piosenka

Filing Date for our 751 was 7/13/2010 at CSC, please add us. Thank you.

GC came in the mail yesterday! YAY Can my husband really leave the country to visit his parents now?? I'm scared to go on vacation and not be able to bring him back after all this work. :x

Green card production ordered today! (technically yesterday)

Good News April Filers! Got notice today that my husband's EAD card was ordered. Maybe things will start to pick up again for everyone

Hi Everyone,

My fiance plans on sending me a few thousand dollars to pay off my credit card bills in conjuction with wedding expenses. We are thinking about him either sending me a Cashier's check or using Western Union.

Is anyone aware of this being a problem? I don't know a better way for him to help me pay off my CC bills. I want them clear of debt before he marries me. I just don't want it to look suspicious to the government that he's sending me this kind of cash as a gift... I wish you could pay off credit cards with other credit cards That would be so much easier.

He'll be here in a month, but like I said, I want my debt cleared and my rating as good as possible 30 days before we get married.

Thanks,

Mary

Wow, this is definitely tough. If I was in your position I would:

Tell him that you respect his opinion because he will be an adult soon. However, suggest that he just finish the paperwork/interview process so if he does decide to come along, he will have the final choice in what to do. Fill in all the paperwork for him, just have him sign it.

Let him know you want to bring him so you can be there for him and support him with housing, food, etc. Also I'd let him know you'll help get him started in the new area and help him look for a job or a school. You can reassure him that if he wanted to move back in a year or two, he'd be free to make that choice if he couldn't adjust.

For someone of that age, especially one that isn't very stable, it's important that he/she doesn't feel abandoned...

Keep in mind this is just my opinion - obviously none of us really can understand the relationship that you have with him...

Good luck! I love seeing all this progress!

Congrats Liz! You had the same interviewer I did I think! I loved his voice - it cracked me up.

No problem, I appreciate the feedback either way. Is there a current list going which states which POE's are successful in giving an EAD stamp?

WELL THEY FINALLY WROTE BACK,

I called the NVC and they gave me number 202-663-1225 to call .. The polite man on the phone looked into the case and said MTL mailed me a letter Sept 13. And if they were to become involved in the case now i still would not recieve the letter in time for the interview. So just to show up, and he is not sure if they will allow me to go forward with my "mission".

About 20 mins later i got am e-mail from MTL.. stating they mailed a letter out Sept 13 and thats all they said. So WOW aint we the lucky ones ..... I will show up Monday morning with my papers in hands and HOPE they have my name on some list and allow me in there ... GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

Make sure to print out all copies of all the email contact that you've had with them and bring it with!

Grats Liz! I can't wait to read your review!

Oh nice, that does sound like one!

Are there any confirmed POE's that usually give them out? My fiance is going to fly from Thunder Bay, ON to Toronto to Chicago coming in, would be nice to get that stamp!

Toronto has US Immigration at their airport so you'll be activating your K-1 at that post. Sorry you won't get the stamp there.

vanee....sounds like that's what you have.

Congratulations and best wishes on your marriage! Pictures please

Carla

What if I have him fly from Thunder Bay to Minneapolis, to Chicago? Any difference there?

Oh nice, that does sound like one!

Are there any confirmed POE's that usually give them out? My fiance is going to fly from Thunder Bay, ON to Toronto to Chicago coming in, would be nice to get that stamp!

My fiance didn't bring any copies of his passport and was never asked for any.

I think the main purpose of having copies for the Consulate is so they don't have to take your originals (i.e, birth certificate, etc). The Consulate is going to take your original passport no matter what, so that's why I don't think they need a copy. If they need a copy for their records before or after they put the visa in your passport, I'm sure they will copy it at their office.

I am extremely curious, so I will probably contact them to find out what's up, however it really isn't going to be a conflict since Artur will be moving to the US in January. I'll let you guys know if it was just a clerical error or something important.

looks great!

On Artur's Visa stamp it says that it expires February 28th, 2008. Does that mean he has to arrive in the US before 2/28 or get married before 2/28? In either case, that definitely isn't 6 months like we were told...

Does anyone know anything about this? Any help is appreciated!

Mary

your review made me all nervous!!!!

the butterflies are setting in..

OMG I'M REALLY GOING TO MONTREAL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(great review, btw)

sorry about the freak out.

lol... no worries about the freak out, you'll be great! Good luck and relax. I found out that we were WAY too prepared for the interview, and I have a feeling that you are even more detail oriented than me I can't wait to hear how yours went!

