Sunday, January 24, 2010

AOS Blog

I'm starting a new blog for Adjustment of Status. I wanna keep them all seperate.
That's all :D

http://rhiannsjourneytotheus2.blogspot.com/


Yup.

Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Paperwork

Not a whole lot going on here.
Just trying to do the Adjustment of Status paperwork.
Getting my Social Security Number tomorrow, finally.

Adjustment of Status is pretty easy, so it shouldn't take long to do, I almost have the paperwork done, just need to find someone to transcribe my vaccines, good thing there's alot of Civil Surgeons in Cali. Hopefully they don't charge a whole lot for the vaccine transcribing.

Getting married January 27th, 2010. Still pretty far away.

Oh well.

Friday, November 27, 2009

A Crazy POE

Wow. My POE was nothing like what I was expecting.

Here's how it went:


Flight was to leave at 6:45pm on November 24th. We arrived at the airport at about 4:30pm. They say to give about 90 minutes for Canada to US flights.


The check in was horribly slow. It took about 40 minutes. There was only like 3 people doing check in, it was stupid. Then because I had my dog, a wedding dress, a huge 70lb bag and my laptop bag my parents decided to get a porter for me. This took about 10 minutes. Waste of time.


Finally I went to customs. Waited about 15 minutes in Primary customs. The guy I got seemed kinda nasty looking, but I bet they all do in this job. He wished me an early happy birthday and sent me to secondary. This is when it all went wrong.

In customs, there was about 6 other people. I was amazed there was so many people. One person was crying while calling her parents, I wonder what happened. Then this woman that had like 5 bags kept questioning the officer, I mean come on. Another guy already missed his flight due to some immense background checking he was going through. I waited, and waited and waited and FINALLY at 6:40pm I was called up. I told him that my flight was leaving in 5 minutes so he made it fast. He was really nice about it too. Had me fill out an I-94, but didn't take my Biometrics. So I got that done and rushed my butt through the xray part. I hope not getting Biometrics taken doesn't mess up something in the long run.

Got to my terminal and the plane is gone. I missed it.


I went to the only flight left out of American Airlines and had to rebook. I flew out of Toronto to JFK Airport on one of those 40 seater planes that night and had to say overnight at the Ramada @ JFK. The hotel wasnt very good either. Wireless wasnt working, no hot water, etc. It was just terrible. The only reason I went to this one is because they allowed pets. I even missed last call on room service, so I didn't get to eat. I had to burden my parents with paying for it too, I feel bad for them, I really do. I really seem to feel like I owe them alot of money. I mean, I know this was unforseen, but I should have been able to pay for it if I did everything right.

Finally at around 6:30am on November 25th I flew out of JFK to Los Angeles. That was a hell of a long flight. Was on a 767-200, never been on one of those, it was pretty cool. My dog cooperated, thank goodness and no damage done to my wedding dress. Thankfully the flight was early as well, my fiance had to work that morning at 11am.

I'm glad I'm finally home.

It's crazy what I had to go through, I wasn't expecting it what so ever.
 
 
Getting married 2 months from now, this date.
It's also my Birthday today, haha. 22nd Birthday.
Hopefully filing for Adjustment of Status by the beginning of February.

Friday, November 20, 2009

Port Of Entry Delayed

Well, I got my visa in the mail on Thursday, November 19th.
Needless today, it was too late.
I was supposed to leave for the US today, but the prices for tickets went way too high, 1300 dollars.

So, I will be leaving for the US on Tuesday, November 24th. It was the first day with cheaper airfare again. Thankfully, I had a ticket I could use, I just had to pay a difference of about 180 dollars. Better than paying all 332.

Here's hoping the entry to the US is smooth. Just need to figure out what to do with my wedding dress, since I'll be bringing it with me.


Steps of a K-1 Visa:

  • US Petitioner and Foreign Beneficiary Collect Needed Documents
  • I-129F Package Sent
  • Notice Of Action 1 Received by US Petitioner
  • Notice Of Action 2 Received by US Petitioner
  • Case Forwarded to the National Visa Center
  • Case Forwarded to the Foreign Beneficiary's US Consulate
  • Case Received by Foreign Beneficiary's Local US Consulate
  • Forms and Checklist Sent to Foreign Beneficiary
  • Foreign Beneficiary Compiles Needed Forms
  • Foreign Beneficiary Sends Completed Forms to US Consulate
  • US Consulate Issues Interview Date
  • Interview Conducted at the US Consulate
  • Waiting for Visa to be Received
  • Visa Recieved in the Mail
  • US Entry via Pearson Toronto Airport - November 24th, 2009
Legend: Strikethrough + Blue show past steps, Bolded + Red shows current step

Saturday, November 14, 2009

Approved!

