The day after....

So yesterday we woke up to pissing rain outside. It has been sunny recently and warm, yet on the one day we had something important to do, it had to be raining. We ended up laughing about it, remembering our realtor in Seattle's comment that in some cultures, rain is actually good luck! It was when we bought our house. We stuck with that thought throughout the day.

I had to get some paperwork notarized so we went to the embassy around 10am. Our interview was at 1pm. I went in on my own, while M scoped out parking near the embassy for later. I went in thinking it would be quick but ended up waiting about 30 minutes before someone called my name. Then I handed in the paperwork and waited another 15 minutes to be called. My stomach was in knots. They had taken my cell phone from me at the check-in, so I couldn't even tell M how long it was taking. Finally, at 11:45, I got back in the car and we tore home at breakneck speeds.

M still had to shower and iron his shirt (come on, you don't think I'd do it, do ya? Ironing is definitely his forte.lol) and jeans. I heated up our lunch - leftover fajitas - and since it was taking a while, I decided to put his back in the microwave and proceeded to lose control of the plate and drop the whole thing on the floor!! lol What a f$%^ing mess! So, while I had a lovely warm fajita, he had a cold cheese sandwich. Poor pet!

Anyhow, we were out of the house in a flash and back on the road by 12:15. We got back to the embassy at 12:45 and there was a small line outside. Fortunately, this time we brought an umbrella and we needed it. We had to wait outside until the security opened (after lunch, I'm guessing) and they shuttled in one group at a time. We finally got in, got our security badges, handed over our cell phones and went into the interview office. We sat down in a row of chairs (reminded me of the DMV at home) and waited for our name to be called. There were about 6 other groups of people - a family, a few girls on their own, a guy on his own, ourselves...

Finally our name was called. We went up with our paperwork. We had a middle aged woman. We couldn't decide if she was friendly or not. She asked for the first form called the DS-230 - she said we didn't have it and proceeded to give us a DS-156 to fill out - I think she was confused but whatever. The first thing we had to do was fill out 2 copies of the same form! Talk about nerve wracking!! Eep! Our hands were shaking as we wrote out the information, thinking how unorganized this felt. Finally, we got the two forms filled out and we continued handing over our stuff. The woman seemed really frazzled (or maybe that was just us!). She asked us some questions but nothing too exciting. How did we meet. That sort of thing. Then she asked us to sit down and wait for the consul who would question him some more.

So we sat and waited. It was funny. It was kind of like a bank, with 4 windows, and you had to go up to the window to hand over the paperwork. Everyone could hear your story, there wasn't a lick of privacy. We heard another guy who was also trying to get the k-1, talking about how he met his fiance online, how 'lovely' she is, here's some photos, etc, etc. He was so nervous, he was talking excessively.. It was cute. It passed the time anyhow. lol

Finally M got called back up. He went up on his own this time. The minute he left, the girl in front of me started talking to me. I couldn't listen to them both, so I didn't get to hear what the guy was asking M. I did hear him ask about how we met, what I did for a living, what he did for a living. The girl I was talking to was sweet. She also was going for the k-1 visa. We ended up getting her email address, even though she's moving to Ohio. We had a nice chat with her.

So after he finished (about 10 minutes), he had to sit back down and wait for the visa. That was it. All 3 of us k-1's got the visa that day. It took, in total, about 3 hours and the visa is in our grubby little hands! As R said..... WOOOOOOOHOOOOOOO!!