SandT

solmarc, here's the link to the SSN information, including the document (RM something..) link to print out to bring to the SSN office if they're giving you issues:

http://www.visajourney.com/content/ssn

YAY THATS EXCITING!!!

I just came from applying for the SSN, they gave me a letter and told me they will investigate if i came legally (LOL i show my visa and i94 so dont get it but ok) asked for a few weeks to get it... but probably by the time i get it i have to change it for Honeys last name after we married...

This is insane. Find the information from the Social Security Administration regarding processing of K1s for a Social Security card. I'm pretty sure links have been given on VJ, as I believe we had a copy of the relevant rule/policy/statute on hand just in case, but didn't need it. Go back to SS office with it in hand, tell them to do their job and be done with it already.

Did you get your marriage license OK?

Ours was no problem - we did have an SSN card for her but never used it, just the passport and K1/I-94 was sufficient.

We tied the knot with a great ceremony outdoors after getting a cabin for a number of days, then went on to do a roadtrip covering 5 states or so and some 2500 miles and 10 days away from work.

We did make the 'mistake' of trying to get her new SSN with name changed, and I'm still not sure if we should be able to or not. For a new SSN/first time application, the window is apparently from 15 days after arrival to 74 days after arrival, as they want 2 weeks 'remaining' on legal status/I94 or won't issue one. For a name change, it seems like the original (now expired) I94 + marriage certificate should be enough for the name change, but isn't, so I guess we won't deal with that one until after AOS. So I guess technically we're now slightly 'out of status' until we file for AOS, which we'll do this week - I've seen some people not file for up to a year or more(!!!), but that just seems to be pointless, better to get it done soon, deal with the various places to handle name changes at, etc.

UK- good luck on the interview, hope it's painless.

LeslienScott - Congratulations. Sorry it's not soon, but at least the date is finally set and in sight!!

SandT, where do I begin. Can't get good tea anywhere, few restaurants have hot green tea. Our cheese sucks. Sour cream is OK. Veka is happy with prices. She likes our beer. Bud Light, Miller Lite, Michelob, (in bottle of course), but our wines suck. Maybe I will buy her something with a cork in it instead of a screw top. Veka likes fajitas, mahi-mahi, salmon, steak, sushimi, and our lettuce salads. Funny about te oraganic vegetables. We went to the farmers market, immediately, our produce does not have good smell and she said "too many chemicals." Now we are buying organic, looks like #######, but better taste. She has done a little bit of shoe and clothes shopping, nails done, new blackberry so she can call her family on Skype every day.

on the cork vs screw top.

T is pretty happy with the wine, although I miss the availability of Georgian wine myself. Of course, shopping organic adds up - fruits, vegetables, chicken, beef, eggs - not so bad in most cases, anywhere from 25% to 100% over "unknown chemicals used for extra loving" I may have to start shooting us some deer.

Sorry about the furniture experience; I hate furniture shopping. I seem to 'naturally' sit on or gravitate towards the more expensive stuff, even if it's simpler looking than much of it..then you find out they want thousands of dollars and they'll deliver t in "a few months." Yeah, next store! No immediate furniture shopping in sight besides probably a few armoires and a dining room set, all needed, and so far we found a nice used piece. T is better at saving money than me, by far, and had a small cow over a run ($ spent) to Costco, but you know how it is there; we now have TP and paper towels for a half year, and meat for almost as long.

Who is on the list of no NOA2 or interview date still?

Who isn't yet with their other half?

Fingers crossed for both of the above, and hope everyone else is settling in smoothly and happily.

kharkov - yeah, not a Soviet era store in sight here.

With a few exceptions, we didn't have much of a problem in finding most things in Belarus, but we were somewhat lucky in location to be close enough to an area with a Korona(obviously not spelled correctly), but the overwhelming difference for T still remains in the selection and choices we have in some items, followed of course by the prices; some good and some amazingly bad by comparison. Food of course, costs more here, as does decent wine, but some clothes were insanely priced in Belarus; I still recall the first time I saw a pair of $250USD+ Levis there.

