FrostyMist

do you mind me asking why you're shipping 12 cans of Felix over?

Heh, it is a bit of a strange order, isn't it?

It's because I'm taking my cat, Sally, with me when I move. She has a really sensative stomach, so I don't want to change her diet right when we arrive in the US. They don't sell Felix over there, so I'm having to ship over 12 tins of the stuff to last her for the first month - by the time we run out, I'm hoping Sally will be settled into her new home and we can start trying to find a US alternative brand. We did look at trying to change her cat food here in the Uk to some brand that's also available in the US, but anything we could find she either 1) can't tolerate or 2) would be cheaper to send the felix.

Has anyone used the site britishcornershop.com ?

Before I leave for the US, I need to ship over 12 tins of felix cat meat, 2kg of cat biscuits, 12 litres of Ribena, plus tea bags and some other "essentials".

I was originally going to go with www.britishfooddirect.com but I did some research prior to ordering from them, and there are quite a lot of bad reviews on them. Also, I emailed customer services 3 or 4 days back with a query, and haven't had a response since. I think that's not a good sign.

So, I'm thinking of going with britishcornershop.com now. Their shipping rates are really competative, though the products themselves are pricier than most other online stores I've seen. Still, they look promising, and they do at least sell everything I want to buy.

Just wondering if anyone here would recommend them?

That fella made me spaz out this morning like I've missed something through all my research!

It could have been a typing error, or perhaps he meant the NOA2 (forgot what the proper name for that one is).

But, don't worry. I don't recognize I-135, no one asked me for one at the embassy, and I got approved just fine. I think it's probably at typing error.

Ok so I just read an interview and the fella said they asked him for an I-135???? ####### is that? I mean I know about the I-134 but I have NO idea what an I-135 is?

Perhaps they were applying for a different visa? CR-1, maybe?

Congratulations to you too!

How did you find your interview, what questions did they ask you? There did not seem to be many I numbers did there? At one point i thought i was missed off the list!

When they gave me my ticket number, I thought there'd been a mistake. I didn't think the K1 visa was classified as an immigrant visa (even though it allows you to stay in the US) because it's still necessary to go through AoS once married. I kinda worried a bit when I saw my number began with an I, but I guess I was somehow misinformed at some point in the past about this issue, because the embassy staff were happy to reassure me everything was good.

Thanks everyone for all your help, advice and support! I got my visa approved today yay!

Congratulations! I had a feeling you'd be okay, though I know there's always that element of doubt and uncertainty and second guessing that makes us all worry about the outcome.

Hopefully it wasn't as bad as we all think it's going to be. I spend so much time thinking about it...it's not healthy!

By the time my interview day arrived, the mere thought of it sent me into a breathless sort of terror. I tried very hard not to think about it-after a certain point, you've done as much as you can, there's no time to do any more, and to think on it too much more is not healthy. But it's natural. This is important to all of us - the most important thing I've ever done in my life, certainly - it's natural to worry.

@ lesleysizeland: Deep breaths, try not to panic. You need to make sure to get some rest tonight-the interview and stress involved can be pretty exhausting. All the best with your interview, I'm sure you're going to be fine. I know finding you're missing something is a real stress, but the embassy are typically only interested in determining the quickest and easiest means of proving you wont' become a public burden. I'm sure that they consider income to be far better for that than life insurance.

forgot to add, my interview is tomorrow and somehow we missed this! Will it affect us getting the visa do you think?

I doubt it. The first thing they look at is income; if that's okay, then they won't care to look at anything else. (That's how it seemed to me when I went for my interview)

It might be worth us getting a notarized letter each maybe and i can take them with me to the interview? I mean in with all the documents though there are both of our letter of consents ya know so im not too sure.

In our case, there were some lengthy delays during which the embassy would have heard nothing from me if I hadn't have written to them and sent my fiance's letter of intent.

Even though I knew I would be delayed in sending in my checklist, I sent in all the forms because I felt this would prove that my application was still "active". Originally, I had been hoping that my checklist could be sent off a couple of weeks later (i was waiting some documents) but there were massive delays and in the end, I didn't send my checklist back to them until end of November.

Apparently, it's not very difficult to get a notarized letter of intent done in the US. So I'd have one of those ready at the interview, just in case. But it's a lot harder in the UK - I paid £30 for mine, (some charge as much as £70, maybe even more!) and there are not many places that offer this service (had to travel 40 minutes to get mine done). It seems pointless that the UK citizen should be required to do this, but I was just really, really worried so had it done anyways. I couldn't get a straight "yes" or "no" answer from the embassy, so didn't want to go to the interview without it-just in case.

