Immigration Forum / USA Marriage Base / June 2005

Short version:
Got it!

Long version:
Flew into London on Saturday to make a long weekend of it. Stayed at the
Regent Palace hotel right on Piccadilly - its about a 20 minute walk to
the embassy, but right on the Piccadilly Line from Heathrow, and bang in
the centre of all the nightlife in central London. Its also cheap
(albeit decidedly average quality) but we'd stayed there before last
year so booked it because we knew exactly where it was and where
everything around it was.

My fiancee arrived on Sunday, so after going out to Gatwick to pick her
up and then returning to hotel for a bit of rest we went on our "find
the embassy walk". Surprisingly easy - straight up Regent Street from
Piccadilly Circus, left turn at Princes Street which turns into Brook
Street and then a straight walk to the embassy - like I said the whole
thing takes about 20 mins. After that, back to Piccadilly for some
dinner and an early night, which turned into quite a late night, because
an uncomfortable set of pillows, a hot night even with the window open,
and genuine nerves, mixed with jetlag meant we were awake at 1am, 3am,
and 6am before finally giving up and waking up at 7am. We dressed
sloooooooooowly to kill time before finally starting our Monday morning.

Interview Monday began with a stale donut and a surprisingly good cup of
tea at the donut shop across the road from the hotel. We then walked to
the embassy in blazing sunshine, and sat in the park across the road for
a good 30 minutes as we waited for our appointment time to get closer,
getting rid of nerves while pretending to enjoy the sun...

Finally around 10-20am we walked to the embassy and joined the line. ZZ
Top man wasn't there, but two other guys were who seemed happy to see
everybody while they checked passports and interview letters. We stayed
in the right hand lane until around 10-50 before being called to the
left lane, and going thru security and into the embassy.

Can you say POST OFFICE? That's what it looks like - cubicle windows
everywhere, ticket numbers flashing on screen... the whole works. I was
surprised to be able to hear the calls to the cubicles very clearly -
maybe they've adjusted the sound due to Visajourney complaints, or maybe
my ears are just too big.

Anyway...

As we took the ticket from the machine, the girl advised us that we'd
likely be called to window 1 first of all, so we took a seat down
there and watched the guy in there like a hawk. We must have
intimidated the hell out of us, as we were called to window 14 after
about 15 minutes - obviously he was letting his friends deal with the
couple staring him out.

This first part was a breeze. An English guy took my police certificate
(AND YES THE LACK OF A SCOTLAND YARD ONE WAS NOT AN ISSUE), my divorce
certificate, and my fiancee's I-134... everything else was not required.
We'd spent so long on all the supporting evidence for the I-134 that I
handed him all that WITH the actual form, but he just flicked through it
quickly and gave that all back. Of course, you can bet your house on the
fact that had I NOT had even one piece of that evidence then he would
have asked for it!

While he typed a few things on the screen he gave me the pink courier
slip to fill out, and then he asked us both to take a seat in the main
area and wait to be called to window 13 for the interview.

The call came about 15 minutes later - again, Dumbo heard it very
clearly. This is where it got a little hairy. The guy was very pleasant
and started by asking me how we met. Then he asked my fiancee where she
worked and how much she made, (proof again that the first guy hadn't
looked at her work letter!), before asking me to describe what happened
last October when I was refused entry at Atlanta. I explained what
happened, and apologised for my 'abuse of the VWP', and explained that I
didn't have any idea I was actually doing anything wrong until the day I
was refused. He nodded, and said "Well you'll be glad to know that it
doesn't make you ineligible"...

I felt good right then - it seemed that the worst was over, but then he
seemed to be having some trouble with something on the screen, and asked
me to wait for a moment. Then he walked off and left us there crapping
it for a good 5 minutes, before coming back with another guy. The two of
them they played the pointing-sternly-at-the-screen game before the new
guy left again with my passport, and the original guy continued typing.
Another couple of minutes passed and then new guy came back with some
sheets of paper which I recognised as my interview at Atlanta, along
with my mugshot and fingerprints from then.

Straight away, the interviewer brightened up and explained that he
couldn't proceed until he could confirm that he had reviewed the report
from October, but they had had some trouble finding it. Now that it was
here however....

He then informed us that we had 90 days to get married, and the rest of
the K-1 info stuff - to be honest I didn't hear any of it. I was too
busy picking my bowels out of my pants from a few minutes before! I
didn't get a "Welcome to the USA" - I didn't CARE! I had the visa.
After paying the courier, we left the embassy around an hour and half
after we came in.

Then we headed to this mexican restaurant in Piccadilly that we'd dined
at last year to celebrate, before hitting a cake shop in Soho for the
biggest slab of chocolate cake ever invented.

Yesterday was a blur of buses, London underground, and airports, but
both me and the soon-to-be-missus both got home ok, and now we're
waiting for my leaving on Saturday.

One last thing word of caution though - the courier promised our visa
would be with us by today (Wednesday). It hasn't come. Its important
that I get it by Friday as I leave Saturday, so I called them again
today, and spoke to a nice lady who promised to get it sorted to get
here for tomorrow and Friday at the very latest. Cutting it fine, but
hopefully it should be ok!

Thanks to EVERYONE at VJ and at British Expats for all their help with
this at every stage! We definitely couldn't have done it without you!