The things we simply couldn't find were random - bath oils, decent candles, some cheeses, hot sauce and other sauces, some types of adventure or camping gear.

Things here we of course can't find - "normal" cottage cheese, some fish, some breads, some chocolates, kvas, kefir, and the types of almost falling down temporary stands selling random hardware kind of places.

Mostly, it's not a big deal; we tried some Breakstone's Sour Cream as a comparison, and T said it was fine, maybe even too thick (fat content). We're getting mostly organic fruits and some meats. There definitely isn't the selection of sausage/kielbasa here that there was in Belarus, but she loves sliced sandwich meat over the solid hunks of ham we would get usually in BY. Of course, she is surprised by some of the ####### US manufacturers put into some foods..

T is being pretty good on finances, making sure we need something if it's more than a few dollars for the most part, except on occasion when I can convince her otherwise. She loved the bath store, although so far, she has refrained from buying the place. We need to head out on a clothes spree soon, not at her insistence so much as mine so she has enough of a comfortable selection for her, and we need to figure out who is wearing what for the wedding as well, which is still a little ways off but will be here soon enough.

She is still adjusting to living full time in a house. She loves it during the days; we've got a few bird feeders and the yard is full of them, and we eat outside at least once a day. She's adjusted to the AC pretty well; it may help that I can control the humidity on mine, and it's not the first time she's been around it, at all, but a lot of them leave the air dried out (like many/most hotel conditioners, or the few we had in Minsk). I leave it at 76*F or 77*F over the usual 70*F or so, but it's fine, and will wind up saving us $ regardless. Living in a house at night, though, is still a change.

Well, we just got back from a nice trip, so back to work it is for a while..

I can't believe a few of you are still waiting. It is now approaching or past the time of 5 months with CIS, so you can all 'officially' start griping to CIS as well as the government at large, possibly/hopefully with some results!

UK- Come on, the UK is the only place that to me eats even worse than the average American, look at it like as a healthy experience, where brown sauce isn't required on everything. RE: 'chips,' look for 'steak fries' to make them at home.

Chocolates - try Ghirardelli, Cadbury, or Dove; you should like one of those probably.

English Muffins - find a real bakery, or you could try a bread maker. I know it won't help much for crumpets/other funny Brit muffin-like things, but it should help. A good bakery will have a pretty good selection.

Yeah, we'll be doing our own hair, too. Wait, that means I have to brush it?!?!!

We actually did think of having the 'wedding vehicle' be my motorcycle, but decided the helmets might interfere with her veil.

The living room and half of the house is re-arranged already, although I'll admit, it does look better. She is still a little at odds with staying in a house versus the apartment buildings in Belarus, but we eat outside every day, where the lack of neighbors is appreciated. It's so nice now to only need to use Skype to talk to her family and not each other, I have no words.

PS - The second kharkov leaves, the thread gets all girly again, what's up with that?

you guys, after a million of desesperation dates, i finally have my interview date, yayyyyyyy Sept 17

Congrats!

Nancy - A big congratulations and hoping the rest is smooth and fast sailing!

POE at JFK. I'm sure we did it wrong - so many people there, lines filling as I went looking to ask if she should come with me through USC lines, or I with her through non-US. Rolled the dice and went with her, 2 hours of lines, watching our luggage spin around and around behind customs. I got to watch some foreign family with seeming insanely spoiled kids, who seemed to think it was fine for their kids to unwrap candy and then throw the wrappers on the floor. Very nice.

Once through that, we waited maybe 10 minutes for the K1 portion, we kept expecting her to get dragged off into some room, instead a guy at a desk with us both there, took all of 3 minutes. No one every did ask for that X-ray, the one in the envelope sized impossible to carry anywhere conveniently.