Hey y'all,

Here's my MTL experience and review(sorry if it's kinda long)....

My journey started in Toronto Tuesday night. I had a friend come with me and we got on the Coach Canada bus at 9pm headed for Montreal. We stopped in Kingston at midnight for 30 minutes. We arrived in Montreal at 3:45am. It was cold and kinda spooky at that time of the morning. I didn't know north from south, even though I had a map. A taxi driver stopped and asked me where I was going. He spoke very good english, so I said I needed to go to the US Consualte. The taxi only cost $7, but I gave him $10 for being so helpful.

The Consulate is on a side street, that looks like a semi dark alley and you need to look up to see the street number on the building, along with the Consulate emblem. There is no American flag. At 4am I decided we needed to find a coffee shop to stay warm and figure out what we were going to do until it was time to line up. We did not sleep at all on the bus. So for anyone wanting to take the bus to Montreal, I hope you can get some sleep.

There is a Tim Hortons just 1 block south of the Consulate at the corner of Rene-Levesque and Du Frere Andre. You can see it right at the corner and they are open at 4am! The employees there do understand english a bit, but don't speak it too well.

There is nothing open at that time of the morning, so we walked around a bit to kill some time. At 6:45am I decided it would be a good time to get back to the Consualte to line up. I was 1st in line! Within 5 minutes piosenka(Mary and Arthur) showed up in a taxi and went to the coffee shop thats in the same building as the Consulate around the corner. I think that it opens up at 7am, but Mary said not to go there. The coffee sucks LOL. They were 2nd in line. Both Mary and Arthur are really nice people. I had a chance to speak with them pretty much the entire time.

The doors opened up at 7:30am. I showed my interview letter and proceeded to go to the x-ray machines. After clearning security, I was given a card with the letter "B" and was told to go down the stairs to sit on the chairs by the elevator until security was ready to escort us all upstairs. After reaching the 19th floor, we all proceeded to window #9 to give our interview letter and xpress envelope to the person at the window. We then had to wait to be called back to give all our papers and was told to wait at window #14 to pay the visa fee. This by the way doesn't open up till 8:30am. I paid the fee and returned the reciept to window #11. I sat down and waited to be called again for fingerprints. Sat down again to be called for the interview.

At 8:55am I was called and I went to door #9 and it is a closet LOL. The lady I spoke with is in her 40's, short straight brown hair. Very nice lady. She had to take another fingerprint of my left middle finger. I guess it didn't turn out too well the 1st time. So I almost flipped her off LOL. She asked me where did I meet my fiancee, which I told her online and a short story about that. Then she flipped through my file. She then asked me to swear an oath that everything I was about to tell her, along with everything in the file was to be true, etc etc. I said yes, I do! She then asked me where do I plan on moving too, when do we plan on getting married and also what do I do for a living. I told her I'm not employed right now, but that I'm going to school. Then she explained about the visa and that I have 6 months to enter the USA, then 90 days to get married. Now at this point, I was exhausted and I think I heard her say, "your visa will be approved today, we'll send it out tomorrow, you might get it Friday or Monday", or she said, "your visa is approved, etc etc" LOL. She gave me a paper explaining about the visa. I then asked her if I was done and if I could go, she said yes. I left the building at 9:10am.

Mary and Arthur were done at the same time, so we took the elevator down together. I congratulated them on their approval and we went our seperate ways.

We walked towards the bus terminal, which is about a 30 minute walk. Found McDonalds, used the bathroom and bought muffins. We were not supposed to leave until 5:30pm, but found that we could get on the 11:30am departure back to Toronto, so we did that. We didn't sleep at all again, but got back into the city at 6:20pm.

So thats my story. Hope it's helpful to those who will be going there soon for their interviews.

Mary

Sorry about my delay about my review, but I am finally home and in front of a computer!

I don't want to totally repeat everything Mary said, but our experience that day was very similar! As she mentioned, Artur and I showed up around 7am and we were 2nd in line behind Mary and her friend. Both of them were so nice and it made us feel a lot more comfortable. I definitely want to reinforce the fact that you should not go to that coffee shop on the corner. The pastries are good, but the coffee was so bitter and blah. Walking to Tim Horton's was definitely the smarter idea. What was funny was we lined up behind Mary to the right of the consulate doors, and the security guard came out at 7:30 am and told us we must line up to the left of the doors. I really don't see why it mattered at all LOL.