We were approved at our interview on November 13th, 2009.

Here's the review I posted on the VJ Forums:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

We left for the consulate at 6:30am. I forgot I still had my cellphone, so I had to get my fiance to run it back up to the hotel, since I had blisters on my feet from the night before.
Got to the consulate at about 6:40am (ish) and we were 2nd in line. After about 10 more minutes or so about 10+ other couples got in line.

At 7:35am the consulate doors opened.
The security guard came outside and asked for our P4 and passports. He then gave them back to us and directed us to security.
We were told to put everything in a box and put anything in our pockets into the wooden tray. Little did we know the remote alarm for our rental car counts as an electronic so we got a little ticket for us to claim it afterward.

After we got by security, we went in a door and down some stairs. At this point it was us and two other couples (darkchilde and JEmoonbear). There IS a photo booth just in case you forgot your pictures, just to let you know. We put together a few things they asked for and the security guard came down and got us. We went up to the 19th floor on the elevator and got told to sit down and wait.

We all chatted for a good 10 minutes. The room is quite spacious (until it fills up) and the view was very nice. A whole ton of people came out of the elevator after the 10 minutes. Some of us were given letters and some numbers.

I was called up first, even though I was letter B. The man was very nice, but still made me a bit nervous. He started out by asking us a few questions and asked for paperwork along the way. Some of it wasn't even on the letter given by the security guards, but it was things like a long form birth certificate + copy, a photocopy of your passport's bio page, letter of intent to marry etc. I had a border denial in the past so I was a bit nervous about explaining that.

Because I got the new P3, I did not have to bring anymore of the forms. I did anyway just in case, so I would advise to do so. It's good to have it for your own files anyway. He also took my envelope. The "Priority Next Day" envelope is fine, since it was the correct size.

Afterward he told us to go pay, which we did. The lady we got didn't even normally do the payments, but the person was sick or something. She didn't have change, so TRY to bring exact change. We then went and waited to be called again.

About 15 minutes or so later we were called back for me to take fingerprints. Very simple. We were then told to go sit down again.

This felt like eternity. I don't even remember how long we were waiting. We were called into room 7 which is a small room with a door. We were told to put our stuff on the chair and raise our right hands and swear to tell the truth.

The lady was VERY nice. She used to be from Southern California so she could relate. We even had common interests in cake decorating. She was very nice and told me my border denial would have nothing to do with her decision. I was then told I was approved after she asked a few more questions (how we met, when we met irl, etc), welcomed me to the US, signed the one form and gave us a paper about what to do afterward. She said my visa should be received by me within 2 weeks, but I'm sure it'll take less than that.

When we came out we shook hands with I think 8 people, all from VJ. It was a bit of a nerve wracking experience but it was all good.

Took about 2 hours. Get there by 6:45 if you don't want to be too far back in line. Everyone was nice and I received no negative vibes from anyone.
Thank you staff at Montreal! smile.gif

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Good experience over all.
Not a whole lot to say about it other than what's above.
Hoping to get the visa for the 20th so I can leave with my fiance.


Steps of a K-1 Visa:

  • US Petitioner and Foreign Beneficiary Collect Needed Documents
  • I-129F Package Sent
  • Notice Of Action 1 Received by US Petitioner
  • Notice Of Action 2 Received by US Petitioner
  • Case Forwarded to the National Visa Center
  • Case Forwarded to the Foreign Beneficiary's US Consulate
  • Case Received by Foreign Beneficiary's Local US Consulate
  • Forms and Checklist Sent to Foreign Beneficiary
  • Foreign Beneficiary Compiles Needed Forms
  • Foreign Beneficiary Sends Completed Forms to US Consulate
  • US Consulate Issues Interview Date
  • Interview Conducted at the US Consulate
  • Waiting for Visa to be Received
  • Visa Recieved in the Mail
  • US Entry via Pearson Toronto Airport (Hopefully November 20th)
Legend: Strikethrough + Blue show past steps, Bolded + Red shows current step