |
Journey
We started our journey in February 2012 for our CR-1 Visa. We met on Chemistry dot com a year ago this month. Eight months after starting this process and we are finally approved. Because this is a CR-1 we must have our interview performed in Montreal. We were given our Interview Date on September 17th and it was scheduled for October 9th. Before we could go to the interview we still needed to get the medical exam performed. We decided to go early to Montreal, get the exam, and make a honeymoon out of it. Montreal is an awesome place, but very expensive.
The Medical Exam
We stayed at the Hilton Garden Inn Montreal Centre-Ville. A very nice hotel and I give it a 5 star rating. It is located just one block east of the MediSys facility and about a 10 minute walk north of the Embassy. It has a Pool, Spa, and Gym which we used daily.
Out medical exam was scheduled for Oct 2nd.
Once you enter the MediSys building from the Sherbrooke side, you walk straight into an elevator area. Take an elevator up to the 11th floor. When you exit the elevator there is one set of double doors that are frosted, and in the other direction is a set of clear glass double doors. Go through the clear double doors, and you wait in line to talk to one of the clerks.
Our appointment was for 9am. We showed up at 8:50 and went right up to one of the clerks without a wait. The clerk asks for your name, passport, medical shot records, your Embassy Interview appointment letter, and 3 passport photographs. They staple each picture to a specific folder in the packet they are assembling.
They have you fill out two pieces of paper with a bunch of the usual doctor’s office type questions. And hand them back to the clerk when done. You will not be called until you have submitted these papers back to the clerk.
Take a seat on the right side (your right as you stand at the clerk’s window). A doctor will come out on that side and call your name.
It’s a cattle run, doctors are coming out one after the other calling names at a rapid pace.
The doctor will have you undress, and do a very fast check for lungs, stomach, eyes, ears, nose… the usual. Went into the small room at 9:07 and came out to sit down again at 9:12. That is how fast the first step goes.
At 9:32 I was called by a nurse that took me to another room and collected one vial of blood, did a weight and height check, eye chart test, and gave a shot for adult measles booster ($40). I was back in the lobby at 9:43
At 10:04 , my name was called by a nurse from the left side of the room. This was for Chest X-rays. Real fast and simple, I was back in the lobby at 10:13 and I was instructed to hand the paperwork from the X-ray to the clerk in the main lobby. I sat down and waited for the clerk to call me back up to the window.
At 10:20, I was called to the window and paid the $238 + $40 shot = $278, and given a receipt with a paper that has a barcode. She said to come back around 1pm on Friday (that was 3 days away) to pick up the package.
Friday, 1pm we went back up to the 11th floor, same window, even the same clerk, and handed her the paper with the barcode and she went to the file cabinet and pulled out this sealed light brown 9in X 10in envelope with my name on it, and stapled to it was an envelope that says Immigrant Visa Medical Exam - DO NOT OPEN, and another folded letter all stapled together. This is the packet you take with you to the Embassy Interview.
All in all, the people at MediSys were pleasant and professional. The checks are done rapidly. We arrived at 8:50, and walked out at 10:25. About 1.5 hours total.
Interview
Arrived at 6:30am outside of the Embassy and it was still dark. There was no one there yet, so we were first in line. About 6:35, a fellow VJ’er (CodyGrace) showed up, then Rhaj showed up a few minutes later. The ladies were all very nervous and all commented that they could not get any sleep last night. We were all comparing documentation, and re-checking to be sure we had the right stuff. Grace was on a K1, and Rhaj & us were on a CR1, so the interview letter was different which caused some nervousness to return.
It was just the four of us until about 7am when all of the sudden a bunch of people showed up and the line grew rapidly.
At 7:30 a couple ladies showed up on the inside of the building and setup their little table. One of the ladies was being trained for this task.
At 7:35, the officer came to the doors from the inside and pointed for everyone to line up to the left side of the door. Line goes up the street.
There was a lady with a baby and no stroller, so the officer motioned her to come in first.
The officer put up the Things Not to Bring in sign, and motioned to people that had backpacks and large bags to read the sign.
The officer then motioned for us along with Grace and Rhaj to step inside, and held back the rest.