And yes, you do need to get a police certificate. Even if you know you have no convictions, they don't know that without proof. When I sent off for mine in August, it took about 3 - 4 weeks before I got it, so get that done as soon as possible.

Put the dates to the best of your recollection and say so on the form.

You have to obtain police certificates regardless of any conviction, or the lack of.

That's pretty much exactly what I was going to say.

First off, I sent my check-list off in the post to get my interview date, my medical is feb 12th, I am just wondering what the average time is between sending the letter and the actual interview date. Is it a couple of weeks or like a month or two?

I think I read somewhere that the London embassy have a bit of a backlog at the moment. I just had my interview on the 15th January, and I sent my checklist in around the 18th November. (I think) I got an interview letter four weeks after I sent off my checklist, and the interview itself worked out at being about 4 weeks after the letter arrived. I think it partly depends on what time of the month you send your checklist off---from what I can tell, the embassy seem to schedule interviews only at a certain time each month.

Secondly on the notice of action form (i-797) that my fiancée received state side the expiry date is 1st march. I am starting to panic now because i know that you only get the 4 month period to sort your forms, medical and interview out etc. If I don't get my interview date before then should I notify them or will they see on their records and automatically extend the date another month or so? Or should I email them or phone them or something?

Our expiary date was October 31st 2009. Interview was January 15th 2010. It wasn't a problem for us--we were approved and I wasn't even asked about it at the interview (I brought it up myself though, because I was concerned the issue had been mistakenly overlooked).

I had a really hard time finding information out about this. In the end, I sent a notarized letter of intent from my fiance to them in the beginning of November (as well as a brief cover letter explaining why I was writing, and why we were delayed---"we are still collecting documentation", was what I wrote). And then took an updated notarized letter of intent from him, (since it had been over three months since I sent them the October notarized letter) and also one from myself, (cost was £30 for me) to my interview in January.

I'm not sure how much of any of this was actually necessary to do. When I asked about it at my interview, the interviewer said "it's fine, I have everything here." So, I guess it seems all he really needed was my fiance's letter of intent. But I made sure to hand over my letter of intent, which he did accept, just because I was worried something had been overlooked (and also because I didn't like the idea that I might have paid £30 for something that ended up being useless!)

I wonder if someone can advise... My interview was Monday 25th and today I went on 'The DX' website to try and track my passport. It just says this message - 'Sorry, this combination of tracking number and postcode do not correspond with our records. Please check and try again.' Did anyone else experience this? Is there a problem or will it just get assigned when they have my package? I'm a little bit worried. I've emailed them to enquire but no response yet.

Don't worry. I got exactly the same thing when I tried to track my visa after the interview. The visa only shows up in their system once it has been issued by the embassy - when it is on its way for delivery. My interview was 15th, and my visa was delivered on the 25th. My tracking information showed up about 2 days before the visa arrived (so that means it was listed online sometime around the 23rd).

I got approved today

Congratulations!!

If you do decide to drive to London, then I hope it all goes well. And, all the best for your interview, too.

London is a pretty daunting place, especially if you're not a confident driver. My mum, for example, would probably go to pieces trying to get through London if she'd been the one driving me there. As it was, my step-father is quite relaxed about driving, and having the experience from the medical was a great help, too.

The biggest problems with London are parking and traffic. At about 6am, when we arrived there, it was neither busy on the roads, nor all that difficult to park. As I said, it was a lot busier when we were trying to leave London, but that wasn't so bad - we didn't have an interview to get to!

Anyone have any idea how long it usually takes once your in the embassy?

Assuming I arrived outside the embassy at 8:30 (didn't have my watch to check) we were back out again by 11:30. That's about 3 hours, and also includes time spent getting in and getting back to the car when we were done.

When I had my medical in November, I wasn't up to date with my teatenus (really annoying, because the doctors told me I was fine, so I'd thought I was good to go) and was advised by the nurse not to bother with the vaccination at the medical due to costs.

I panicked when I got back, after reading that it's maybe not quite as simple as the nurse made out. I posted a topic about it on VJ, and got some helpful answers.

You might want to check it out yourself: http://www.visajourney.com/forums/index.ph...=230389&hl=

awesome, thanks for your help. and using a debit card (so long as it's VISA) to pay is ok?

They wouldn't accept my card, which was Maestro. But they were happy to accept my step-father's instead, which was a Visa debit card.