We walked in and we were given a small square card that reminded me of a refrigerator magnet. It said "A". We waited til most people in line were through security and the nice guard escorted us up to the 19th floor. I was giggling because he only called people with a letter card to follow him and other people were trying to get on the elevator without a card. In their defense I think they were just confused and there was somewhat of a language barrier.

Once we were in the waiting room, we got called up to the window to turn in our paperwork several times. The lady seemed middle aged, short blonde hair and was very nice to us. She had forgotten to ask us for a couple documents so we had to keep going back and going through our paperwork. After the paperwork was turned in, then we had to wait to pay the 100US dollars to the cashier. The cashier seemed to take forever to open the window. I think if the cashier opened earlier, they could get the interviews done faster. After everything was paid and turned in, we were called to Door 8 on the loud speaker. The gentlemen had a great voice, he sounded like he could have been a radio jockey LOL. We walked in this closet sized room and met the interviewer who had called us in. He was younger (and cute :X) and was one of the most laid back and kind people I've met. The interview lasted not even 5 minutes. He asked: How did you guys meet? When did you decide to get married? You (to Artur) have been in Canada since 1981, correct? What did you do your first time in Chicago? Then Artur and the interviewer joked around about baseball. Our answers were short and to the point, but apparently sufficient! He said "Congratulations, you qualify for the Fiance Visa. We should finish up the paperwork for you today and send the visa out soon." I wanted to hug the interviewer bc he was so great, but he was behind the glass LOL.

Mary finished at the same time so we chatted shortly about the interview, wished each other good luck and went our separate ways. Artur's visa arrived on Friday the 26th!

We stayed at L'Hotel de la Montagne. We loved the hotel, it had a European 20's theme which included a Cabaret, Discotheque and Restaurant/Bar and the Deluxe King room was HUGE. It was very romantic and was totally our style. It was expensive at about $140 per night. It was right off St. Catherine's and Rue de la Montagne, so it was very close to shopping, tons of restaurants and a few blocks from the Consulate. We found this breakfast place, Eggceptional and we ate there every day. They had tons of yummy breakfast food for cheap. We also ate at "Guido and Angelina's" and Reubens which we both definitely recommend! Reubens was a recommendation by our concierge for a great steak and he was right! We had such a wonderful romantic time together. We absolutely loved Montreal (and didn't know an ounce of French outside of Bonjour), so if you can get a chance to make a vacation out of it, please do!

Well I'm finally headed with my Canadian Fiance to Montreal tomorrow! I've focused so much on the process and getting things organized, I really didn't even look into the culture and background of Montreal...

I really respect all cultures, and I do not want to visit Montreal as a total ignorant traveler. What tips can any of you give me about what to expect from a language and cultural viewpoint?

Each time I've called to verify reservations, etc, they always just speak French, so I would like to be polite since my fiance and I do not speak a word of French...

It caught me off guard one time on the phone, and I just politely said, "Do you speak English?" The man from the hotel sighed rudely and said "YES HOW CAN I HELP YOU". I'm worried I offended him. Is it more appropriate for me to say "Parlez vous Anglais?" anywhere I go in Montreal? We will be staying for 5 days, eating out a lot, and I want to at least respect people around me.

I just really have not had even 5 minutes (until now) to think about the fact that I am visiting a new place with a different culture than I'm used to. Any tips would be appreciated. In the meantime, I will do some research! Maybe I'm worried because of my experience with the hotel on the phone :x

Yeah, the DoS website is what referred me to the expired form. I guess I'll just have to use that for now!

http://www.state.gov/m/a/dir/forms/

I'm preparing for our K1 interview and went to have my fiance fill out the DS-156 but it says it expires 9/30/2007?

https://evisaforms.state.gov/ds156.asp

What will happen if we turn in an expired ds156? I cannot locate the updated one...

Does anyone have a link to one after 9/30?

You know, all this could be solved by connecting their information system to a website. Just like the USCIS website. This simple login could tell you when the office received your stuff, the approximate waiting times, your interview date, checklist, and it could also tell you not to call or email questions that are already answered by the site. It would save time, people power and a lot of worrying and frustration... I'm more ticked off that they dont have this service than the fact that they make us wait so long.

My fiance and I are going to stay at L'Hotel De La Montagne. I'll let you guys know how that turns out!

I just asked my fiance, he said that typically on Canadian bachelor parties, the guy does a "stage dive". I laughed and asked him wth that was. The man lays on his back on the stage and the girl will pick the coin with her breasts. I guess that's a somewhat creative way on how to deal with not having dollar bills >.<