Hello, all. I've only recently stumbled onto this website, and I wish that I had found it about a year ago. It's great to find a community for "people like me" who are navigating through the bureaucratic process of getting a visa for their special someone. It's nice to know that I'm not alone in my journey.
My fiancee is in Albania, and her interview date is March 29 . Does anybody have any experience with the Embassy in Tirana? My wife-to-be has a low opinion of them after she was denied a tourist visa last spring. Any advice? We've been very thorough on our paperwork, so I'm cautiously optimistic about it, but I'm also anxious because I don't want anything to go wrong. Eva had her medical on March 21, so we're just waiting for next Thursday, and keeping our fingers crossed. Any pointers about potential pitfalls would be much appreciated.

Regards,
Michael

The embassy is totally different to you when you go apply for a tourist visa, and when you are going in for your I-129F interview. My fiance went in for a tourist visa (in Poland) and they were rude & mean to him, lack of respect totally. But when he went in for the fiance visa, its a totally different set of people, nice & pleasant, even joked with him a bit. I say don't worry, as long as you have all the paperwork everything will go smooth!

Good luck on your upcoming interview. We went through the process in December. Unfortunately, in Albania the same people interview you for the fiancee visa as the tourist visa. While you wait you can watch what they say to the other people as they interview you at a window in front of everyone. Our interview went fairly well, but I was there and the people at the window had watched us for over an hour while we waited. His interview took only 5-10 minutes. They asked how we met and about our photos.

We did see a lot of people get interviewed for 20-30 minutes and not receive visas. We were the only ones where the American was born here and not a recent citizen or permanent resident and I don't know if that helped. They really wanted to believe that it was a real relationship. They were concerned how we comunicated since I don't speak Albanian and he did not speak English. Having photos of us with other people seemed to be helpful.

Our appointment was at 9. They took the money and medical info and told him to come back at 1. He then waited until 3 to be interviewed. We got the visa a week later.

Good luck.

Thank you both for the replies. I've reminded my fiancee several times that K-1 visas are judged differently than tourist visas, but she's still skeptical. With regards to paperwork, I didn't give her copies of the original application, because it never occurred to me that she'd ever need copies of it. I hope that doesn't turn out to be a problem. But since then, I've urged her to make copies of everything that she sent to the Embassy in Tirana, and to take all of it to her interview. She also has a big stack of letters, and photos of us together, and with her family.
I was born in the United States, and I've visited her 3 times in the 2 1/2 years that we've been writing and calling each other. Her English is very good, after I got used to her accent. Although they never asked for it, I sent an updated Letter of Intent to her last week through DHL, as well as a photocopy of my passport, which gives evidence of all 3 visits. If I could have afforded it, I would have liked to be there for the interview, but I decided that I'd buy tickets after her interview. If she gets the visa, I'll buy tickets for both of us; if she doesn't get the visa, then it'll just be another visit, and we'll adjust our plans accordingly. I'm really hoping that we've covered our bases well enough.
Thanks again for the information the the support.