We had some delays in the hotel shuttle; I had thought it might be nice to overnight in NY, and to not worry about going through POE and maybe missing our connection, but I was so tired when booking, we made it to the room with jacuzzi, finally, got very few hours of sleep, to come back to JFK. Mental note - do math better next time, dummy. The airlines people were fine, we snuck an overweight bag in without fee, but the first level security folks must be hired from Wal-Mart rejects. :( They simply could NOT manage to count our bags properly, telling us we had too many. Apparently they were trying to count my *travel pillow* as one bag; it's in a tiny pouch and I hold it onto my laptop backpack with a caribiner clip, never got so much as a question before. Oh yes, and our cat, who had so far managed to live in a humane sized carrier, we had a second smaller one she couldn't stand up in, were told at checkin we'd need it (smaller plane), but wanted to leave her in the big one until we boarded, never mind throwing out a $60 carrier. Apparently, even with a ticket in hand for the cat, security felt the urge to want to make new airline rules, on the fly, or something. (Hint - right answer = one carry-on + one additional such as laptop, etc, PLUS if you travel (and pay) with an animal. Check the airlines, not the 'wisdom' of 'security' ) Then a hugely overweight rabbi was arguing with the same guard, while literally walking in a circle, nearly stepping on T, bumping into her with his bag (as he rolled in a circle), until I had it. Please stop, NOW. Pay attention, and stop moving NOW No doubt, I'm not his favorite person any longer, but he got the message.

All's well, though - just the running of the gauntlet of usual airport travel. We got back, couldn't believe it. We haven't unpacked, but some wine was had. We feel like we still don't know what day or time it is, but - who cares? :) I had arranged for some flowers to be delivered right after we made it back. The doorbell rang, I checked, and told T it was for her, and she got a nice surprise. She told me later she thought maybe it was Passport Control/Immigration. (Yes, she knows just how unlikely that event is, and was laughing later, but we were *quite* tired by now! ) The cat already thinks it owns the place. Hopefully no water spray bottle discussion is forthcoming.

kharkov - LMAO about the luggage. I got a momentary interesting look and scolding when I went to put my foot on one of the bags to get it to close. Apparently, you're supposed to *wash* luggage. I'm still chuckling over that one. The airlines of course, had a casualty of one of the bags, the wheel is now sort of *inside* the bag, but we just didn't care; we're HOME TOGETHER! :)

Some more tidbits later, going to go enjoy our Sunday together. Wow. I can't believe we're HERE finally. Woo hoo!

PS - we even *weighed* the darned bags as we packed them, and packed to 2kg UNDER. Two bags on airline scales still came 'overweight.' Uh huh.

Congrats, Kharkov!

We're doing the final round of packing now, after pivos with her family, and entirely too much food, threatening a food induced coma. At least I got my dreneke fix, and I feel bad about probably not spending as much time with them as we'd have liked, but we did at least get them set up with Internet, laptop and Skype.

Leaving en route to the airport in around 10 hours, gotta go wrap up final packing and get some relaxation in, then we're on that plane.

solmarc - sorry to hear about the delays. There aren't any words for the feelings we all go through during the whole "wait endlessly for someone, something, besides US" phase, but I hope you get the interview soon.

Signing off for at least a few days, but good luck to all.

S and T.

I'll do a consulate review later in the right place, but just as an addendum.

Minsk Lode: Did fine by us, but heard of at least 2 cases from people the same day that they completely screwed up the paperwork on.

Translations, apostiles etc (new requirement by Warsaw for divorce, police certs, maybe others) - big fail. T could have done a better job, we caught one mistake that cost us 14+ hours and 4 train tickets to fix, but - at least we DID catch it BEFORE the interview!! Double check EVERYTHING, even those coming from 'official' sources, at least one of our docs initially was 'not the right one,' then the apostile/translation issue as well.

