US Embassy Trip (part 1)

We did our trip to the US Embassy on Friday, to get our visa. We had a 10am appointment, so we arrived nice and promptly at 9:15, to see two large queues. A friendly policeman with a big gun told us that one queue was the 9:00 quese and one was the 9:30 queue, so we should come back at 9:45. We went for coffee, and came back, to find two queues that seemed to have no order or reason to them. We joined a queue.

I thought that there might be a sort of "spirit of the blitz" people sharing jokes and biscuits and all mucking in together. But there wasn't. I had a brief conversation with a red haired chap. He said "Our appointment's at 10:15" I said "Our appointment's at 10:00". H said "I'm getting an E visa. Are you?" I said "No, I'm getting an H visa". (An H1b, if you want the details. I looked up an E visa, it turns out to be a treaty trader and investor visa. I don't know what that means. An H is a temporary work visa, which sounds much less glamorous, but at least you can guess what it means without looking it up.)

We stood in our queue, which moved very slowly. The red haired chap suddenly moved to the other queue, which moved more quickly, and he got in before us. Someone moved up the queue checking our appointment times, if you had the audacity to be near the front of the queue with an 11:00 appointment at 11:00 you were moved to the back. We were given clear plastic bags to place our belongings into.

At about 11:00 we got into the embassy. When we got in, we were given a ticket, so that we could wait our turn. The queuing system inside the embassy was quite specific - there were large TV screens which showed the people who were being served at which windows, and what numbers were about to be called. At the back of the room was a little snack shop, selling sandwiches which I'd guess were overpriced, had they not run out at 11:45, before I could check their prices, and crisps which were overpriced. 75p for a bag of salt and vinegar (and not one of those grab bags that they sell you nearly everywhere now. Hey! I know! Let's reduce the amount of fat in our crisps by 25% and make them healthier. And then let's put them into bags that are twice as big, so everyone eats 50% more fat than if we'd stuck with the unhealthy crisps.)

At 12:00 our number (296) came up, and we went to the first window. We handed over our forms, and were fingerprinted. S had a lot of trouble with the fingerprinting, because of hand lotion or something similar, and had to use a special alcohol wipe to get her fingers clean. It turned out that I didn't have one form, I'd filled it in and sent it off to the US immigration people, when I should have kept it. I was asked to fill it out again, which I did. It was the one that asked which countries you had visited in the last 10 years, and when. Given that I was feeling a little nervous (hey! it's only the rest of your life at stake) and that I was in a hurry, it ended up being a bit random, but we got away with it.

That's the end of part 1. Part 2 will follow after this announcement. (Maybe look at the ads on the side, and pretend it's a commercial break. For a few days.)