Hello everybody:
I've posted the following recap on the repat forum as well, for those of you who are members of that site too. Here's a summary of our day on Friday:
We were up early, and left the house at 4:55 a.m. Since we were driving from Warwickshire, I wanted to beat the morning rush and allow enough time for any delays in traffic, flat tire, etc.
We made great time - there was no traffic and parked the car in a 24 hour lot near Hyde Park. It was about 6:25 a.m. We caught a taxi and arrived at the embassy at 6:35 a.m.!!!!! There was no line yet and we decided to go to Starbucks and have a coffee! Hey, better safe than sorry!
Got back to the Embassy at about 7:30 and there was a line of about 30 people. We were told by the guards that somebody comes out at about 8:00 with a clipboard for everybody with interview appointments. This guy appeared at 8:00 and asked everybody with appointments to form a single file line to the left. This is where you show your appointment letter and he ticked us off of the list. We then went through the security booth and walked around and into the Embassy.
We had our interview first, as our surname is begins in I-Z.
The visa area is to the left after you're inside. We got in the line, got our number and paid for our courier envelope. Then we sat down and waited for our number to pop up on the big screen, telling us which window to go to. Our number was called after about 20 miinutes.
The clerk went through his list and asked for our paperwork. I used color coded paperclips: red for the original, green for the copy that the clerk keeps and a regular clip to keep them together. The clerk actually thanked me for being so organized! After we finished with this clerk, we went around to the cashier and paid for the interview, then sat down and waited for our number to be called for the actual interview.
This didn't take long and we were called up to the interview booth. As soon as we walked up, the interview guy put his hand up and said "wait a minute, there's a problem." Tony and I looked at each other horrified and my stomache went up to my mouth. I thought, what's wrong and felt really panicky. We waited for a few minutes and when he came up to the window, said "sorry, there was a technical problem with the fingerprint scanner." What a relief!
So the interviewing officer sifted through the paperwork that we already gave to the clerk, checked the numbers on the I-864 and had me sign that and he witnessed it. He was very nice and didn't "interrogate" us; he knew what paperwork he was looking for and checked it all. Then he said, "If everything's all right with your medical, welcome to the United States." He then gave us the map to the doctor's office and explained that we didn't need to come back to the embassy. At this time it was 9:20 a.m.
We walked to the doctor's office, checked in, gave them the medical questionnaire and Tony's medical history that we had which listed all his vaccinations and paid. They called Tony pretty quickly for his exam. He did't need any jabs as we had these done at our local surgery last month. The exam was fine and he was done; they told us to come back at 1:30 for the blood results.
At this point it was only 10:20. We were one of the first ones in line so we didn't have much waiting at all, but now had three hours to kill! We went for a coffee then decided to go to The British Museum to kill a few hours. I was so tired!
We got back to the doctor's office, along with the others, and at 1:30 the nurse came into the waiting room and announced, "I'm pleased say that all of you are fine and your blood work came back normal. Congratulations!"
So that was it! We were done by 1:30. We took a cab back to the car park and were heading home by 2:00.
We were so relieved, and so tired! I had TONS more paperwork than required, but I just wanted to be prepared. In the end, they only asked for what was listed on the document checklist and checklist for the I-864.
People were polite and helpful. Nobody minded if you asked questions, etc.
I'm so glad it's over now. I know I was nervous and think I drove Tony up the wall. But we were organized and they are used to processing lots of people; you're just guided along on the day. So long as you have everything that's required, it's no problem.
Good luck to everybody who has interviews coming up!
And again, thanks to all of you for your support and encouragement. It did make a big difference.