Warsaw Embassy - Everyone we dealt with was nice and friendly. While they seem to generally be on the lower side of stress/'extra ad-hoc requirements,' I think that my being there with her likely made the process a bit smoother, as we were effectively only asked 3 questions, asked for no additional docs at all from us, not even my tax returns, just the Affadavit itself, nothing for relationship, etc.(or maybe he just saw the 6" folder I walked up with? ) Again, our initial package was very much front-loaded with relationship proof, so I can't say why they didn't ask for anything, but, well, who cares? We saw the guy deal with a very old woman who they could barely communicate with, and he 'bumped' her to the front of a few lines, and made efforts to understand her and was generally genuinely nice in a somewhat funny and potentially difficult situation. Kudos to him. One of the COs dealt with an older guy from BY that must have been back no less than 4 or 5 times, each time missing something. He spoke little English, but the Consulate staff were friendly to him, joking (not in a mean way), and could have made his situation much worse if they didn't allow several followups from him, but things turned out well. Their email communication was pretty slow (~2 weeks), and I think handing out a checklist explaining the number of times to be called to different windows, maybe a few paragraphs and a short checklist covering the number of times to be called to a window and purpose of each, but really, it was nice to feel human again and be treated as such by the Consulate, after ~6 months of feeling like a number in some unknown system leading to the interview and approval itself. I got the impression that at least to the few people we were exposed to, they enjoy their jobs, and treated people decently, something always to be commended, especially after reading some people's experiences at other consulates. Now if only the Polish Embassy in BY were as nice...

VISA IN HAND (OK, on T's passport)!!! Sealed package given, and they even returned the original K1 package pictures in a separate bag. Pickup was 3-4pm, I think they actually opened the window early, as we arrived on time and a half dozen or more people already had packages in hand.

T picked up a stomach bug between no sleep and possibly the final days stress, so I've put her on 'bedrest' for a few hours, we'll be celebrating more properly tonight, before another train ride tomorrow, but it's so nice for both of us to finally be able to not worry about at least THIS part of the process. Of course, we've still got to finish packing, but at least that depends solely on us, not random strangers in the government.

We'll be heading back to the States on Saturday; I booked some 'leisurely' tickets, a few hours layover in Warsaw, and then we'll overnight in NY, allowing for any amount of silly time to be taken at POE, with a small surprise for T waiting at the hotel once we arrive.

Wow, I feel like I can finally breathe again, not holding breath just waiting on more beauracracy and others. Ok, at least until POE, and AOS, but hey, give us our relaxing moment in time.

kharkov - here's hoping all goes well, enjoy the pivos and the satisfaction once that Visa is finally where it belongs, on her passport instead of 'in the way'!

2 hours in the Embassy again. We saw an older guy there who apparently had been trying to get a Visa to visit his son in the US for days. Minsk had also messed up his medical, then he was missing translations. He did the medical again in Warsaw, then had papers overnighted to him, then paid through the nose for local translations, and he overstayed on his Polish Visa, but - he was finally approved. Then the girl called us up. We were sort of worried, wondering why the guy (TG) didn't call us back up. A minute at the counter, no request for any new documents, just "all is in order and fine, come to get your Visa today at 3-4pm," and gave T a piece of paper with some other info on it, one of which was important - bring the cashiers receipt for when we go to pick up the Visa. I think we were both speechless. I got choked up and had a tear coming, just hugged T hard, and the CO said something about us being happy, I don't think I heard her at all beyond, "approved, come get the passport and Visa at 3pm."

So, we're almost exhaling, we'll be back there in another 3 hours to get her Passport and Visa. :) :)

No sleep at all for T, and very little for me, I swear they put the wrong train wheels on (they swap crossing from Belarus into Poland and elsewhere into the EU, slightly different track sizes). That ride was LOUD. Boarding the train was entertaining; I had my passport replaced some time ago, and now have a stack of Belarusian Visas, including what OVIR told us wouldn't be done, a double entry Visa for over 30 days. The train Passport control seems to also never have seen a US Passport before; he kept rubbing it between his fingers, like the paint might come off or something. Went to the station at 1:15am, through customers, on train and moving around 2:40am, in Warsaw around 6:30am, or so.

