7:47am Saturday 14th July 2007
By Cindy Read
Hello out there. . .sorry for not blogging for awhile, it’s been a bit chaotic around our house. I told you that we are moving to the states last time I wrote and all that has been moving
forward. It seemed at a snail’s pace for a very long time because back in January we sent my husband’s application in to the American Embassy in London for an immigration visa. I say
application when what I mean is we sent in pretty much close to half the rain forest in paper. They wanted copies of his passport, my passport, his late wife’s death certificate, my divorce
documents, proof of income, a police report, both birth certificates and what we eat for breakfast every morning. Okay the last is an exaggeration but holy cow, what a load of . . .hmm. . .never
mind, don’t want the censors to get me. I neglected to say that they wanted $180.00 as well with the application.
So anyway, we waited until the end of April for a letter telling us that his application had been accepted. . .not approved, accepted. Hubby then had to go for a medical, at our own expense with the
embassy’s Drs. in London. £150 for the exam, £35 for the vaccination (tetnus), one day’s lost wages, £44 return train ticket to London and all the aggro that went with it.
About 6 weeks after getting the letter telling him to go for his medical we got another letter telling us that we can come to the embassy in London on the 11th of July for an INTERVIEW. Now
everything we’ve read about this dreaded interview said that we had to bring wedding pictures and that hubby would be questions intensely about when we met, where we were married, what my
mother’s middle name was and on and on so you can imagine we were dreading the actual appointment day. We were told to bring copies AND originals of every thing we’d already sent in, okay
WHY? If they had the copies we sent them why did they need still more copies??
I break away here to say that when we were married in Orlando in 2003, we diverted to NYC to visit the British Embassy there to get MY visa and gosh, it took ALL of 45 minutes. We paid our money and
were on our way. A year later I had to prove to the home office that we were still together, pay some MORE money and I had an indefinite leave to stay visa. Pretty simple if you ask me.
So back to the American way of doing things. . .we had a 10:30 appointment at the Embassy. The Embassy is a big, very ugly 1960s style building surrounded with concrete barricades and razor wire and
scary looking policemen carrying very large, very intimidating guns. We arrive for our appointment at 9:50. We showed our letter and passports to the lady outside and she gave us plastic bags to put
our wallets and car keys and mobile phones, watches and camera into. Then we began to wait, and wait and wait still longer. You know if you are in a queue long enough you get to be really good
friends with the other people you are stuck in line with. In fact I may have found a husband for my still single daughter. . .not really, she’d kill me for that anyway. So at 11:30 we were
allowed to move to another line where our documents were checked again, my husband was told to remove his belt, never mind his trousers would soon be around his ankles but there were no belts
allowed.
Our next stop was the tiny security hut where we were only allowed to go in one person at a time, we had to hand over the plastic bags we were given to fill earlier and our folder of documents had to
be scanned along with my handbag and then we went through the scanner too. We had to show the bottoms of our shoes too. Man this security business isn’t fooling around.
We were given back our wallets and watches and sent off to hike all the way around the building to the entrance on the other side. Inside we were given a number. This number told you where you were
in the queue. . .sort of. We found seats and started a much longer wait but at least we were sitting down and out of the drizzle we found ourselves waiting in outside.
The hall where you wait is set up much like an airport waiting room. Rows and rows of chairs all looking at electronic boards that showed which of the 30 windows was serving what number now. . .would
you like fries with that???
About an hour later, we were called to the first window where the agent started pulling apart our carefully constructed packet of information. She gave hubby a number and said go to window 12 and pay
still more money. . .$380.00 more to be exact. We were there approximately 5 minute, we were given another form to fill out and told to go and. . .yes, you guessed it WAIT SOME MORE!!
While we sat there we saw every nationality in the world applying for visas, mostly non-immigrant visas (there were up to application 590 before we were out of there). Nearly an hour and a half later
we were called to another window with another agent. Oh God, the INTERVIEW!!! Off we go, papers in hand, smiles on our faces. Don’t lose your temper darling, no matter what I tell hubby. The
agent, a soft spoken young woman who never looked up at us from her computer, asked my husband if we had a home in the UK and did we have a mortgage on it? That, my dear friends was the sum total of
the entire friggin’ interview. She promptly said that they were going to issue him the visa, he said thanks for that and we went and joined yet another queue to pay still more money for the
courier to bring us his visa in 3-5 working days.
At about 3:30 we were back on the street collecting our belonging and heading for the train.
I think we were both a bit shell shocked, after all we had been through, photocopying, making sure every detail on every form was perfect and months of waiting not to mention shelling out so much
money, neither of us could believe it was over.
Many text messages later to tell friends and family we were finally on our way to America and back at home, we settled in to wait the 3-5 business days we were told it would take to get the visa. So,
this is the American government, I reckoned that 3-5 business days meant at least double that. I couldn’t have been more wrong. Less than 36 hours from when we left the Embassy the courier was
at our door with the visa. Imagine that!
So it’s all go from here. The house is sold, completion looms the end of August, the kids are rubbing their hands together in glee at all the household furnishings we are giving them, poor old
Ben, our setter has no clue what we have in store for him (a nine hour plane journey) and every time we look at the calendar we can’t believe how much there is still to do!
Watch this space if you can stay awake long enough to read a mad woman’s ramblings, there so much more to come!!
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