Timescale of Interview (9am appointment):
08:00 Arrive & join queue
09:30 Into Embassy
10:30 Hand over documents
10:50 Sit back down for a drink & snack
11:10 Interview
11:25 Pay for Courier
11:35 Out of Embassy/collect phone
11:44 Phone my missus
I drove into London on the previous night, stayed at a friend's in Battersea and was up and out of the door by 7:20 next morning. (I'd mulled over the travel options and had decided to drive to Grosvenor square and park up nearby). The five-mile journey through Chelsea took me around twenty minutes and I was lucky enough to strike a deal with the doorman at the Millennium Hotel (just off Grosvenor square) who let me park there for £15 for the day. This was ideal as I had no idea how long I'd need to be parked and the street-meters charged £1 per 15 minutes.
From here it was a minute's walk to the embassy. The embassy is surrounded by high wire fences, and along the entrance side is a line of concrete defences separating the queue from the road. I said a cheery 'good morning' the men with guns, got a cheery 'good morning' back, and joined the first stage. There were around twenty or so people in this initial queue and within fifteen minutes I was at the front. The man with the clipboard gave me a plastic bag to put any electronic devices in, checked my appointment letter and directed me to my line. There were several lines alongside each other and I was sixth in mine which slowly grew to around thirty people.
While standing silently in line for over an hour it's very easy for the smallest concerns to become big worries. With 9am looming I started to get anxious that I'd miss my appointed interview and would then find that I'd somehow been in the wrong queue. However once 9 o’clock came and went, the officials explained the set-up; my line turned out to be all the 9am people, and alongside were the 8:30s and beyond them a trickle of 8am-latecomers.
Finally, at 9:30 I was directed towards the third and final (very short) queue into the security-check cabin. This was no different to an airport. You need to be show you passport and remove any metallic items. The appointment letter is effectively your boarding-pass. My bag was put through the x-ray machine where the operators commented on its weight (almost two years worth of evidence adds up) and I handed over my bagged phone where it was deposited into a pigeonhole. Receipt-tag in hand and re-threading my belt into my trousers I walked the long walk around to the far-side of the building and up the steps into the foyer. I showed my appointment letter to the woman at the desk who assigned me a number - 13!
Up some more stairs and through the door into the large waiting-hall, I settled into one of the seats and gazed at the info-monitors. These monitors display a who’s-up-next information for immigrant visas (which strangely includes finance visas) and for non-immigrant visas.
My number was already on the screen, about third in line, but it took around an hour before I was called. In the excitement of the moment I totally missed which window I was being called to. Luckily the people around me were paying better attention! The screens alternate between who's next in the queue and which number is at which window so you can't really go wrong anyway.
The guy at the window was very friendly and when I told him about the famous sit-com face I’d spotted in the waiting area he told me that the Blairs had been in the previous day in preparation for their American speaker circuit.
I handed over my passport, photos and one-by-one the various documents (birth certificate, police certificate etc) and in return was given a massive envelope containing my chest x-ray. This, I was told, would have to travel with me as hand-luggage when I fly to the USA.
After I handed over the documents I was directed to another window to pay the $100 fee (cash or card - but I had both just in case the card machine was broken). Once that was done I returned to the first window to hand over the payment receipt and have my fingerprints scanned and that was the first stage over.
Back in the waiting area I was surprised to find that I just had enough time for a snack and a drink (available at the far end of the hall) before my number flashed back up on the screen for the interview. I reckon about 20 minutes had passed
This time I was called to a different window and the woman there asked me to scan my fingers again and then hold up my right hand while swearing to tell the truth. The first question was to explain my previous visa overstay and once she was satisfied with the reasons it was on to the relationship questions. It was all pretty simple stuff - where had we met, when did we start dating and how often had we seen each other and had my fiancée been to England. She was busily typing a lot into her computer and not being sure whether to pause and wait or keep on talking I just added a few extra bits of supporting information now and then. She seemed happy with the answers and told me that pending a few final checks I was approved!
With the interview over all that remained was to pay for the courier service and hand in the pink form with delivery details and make like Henry 8th. I collected my phone from round the front of the embassy and by 11:44 was on the phone to a sleepy-headed but joyous missus!
It's a bit of a daunting place to be but being my third visit I found myself to be feeling pretty confident. I was well prepared (over prepared in truth) and felt that the whole interview was more a formality at the end of the several month long paperwork/wait procedure than anything else! It was nice that the staff were all so friendly too.
Nice post, thanks for sharing.