Going through BY then PL customs on the train itself was pretty painless, although I swear one of the two should change their uniforms, I started speaking (minor) Russian to the PL customs officer who came into our cabin, before being told I was using the wrong language. Oops. Exhausted when we got off the train in Warsaw, I found a luggage locker and just locked it there, to annoy us less in zombie mode. We took a pair of huge binders, with T's package, and my duplicates, along with hopefully way more than they would ever need.

We got slightly lost, but hey, I bought a map, and we did good. We realized we should brush our teeth, so brushed on a park bench, casually spitting when no one was looking, and wishing we'd brought some water. Ok, so we had planned on some sleep on the way, then a cafe for some coffee, but we had a little adventure. T had been in Warsaw before, and the rain notwithstanding (yeah, ok, the umbrella was right next to the bottle of water, back in the train locker..), holding the folding file upside down so the papers wouldn't get wet (only a light occasional few drops or I would have found another umbrella, before I'm chastised :) ). We eventually somewhat loosely guided/wandered the right way, and found the embassy. Early, even.

We were told to go to the Red line, while everyone else was on the yellow or blue; we thought, woo hoo, we're first! Ok, not quite. We got a number, starting with an 'I,' which apparently is for immigration Visas- Poland, regardless of USCIS and DOS, classifies K Visas as Immigrant visas, I'm unsure anyone can say why. Most of the others got letters starting with 'H,' and apparently, they go first. Or something.

The windows were sort of like OTB or movie theatre tickets, just a line of numbered windows 1-10, with 3 of them through a doorway, the rest all in the 'big room.' At one point, we were called to one of the windows, and we got ready to hand over the stack of paperwork; nope, false alarm, but T did finally get fingerprinted, then we went to another window (once called by number) to pay the $360 new fee, then back to hand in the full package, although they wouldn't take more than my I384 (just the one page, none of the rest, no relationship evidence, said all would go to the CO if he/she wanted or needed it. Eventually, the 'H people' (possibly work and non immigration), even those after us, went. Most of the windows weren't open. There was a younger guy in window 7, who we could see going through people's paperwork with a red pen, occasionally looking at a computer screen. Another covering 8-10 windows seemed mostly a clerk, and window 1 cashier. There was one other window open, I never did see the woman, but somehow I felt like I wanted us to get the guy, I can't say why for sure, but he seemed professional and nice to me. Ok, plus, in reading all other Warsaw reports, it seemed like at least one woman there wasn't so nice, and most people said 'the guy' was friendly and good to deal with. We had nearly no sleep at all, I might have caught 30 minutes, T was doing amazingly well on energy considering it all, but hey, we had 20-30 pictures, we had apostled, notarized, certified translations, even though they had tried to throw us a curve ball already back on Thursday when we had found ONE document with her name wrong, so spent 14+ hours correcting it back in Minsk, and train rides, we had originals to everything, and many copies (we had at least 5 inches of actual paperwork on hand)....we're up, nervous, but..we're up.

'TG' (The Guy) thanked me for coming, saying it was rare for the USC to attend. I told him I wouldn't miss it for anything to be there with T. He swore her in, said we had a very well put together package, asked us when we planned on going to the US, mentioned something about a mis-spelling on her name on a prior Visa record for her, but that everything was fine. So we waited to be able to hand off the 20-30 pictures (there were already a half dozen in the K1, plus 30+ pages of email and skype logs, tickets, etc) plus another inch or two of papers, and - he never asked. Everything seemed fine, he gave us a piece of paper to come back between 8-10am in the morning, mentioned all is well, just the overnight for names database or some such, then we'd leave her passport and come back to get it at 3-4pm.

