Embassy Interview

I traveled up to London on Thursday as it was finally time for my immigrant visa interview at the USA embassy. Luckily my Great Aunt lives in London so I went to stop over with her for the night which was nice. My Mum decided she’d like to go too and that night we met up with her cousin Elaine and went for a nice meal and afterwards we looked at a lot of old photos. I just adore old photos, I have quite a collection from my Granddad that I scanned but none from my Mum’s side so I took a lot of copies. It’s important to keep tabs on the photos as my Great Aunt got caught throwing a load out into a green wheelie bin once because her eye sight isn’t good and she said couldn’t see them anymore! Luckily cousin Elaine rescued them. Also as a nice surprise we facetimed my cousin in Australia and her new baby… well she isn’t that new anymore technically but to us in England she’s still brand new.

The next day Mum and I caught the tube from my Great Aunt’s house to the Embassy, it was between quite a few stops so we arrived early and got breakfast and browsed the shops a bit.

Oddly enough, we stopped in John Lewis’ for breakfast and on the shop display window we found Donald Trump. I don’t think it was meant to be Donald Trump but it looks remarkably like him doesn’t it? When I pointed it out in the street to Mum, other passers by laughed so it can’t just be me that noticed.

Anyway so we got to the embassy, we had to check Mum was on the list to bring in because you’re not really meant to take people with you. I had to call them and email them a zillion times for them to even take her name down. Then we were a little early so the lady told us to go and get a drink that we could take in for the wait so we did which was fine until we went back, got scanned and then I got my glass bottle of drink confiscated… but luckily the nice guards said they’d keep my Snapple behind the counter for me to pick up on the way out so that was good.

It was surprisingly not that busy inside, we waited in this room (no photography allowed!) for them to call a number we were given and then I went to the first counter and handed all my documents over which the man took for a folder and then I got my finger prints scanned in and had to sit down again. Then we played I spy for a bit and there was a small protest outside the embassy for something to do with murder in Turkey… which made all of no difference to anyone’s day. I never really get what people hope to achieve with things like that, there can’t have been more than ten people there with a microphone and after about half an hour when they’d all had their photo taken they just gave up and left. What on earth did they think was going to happen?

Eventually my number got called again and Mum and I went to a second window around the corner where I had to take an oath that I’d told the truth on my visa application. I got my finger prints scanned a second time and then the lady asked me the interview questions which was how I had met Kim, why we had got married in Canada and had we ever lived together before. And that was really it. Mum was a bit disappointed because she was expecting it to be some sort of interrogation like in a movie she likes about a sham marriage called “Green Card”. So all in all pretty painless, it took about two hours of mainly waiting and  everyone was really very friendly and kind. Also I got a CD with my medical stuff on to give to the border control people in America. I had a quick look and found my chest X-ray, very… bony. I’m not very good at interpreting X-rays but everything seems to be in the right place so I think it’s a win. Looks a bit like a hoop skirt.

I haven’t been up to much else, I went to the opticians and found out I have mild astigmatism which explains why I couldn’t see a thing when I thought I should be wearing reading glasses after the last time I had my eyes tested and bought some cheap +1.0 glasses. Because technically I’d be -1.0 so the optician said I was actually making my vision two times worse… oops. But I don’t need glasses unless I want them so that’s good. Still working a lot of shifts and getting taxed to high heaven. Goldie had an MOT and just needs the windscreen wipers replaced and headlights polished so that isn’t too bad. I paid £1,400 to move the cats to America in June. Oh and I discovered a small hole under my handbrake when I dropped my hair clip down there in my car accidentally. It is full of rubbish that is impossible to get out. So that’s… gross. Until next time!

 

 

TB? Or Not TB?

That is the question! The times are moving ever closer to my USA interview date at the embassy but before I attend my interview I had to drop into London to get a medical completed. I decided I’d just have a day trip to London and not stay over but I didn’t fancy driving or parking so I decided to take the coach for the princely sum of £26.50 return.  It left pretty early so I thought I’d walk into town half an hour before so I could have a nice breakfast at McDonalds and wake up a bit… and it was closed. It opened at the exact same time the bus was due. Annoying.

But I had a nice semi snooze on the coach which dropped me off at Victoria in London, then it was onto the underground. I read once that the underground has its own species of mosquito which is crazy because the pollution is so bad down there it’s amazing anything could survive.

I was a bit early to my medical so I stopped off for some lunch at Wagamamas and got a tasty katsu curry to help me get over the lamentable loss of breakfast.

And then off I trotted to my medical. Now there is only one private medical company that does the medical checks for the American Embassy at £330 a pop so it must be a pretty good earner. I had to give them all sorts of samples of bodily fluids, have a chest xray, have another tetanus jab (which they forgot to charge me for, score!), get inspected all over for drug injection marks and have my heart and lungs listened to. All in all it took about an hour and I got a gown to wear that made me look like a Jedi Knight.

So that was that and assuming everything is fine it gets sent off to the embassy ready for my interview at the end of the month. I assume I don’t have TB. It was still quite early in the day so I decided to have a shufti around the Victoria and Albert Museum because I hadn’t been before.

The museum had a lot of home furnishings and was split into geographical sections.

There was lots of sculptures, massive Persian carpets, pottery and wall ornaments, thrones and beds.

But my favourite was all the odd old fashioned clothes, it’s amazing how short people were back then from malnourishment and disease. There was something very human about seeing real people’s clothes that you just can’t get from furniture or portraits. They had Margaret Thatcher’s clothes, beautiful kimonos with their matching obis, clothes from the 60s… and this lovely number which I think looks rather mad. I mean you could hardly nip to the shops in it could you? The only useful thing I can think of is if you wanted to make a career out of smuggling because you could fit a lot under her fake hips. Or you could wear it through Heathrow security to infuriate the guards and fellow passengers?

Mid afternoon it was time to let them eat cake.

But I fancied a nice scone instead in the courtyard garden.

And then it was time to head back home. The coach went right through the center of London past Parliament and Westminster Bridge where the terror attacks were, the place was absolutely crawling with armed police everywhere but there were still so many tourists so nothing seems to be deterring them for business as usual, which is how it should be I think.