In the midst of my stress-ridden
daily routine of filling in online paperwork, making my endless way through
lists that never seem to get any shorter, staring into my wardrobe for hours on
end without ever coming to any kind of conclusion on what needs to be stuffed
into the case that I have yet to purchase, and countless other anxiety-inducing
preparations for my trip next month, let me tell you about my trip to the US
Embassy in London.
Perhaps it will distract me from
the cruel blow of waking up this morning to find we were out of Nutella.
In a world where tourists need to
be screened by the DHS before they can hop on a plane to Disneyworld, it
probably goes without saying that I needed a visa for my trip to the USA next
month. Applying for a J-1 visa was (in my case at least) a long, convoluted and
slightly terrifying experience. It involved excessive amounts of paperwork, bizarre
security questions (“Are you planning on entering the country to become a
prostitute?” “Are you a drug smuggler?” “Do you plan on becoming a drug
smuggler in the near future?” and so on), an array of important reference
numbers, passwords and memorable information (all of which seemed to disappear as soon as I needed them) and, of course, a hugely unflattering visa photograph that makes me
look like I actually could be a prostitute and/or drug smuggler. And, when all
of that was done, I still had to head up to London for a face to face
interview.
Naturally my mother wouldn't hear
of her fully-grown adult daughter heading into the city alone so she tagged
along too.
Our first issue was trying to find
the embassy. As if I wasn't already hampered enough by my non-existent sense of
direction and complete inability to read street maps, my phone died as soon as
we stepped off the tube so Google wasn't around to save us. As it happens, there’s a big square where all the
embassies are and, once we found the square, it was simply a case of working
out which one was the American embassy.
“Do you think they’ll have a flag
outside?” My mother asked as we aimlessly wandered around the square.
“There’s a star spangled banner on
the moon. I’m pretty sure there’ll be one outside the US embassy.”
Looking back, I’m still not entirely sure how it
took so long to work out which one was the right building. The US embassy was
about the size of four or five of the others, with an enormous eagle on top along with what was probably the most gigantic flag I've ever seen in my life.
There was a lot of queueing
involved to get into the embassy. Queueing to get my forms checked, queuing to
have my bags searched, queueing to explain to the security guy that the
suspicious electronic device in my bag was my rape alarm (“because a girl can’t
be too careful”), queueing to get my fingerprints taken, and, finally, queueing for the
actual interview.
The interview itself was actually the
quickest part of the whole experience.
“What do you plan on doing in the
USA?”
“I’m going to be teaching arts and
crafts at a summer camp in Maine.”
“Ok. Well, I’m going to approve
your visa!”
It was as simple as that.
Obviously it was a lot more upbeat and enjoyable because the interviewer was American and therefore wonderfully friendly and happy. In fact, I got so caught up in the moment that I told her to “have a nice day”. I hope she didn’t think I was being facetious…
Obviously it was a lot more upbeat and enjoyable because the interviewer was American and therefore wonderfully friendly and happy. In fact, I got so caught up in the moment that I told her to “have a nice day”. I hope she didn’t think I was being facetious…
And so trauma of my visa application was over (apart from the ordeal of trying to get hold of it a few weeks later when the embassy released it to a mystical courier service whose location is so well hidden it might as well be protected by a magic spell that makes it invisible to muggles. But that's a story for a different day). And so, with my appointment at the embassy behind me and a full day in London ahead of us, we set off to explore.
But first we had to deal with her crippling fear of the tube...
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