Of course, neither one of us had heard of the whole 'come back at 8-10am' piece, so we were expecting to finally have 'release,' but instead, we're kinda, mostly, pretty sure everything is OK, but.

There was another woman there who was also on a K1 (the only other out of all of them, there alone), so we waited for her outside the Embassy to ask if she also had to come back at 8-10am. She took a long time, but then finally came out. Uh oh. The medical facility in Minsk managed to screw up her paperwork, apparently a single form. You know, one they've done thousands of times before? One that is sealed, so neither the petitioner nor beneficiary can even make sure it's all right. She was not happy. She did have a note from the US Embassy requesting expedited service (it is usually a ~2 week turnaround for Polish Visas for BY citizens). I thought I had a good idea, and mentioned that she could redo the entire medical in Warsaw, same day, to then go back and finish up her interview, but we think she's going back to BY. We do think once that's done, though, she's approved.

T is finally getting some sleep now; we did a little roaming Warsaw, found a cool cafe, until our bodies said it's time for sleep, NOW.

We're apparently going back between 8-10am tomorrow, but after talking to a few random people coming out, as well as searching through more Warsaw interviews, it seems like it's all normal, but it's just such a tease; we've been waiting to exhale, to not celebrate before that Visa is in her passport, but now are still technically waiting, again.

I won't write about contingency cases lest I jinx us somehow, but I will say that while no donkeys were involved, I did actually bring a picture of a horse along with us in the stack to give to TG. Ok, I'm passing out soon, at least for a little while now. Hopefully in less than 24 hours..hopefully.

Congrats Lohninck!

I haven't had time to catch up on the thread, maybe in a few days..we're getting on a train shortly en route to the interview, fingers and EVERYTHING are crossed!!

Hope everyone has had or has a smooth journey.

SandT, I am glad that you made it to Belarus with all your luggage. Kind of a ####### shoot getting to eastern Europe. My last trip to Kharkov I waited 10 days for one piece of luggage. Somewhere on the way it had gotten rained on, of course with highs about 0 fahrenheit, it was an iceberg when I finally got it. I am looking forward to getting back to land of shaslik, borscht, pivo, and of course the high heels and mini-skirts. I will be just south of you. What city is she from?

Did someone really get their NOA2 in 8 days. That is bullsh!t for those that are still waiting.

UK, glad you finally received got an interview date. Doc and me are still going to crash your wedding. Now you are scared.

They are batting 50% on luggage lost to date, but it's always turned up. This time the TSA decided to rifle through the checked bag, leaving things quite the mess unsurprisingly - I had half of the bag 'compression packed' and the other half empty, but compartmentalized, things wrapped in bubble wrap, etc. Not so once they went through it, nice to have glass and some other things banging together. Thank you, TSA.

We already made the rounds for my food cravings, draneke, shashlik, some kvas, and lots of fruit that doesn't stay 'good' for a month.

Getting her Polish Visa was an experience, several hundred people are there each day; there were 200 or so the morning she went to drop off her papers, around 100 when we went in the afternoon to pick it up. For anyone later coming across this thread, it took right at 2 weeks for her to get her Polish Visa from the Polish Embassy in Belarus. We got it for 3 days, as longer, even with the US Embassy invitation, opens a can of worms of travelers checks, bank statements and such - it's not a huge deal, but time was of the essence, and we didn't have a few thousand Euros sitting around where she could get them the same day.

The medical by comparison, wasn't much of a problem, although they only do it on certain days, and only in Minsk. They gave her copies of almost everything without even asking.

She booked our train tickets to Warsaw, as she needed to for accompanying paperwork for her Polish Visa, and did need my Passport number to buy them, but this seems a YMMV situation.

I have no idea where that 8 days turnaround is coming from, but if so, they need to not pull a CSC, and make sure those still waiting from Feb, March, etc are all taken care of first. After that, it's all a bonus for people filing after us, and I wish them all well.