The only thing you need to do for the courier is pay at the desk before you leave. Everything is sent out to you in a big dark red plastic envelope (the envelope is provided by them). Inside that will be passport and the sealed envelope you need to hand over when you enter the U.S.

I ordered two. Kept one for myself, photocopied the other and took it and the original to the embassy. They gave me back my original, kept the photocopy. Now I have two originals, so it was a bit of a waste of money getting two done really.

Gary, I know this was a while ago, but Im coming down from Birmingham too and considering doing exactly the same thing as you. Did you decide to go early and drive? Did you park in Park Lane? If so, how did it go? My interview is in 2 weeks and I think for the hassle it would save, parking up in there would make it quicker and easier.

Just wondered what you ended up doing in the end!

Cheer

Sophie

We drove down to London for my interview, so maybe I can share my experiences.

My interview was for 9am, so we reached London at around 6ish. At that time in the morning, it wasn't very busy at all and we made it to the car park without any hold ups. We'd already done much of the route when going to my medical back in November, so I think that helped a lot.

We parked in the car park that is under hyde park (I think that's the one on Park Lane, but I'm not certain since I didn't do the driving and I was too busy being nervous to pay attention--I can check if you want me to confirm where we parked, though, just let me know and I'll find out). The car park under Hyde Park is massive, and at about 7am it was not busy at all. The cost is about £4 an hour, though I think there's a minimum set price of around £12 or £16 (can't quite remember though to be honest). We parked up at 7, stayed in the car for an hour and ate, then headed off to the embassy at 8. We were back in the car for around 11:30. The great thing about parking there was that we knew we could stay all day if need be, which we thought was better than trying to find a metered parking bay - they have a time limit, from what I've read, and we didn't think that was a wise choice considering that you cannot predict how long you'll be in the embassy.

Getting to the embassy from the car park wasn't a big deal at all. My step-father had to push me in my wheelchair, and we made it there in about 10 - 15 minutes. We printed a road mad off online before we left, and that helped a lot.

It was crazy getting out of London, but I expected that because it was later in the morning. By that time though, I didn't really care anyways because we'd been approved. All in all, I'd expected the whole thing to be a terribly stressful experience, and it wasn't so bad at all. Then again, I was used to London a little (after going there for my medical) so I think that helped to prepare me.

Hello! quick question - for those that already have their visa, can I ask how long it took to arrive in the post? It's been 5 working days and I've been trying to track my visa online but I just get an error message saying:

I had my interview on 15th Jan, and my visa was delivered on 25th. It seems that it takes a bit longer than the 3-6 days the embassy estimates.

Poor John...paperwork is not his forte'.

My poor fiance is just the same. It really bugs him that this is so confusing for him. At least I'm pretty organized-would be a nightmare if we both struggled with this sort of thing.

For my interview, because of my visual impairment, I had to use a system that didn't require me having to read anything. In the end, I divided everything into four seperate files: my stuff, his stuff, his parents stuff, evidence of support. Then I paperclipped things together as necessary. I think it worked very well, since I thought carefully about what order I placed the documents and was actually lucky that they asked for everything in the exact order I had arranged things.

I was curious as to why the embassy was closed, so looked it up online, and apparently:

Services at the Embassy this week are severely limited, and many interviews for both immigrant and nonimmigrant visas have been rescheduled. This is apparently due to the planned visit to London of the US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.

(Link: http://www.usvisalawyers.co.uk/whatsnew.htm )

Sorry to anyone who has had their interview cancelled because of this. I hope the rescheduled interview is not too far away.

Please don't worry NikkiUK. I know its a very easy thing to say but I was sick with nerves from the moment I woke up yesterday morning and in the queue to go in, I thought 'I'm going to have to leave the queue in a minute'.

It's a very strange feeling to suddenly no longer have the interview to worry about, isn't it? I still feel nervous for other people, when they have their interviews. As you've noted though, if you're organized, then that's half the stress gone. I was really surprised when I was at my interview, seeing the couple in front of me (who were also applying for a k1) and they didn't seem to have anything at all prepared. I was organized, therefore, my interview went very smoothly.

It's a strange thing about the nerves-I too found that once it actually came to arriving at the embassy, I felt oddly calm about the whole thing. My hands shook a lot when I had to have my fingerprints taken, but I bet they are used to that!

Can I jump in and ask if the courier delivers at the weekend as well? I have my interview on the 29th and (hoping and praying everything goes well) I'm hoping to fly on feb 8th. Think I might be pushing it a bit?

I think you have to pay extra for weekend delivery-though I'm not sure. I just payed the standard amount, so didn't pay too much attention to the other services available.