My US Fiancé(e) Visa Interview

Today was the day of my immigration visa interview at the US Consulate General in Auckland, NZ. I flew up the night beforehand because my appointment was for 10am and I couldn't get a flight early enough in the morning to give me a good leeway. A friend I knew from high school put me up for the night and it was great to catch up. For the past 2 days I've been so nervous and wired that it's been hard to eat, sleep or sit still for too long. So I went to bed about 11.30pm yesterday but tossed and turned most of the night. I found myself awake at 7am with the feeling like my eyes were being held open wide. I tried, in vain, to sleep for another 20 minutes then I got up to get ready.

My friend kindly drove me to the Consulate before she went off to work and that meant I was plenty early. I was happy about this because I desperately wanted to get it over and done with while at the same time I was mortified at the idea of being late. I mulled over the idea of trying to find something to put into my stomach, having been to nervous to eat at my friend's place earlier, but after seeing that the café in the same building as the Consulate had nothing I could eat I decided to just be early.

I had my suitcase, documents in a plastic document holder and my handbag with me. The security guard at the, for lack of a better word, reception area x-rayed my bags and stored them for me before giving me a laminated number so I could retrieve them once I was ready to leave. I went through the metal detector and he prodded my document case for anything untoward. Once I was cleared then I was told to got on through the door and up to window number 5 to press the buzzer.

Behind window number 5 (and all the other windows) was an office with the usual office furniture and employees. After a short wait a smiling woman with a US American accent came to greet me and introduced herself before explaining that she was going to go over my paperwork with me. She had the stack of papers I have been in the process of filing since March 2011 and it was slightly nostalgic to see them all again. She was so friendly and nice but I was still very nervous. She told me not to be nervous, that this wasn't the part to be nervous in, and that I should feel free to ask her any questions I might have. Once we had gone through all the details and confirmed my address and phone number she said something which surprised me. She said that she had to thank me because she had been doing a lot of paper work when I came in and it had been stressing her out. She went on to say that I had been so calm during the time she talked to me to go over my details that it had calmed her down a lot. I told her that I was only outwardly calm but she still insisted that she felt a lot calmer thanks to me. I thought it was quite nice and I felt like maybe this interview wasn't quite so bad as I had expected it to be.

I guess what I had thought would happen was that I would sit in a stuffy office room and a middle-aged woman behind a desk would judge me and tell me why I wasn't suitable for permanent residence in the USA. Well, that was the catastrophic situation that my subconscious was working on in the shadowy corners of my mind, anyway.

I sat for a while and eventually an inexpressive male voice called my name through a microphone at the window marked "Interview 3". I approached it to find a man with all my paperwork. He asked me to sign one of the documents which required a consular officer, such as himself, to witness my signing it. I tried not to let my shaking be too visible. He then went through a list of questions to do with details about my fiancé, his date of birth, education and vocation to his father's vocation and income. Finally, when I thought he had gone through every possible objectionable detail about me and my situation he just wound things up. He said that I needed to send them, via email or fax, proof of my future-father-in-law's income. He said that otherwise things looked "fine" (if I remember correctly, I think that was the word he used). I was too petrified of him to ask if that meant I would be granted the visa, I was too scared of asking him anything because he seemed to be putting on a purposely cold front, so I left with a feeling of nothing having been resolved. I picked up my bags in exchange for the little orange laminated card with the number 44 on it I had been given and went downstairs in the elevator.

I called fiancé and woke him up. Poor fiancé had only managed to get to sleep at 3am - he was as wound up about the interview as I was. We had a disjointed conversation because he wasn't very awake and then I let him go before trying to text future-in-law with the request for proof of income. I then stumbled my way to the airport bus and stuck my head in my book all the way to the airport which took about 40 or so minutes. At the airport I finally got a couple of strawberry frosted donuts in my tummy and got down to the business of waiting for my flight which was a couple of hours away at least. My PSP was sufficient distraction for a while but then I became too tired to do much other than sit there and wait for the boarding call. The relief from being on edge for 2 days had finally caught up with me and no doubt the lack of restful sleep didn't help.

I managed to read most of the way through the flight and it took longer than expected since we were delayed in taking off. I had to stop as we began to descend into Wellington airport, though, because the turbulence was so bad that I had to focus on keeping my donuts down. My Dad picked me up from the airport and took me to get groceries before taking me home and I was greeted by an enthusiastic fiancé who squeezed me like there was no tomorrow. He had probably been worrying, like I had, that there might not be a tomorrow for us if I somehow failed my visa interview.

It turned out that future-in-law didn't receive my text message so fiancé has emailed him the details of what he needs to do this evening as I write this. I cooked a lovely dinner for myself of brown rice, baked tarakihi with garlic and rosemary with vegetables on the side. It's sitting nicely in my stomach and my eye lids are heavy so I might just leave it there. Sorry for any rambling, typos or grammatically nonsensical sentences. I am tired and must be forgiven for such things. At least this once.

New Zealand Summer and New Year

Well, we've been back in NZ for about a month now and we have been playing the waiting game an awful lot - it would seem to me.  I did the medical exam required for my visa application the day after we arrived back, including a routine chest x-ray for signs of tuberculosis, then I did my blood and urine tests the next day once I had rehydrated a bit from the plane rides.  The doctor said that he saw no indicators that I wouldn't meet the health requirements for the visa so I'm not too concerned about that part of the process.

Once all that was done I could send off the last of the paperwork and a week or so later I received a letter with my appointment for the US Consular interview in Auckland.  It's at the end of January so there will be much twiddling of thumbs until then.  If the visa is approved then I should receive my passport, with visa included, back about 3 business days later.  A high school friend of mine has said I can stay the night in her spare room so I'll be flying up to Auckland the day before, since the appointment is at 10am, and then flying back to Wellington that afternoon.  I managed to get the tickets on sale with Jetstar for $39 NZ each way before tax so that's a slight relief on the financial front. 

Speaking of finances; I've been applying for jobs but a recruitment agent said that not a lot is going on at this time of the year with most roles starting late January or February.  Since we plan to leave pretty much as soon as I have the visa in my hands there would seem little point to accepting even a temporary role in mid-late January.  I'd probably have to leave before training finished if it were anything more than a very basic temp job.  Still, it's a requirement that I apply for jobs because of unemployment payment rules and when I tried to explain the situation to them they didn't want to hear about it.  They will be summoning me sometime after 9 January to provide evidence that I am seeking employment.  It's all incredibly demoralising, actually.  Paypal have also decided to lock fiance out of his account so he has to wait until his US bank opens on Wednesday (NZ time) before he can get his bank account number to unlock his paypal.  I don't understand why his online banking doesn't display his bank account number as mine does.  It's terribly inconvenient and this isn't the first time we've needed his account number yet been unable to obtain it.  Perhaps some feedback to his bank is in order.

On a less whiny note: the pohutukawa trees are starting to bloom in earnest now so I plan to get some good pictures of them to remind me of my home town when I'm living in the frozen north.  There have been so many tui birds around where we live - I don't think I've seen them so often in my life!  There's one which seems to come to perch on a branch that can be seen from the living room window most days and sings for us.  I even heard one imitating a car alarm one morning which I found amusing and quite impressive.  Anyway, fiance wants to go out for curry so I better get organised.