I'm back in Belarus in one piece . 20 or so hours of traveling this time, but amazingly, no luggage lost and I didn't overnight after delayed flights (around 50% of the time without exaggeration).

Yesterday was Independence Day in Belarus, and today of course for the US. While my normal phone has always worked here, my now company phone does not, which made for some entertaining urgent work calls.

It's been storming on and off, but so what? We've occasionally made it outside, and are about to jump on a long train ride out of Minsk, to be picked up by persister and brother in law, which will be amusing, as I've talked a lot with them but never in person before, then back to Ts then her parents.

I finally had the expected results of bringing chocolates in luggage, one seriously melted blob of Ghirardellis, which we ate via spoon.

Medicals in hand, 15 days until interview, I'm so glad to be back here with T. . All of the stress over paperwork is behind us now we're together, or at least for another 13 days or so. . Off to pack, give T a huge hug. then off to the train station. Good luck to everyone with interviews coming up!!

I told my mom about your situation, and she said "So she needs a visa to go the interview to get her visa? Yeah, that sounds Polish!" And oh btw, she can say that.. she's Polish..

Yeah, there's something just wrong in that situation. Amusingly, she has had Visas all over, including Poland, but for non work with the invitation they will only grant 3 days, without jumping through some annoying hoops.

I also need a different Visa to be able to leave and come back, you can't get a longer term multiple entry Visa, or I would have had one long ago.

We're going to be on a lot of train rides this time, Minsk and back, Poland and back, back to Minsk, then amusingly, we'll (knock on wood, small prayer, ok, big prayer) be then flying back through where? Poland. As long as they let us go, all good.

Nancy, if you haven't heard anything since May 10th, I think it's time to contact them again. More than 30 days on a desk just isn't right.

Good luck!

Sand T, some people get the P3 and some dont, or maybe they dont put it in the timeline, but the link you sent me is good, got a lot of the information... Thank you so much cause it is helping, at least is people dealing with the embassy in Dominican REpublic... I am falling up with this girl that has the interview tomorrow and her boyfriend cant come, she is being giving me info about procedures, i am praying for her, because she is going tomorrow alone to the interview. I didn't know a company can cancel a vacation one day before, that sucks... Thank God the people i work with are so nice, i dont think they would do something like that to me.

UK, is better for me to be crazy,lol, i am trying to think in something else, like getting my wedding dress, thinking of places, simple things like that, lol...

Confusing sooooooo happy for you, i hope we can celebrate soon, and i can see the same news over here from everybody...

I can relate. I think I saw some numbers for 2009, maybe a whole 80 people from Belarus came into the US, and there aren't exactly a whole lot of current VJ members going through the same process, but we did find one other couple a little earlier than us, any information helps! You might want to post on that forum and ask - I found we could download the P3 and just send it in once we knew they had our case, and if you're supposed to get one, they may not schedule the interview until the Embassy receives it, so I would suggest making sure. Good luck!

Wow, congratulations, confusing! Does this mean you are now less confused, then?

solmarc, were you able to find out if DR does a packet 3?

UK, we had to shift medical dates around due to medical scheduling silliness, she would have had to travel for ~10 hours to do it, or we'll just do it together. Together it is. While we should be able to get the results on the same day, it seems it's not the case for us, next day only. No worries, just a minor annoyance in the path.

I think we don't have anyone still waiting on NOA2 at least, right?

uk - thanks, one more day down. Good luck on the medical experience.

solmarc, have you seen this before? http://dominicanstotheusa.com/forum/index.php/topic,2302.0.html

So, tickets are booked. I can say it's an exercise in near total frustration to try to book a pair of tickets originating from different places, but at the same time, online.

Yes, I know, there's a risk but after watching airfare jump literally as I watched yet again, worrying about somehow not being able to book the return trip together, well - we will be crossing our fingers.