Once the lady with the baby cleared the Loomis check, and proceeded up to the security area, we were asked for the interview letter, Loomis Reference ID (printout) and passport. Some people have a pre-printed label waiting for them, others like us didn’t so the lady wrote the Loomis reference ID number on a white label and put it onto the back of the passport.
Next you walk up a few steps and through a double door to the security area. Just like at the airport, but you do not have to remove your shoes. My wife had a small purse about 8 x 5 by 2in thick and had no problem bringing that sized purse.
After clearing security you go through a door on the left of the security area and go around the corner and walk about 15 meters to an area setup with chairs. There is one row against the right side wall (looking at the elevator door) and several rows on the left. We sat in the larger section next to the doors. There is a red ribbon thru posts like what you see at a bank to keep people from going into the elevator.
At 8:05, an officer came down and removed the red ribbon and the elevator doors opened. We helped the lady with the baby get in, and then everyone else piled in. K1 and CR-1 went to the same floor (floor 19). This is where you will find some rude people. They will squeeze and push their way to the back set of doors. Victoria pulled the lady with the baby up to the doors with us, and held onto her as we exited the elevator. Here, more rudeness comes into play with people trying to rush the #14 window. Luckily we had lined up on the left side of the elevator and just turned hard left out of the elevator, and pulled the lady with the baby along with us. Grace and Rhaj filed in next. At the window, there was a lady handing out the C number receipts. It is actually two copies of the C number printed on a standard supermarket style receipt paper. You will give one of the copies to the Documents window which is C1 through C4 (C5 was closed). The other you keep.
After getting your C number, you head towards the center of the room where there are plenty of seats. There is a large monitor that lists the C number to C Window assignments. All of the windows are glass with a small slot to pass documents through.
We didn’t even get sat down when they called our number to go to window C1. The very nice lady asked for our Interview letter and passport…. That is the last time you will touch your passport until it comes back in the mail. Following the suggestions from other VJ’ers, I had all of the documents put into a binder with plastic sleeves, and those stick on tabs to write a key word so you can quickly find each document. Although I had the documents in the order of the checklist… she did not request them in that order. Luckily I had the tabs, so I quickly went to each requested document. I used scissors to cut off the corner of each plastic document sleeve to make it easy to fetch each document. Being organized really speeds up the process at this first window. After the documents were all submitted, she took Victoria’s left hand fingerprints on an electronic scanner. At the top edge of the scanner are indicator lights. Those tell you when you have your fingers placed correctly on the glass plate. Get all the lights lit up and the lady behind the window presses a key on her keyboard, and you do it again for the right hand, then for both thumbs. After that, we were told to take a seat. This time we sat in seats that are right there near the document windows.
Within a few minutes, our card was called again, but this time for Window 9. Windows 6 through 12 are down the hall (The hall is in near the center of the room just to the right of Window 5).
The lady there was very business mannered, but we got her to slip a smile near the end of the interview. Victoria can make anyone smile given enough time. She asked me if I was the sponsor before starting any of the process. This part was faster than the document window. The first thing she did was have us raise our right hands and take the “tell the truth” oath. Then only Victoria had to put her right hand on the finger print reader.
The lady started asking us some questions. The first was how did we meet, which we replied with Chemistry.com, which did not seem to even produce a flinch from the lady. Then she asked how we first met in person, then when was the last time Victoria was in the states, and how often she went there. Then she turned her attention to me and asked me what I did for a living, and where I worked, and if I still lived at my address. Then she asked Victoria if she will be living at the same address, then she entered in some information into her computer, folded up our packet…. And non-emotionally said Congratulations, you are Approved, handed Victoria the Welcome to the United States paper, and grabbed our package and disappeared into the back leaving us standing there. We quickly realized it was over, we were done, and so we kissed and hugged, and left the window.
We headed for the elevator (which BTW is the slowest elevator in the world). I took note of the time, it was 8:30 and we were totally done. We had entered the elevator to come up at 8:05, and now we got into the elevator heading back down at 8:30. So basically, get there early, be organized, get a low C number, and you will could be done in under 30 minutes.
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| Rating : |
Very Good |
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ver 5.0