Realistically, we have a week after the interview before coming home, but as we need to travel to Warsaw.. I'm just not going to finish that sentence.

We're prepared, we're ready to finally come home together, so all will be well there. Or we send in the midgets.

We are still waiting on the official Packet 4 to arrive, before we can get her Polish Visa, although we have the appointment letter itself via email. There's an irony in there that while the US Embassy in Poland seems to be one of the low hassle, generally really decent Embassies to deal with, that the Polish Embassy she needs to get her travel Visa so we can get to the US Embassy, is much less than nice. Apparently the medical in Minsk can only be scheduled for two days of the week, so we've made some adjustments, but it's all good.

I have to wrap some work up before leaving, but then I'll be leaving to spend almost a month there with T, visiting the family and preparing for the move, then coming back somewhat leisurely, and overnighting once we're back in the states before finally coming home. We're both counting down the days now, and I got a very nice reaction when I got to tell her, 'Oh, did I forget to say I'm coming a day or two earlier than we planned?'

Keeping fingers crossed, and right now, the foremost thing in my mind is just making it to getting off that plane and picking T up in my arms. After that, the world can then continue on it's way again.

Oh i know, i am going to be better later, today is just one of those days, just that...

What does the P3 has? i see in some cases they never got the P3... is that true?

The P3 contents is Embassy specific, and some don't have one at all. It's generally just an information checklist of what is needed at the interview, and another general bio info form about the beneficiary.

Here's an example for Poland:

(click on link for IV/F04)

http://poland.usembassy.gov/poland/processing_fiance.html

Party at Doc's this Tuesday in southern Georgia. We are going to grab a few beers and tell lies. The midget, donkey, and brass pole have been fumigated and we expect to see y'all there. Leslie, you must be naked. Lohninck, you must be drunk. UK, you can be dancing on your brass pole with your hobbit on Skype. SandT, bring the video camera so that we can forward to all of our prospective consulates what we have become. All others, be original or naked, your choice.

I'm thinking it might be better to show them the video after coming back home together. Then again, I suppose it could be used to threaten them, telling them we'll be partying outside their doorstep next if they don't behave nicely?

18 days after emailing Warsaw, they responded. Note these were Packet 3 questions mostly (too late, P3 already sent in), but they did give us an interview date, and said Packet 4 is on the way physically to her.

Interview date: July 19th. It seems unusually far out compared to some recent Warsaw applicants, but we do finally at least have the date, and I can book our tickets.

Congrats doc! Are you flying out for the interview or before?

We're in a holding pattern, but after sending them packet 3 via email once, re-sizing the scanned images and sending again, then thinking we'd FAX it for good measure, we got a, well, semi automatic response. Kind of.

Meaning it should have been an auto-response immediately letting us know they received it, but we got a form letter saying it's been received and attached to our packet. So, 6 days for an auto-response. Amusingly, it was as a response to the second time we submitted, but hey, we'll take it.

Next stop, interview date and me finally being able to jump on a plane again.

I swear, the guv'mint part of this is best described as: "Waiting on someone you don't know, to do something you're not sure what, so they can finally tell you something, sometime. Then repeat."

The fun of juggling flight dates daily has now set in. It feels like a bad juggling act, with airfare rates not being great at the moment, but wanting to be in the air within 2 weeks of knowing the interview date. If there were such a thing as trip insurance covering random acts of the government, I would already have both tickets booked. As it is, it's a strange predicament. Right now, we're stuck waiting on the interview date so I can get my butt over there. Once we have the Visa, we're going to want to come home as soon as possible, but with non-refundable tickets, and no such thing as multiple entry (only double) Visas for Belarus, the Polish Embassy seeming to on occasion be slow and difficult in issuing Visas for Belorussians, I have a feeling I'll be buying both of our tickets soon, allow some padding post interview just in case, and say a prayer to the K1 deities..or something.