The whole process is easy as pie (so long as you have all the correct paperwork and listen out for your number to be called!), but I'll explain more about that in a minute. I'll start with yesterday, as that was the beginning of my Embassy adventure....
I got up, went to work (late - because I forgot my scarf, gloves and hat, which I am VERY glad I went back to pick up!) and then travelled to my good friends "The Bollens", which is where I would be fed, watered and given a place to sleep for the night (thank you very much Bollens!). Throughout the day I kept saying that it looked like snow clouds were rolling in, but nothing happened. That is until I got near to my friend's house where it started to snow quite heavily. In fact by the time I got to their house about 20 minutes later, at least a couple of inches of snow had settled on the ground!
I was VERY excited by this as I really wanted to make sure I saw some snow before moving away...snow's not really Florida weather! So, I got to my friend's house, was given a very yummy homemade pizza, got all my paperwork sorted and went to bed. The alarm was set for 5.45am so that we had time to get ready, clear the snow off the car and drive slowly to the station. It was a good job we left time because it really was icy.
Anyway, I'll skip the train journey as it was uneventful. Eventually I made my way to Bond Street tube station where I was going to meet Heather, or Disney Heather as she is known on my phone!! We are both going to Florida in December to work in f&b, and despite chatting lots online and getting on really well, we had never actually met! I phoned Heather and saw her down the street, I just knew it was her so I started waving like a loon!
We walked around the corner to the pharmacy where we were going to leave our phones and cameras as you're not allowed to take ANY electricals into the embassy. Really, if you are going to the embassy, don't even risk it, they will tell you to "throw away" any electricals you may have in the bins provided. This pharmacy was really good, I would recommend it but can't remember it's name so I won't bother! Heather had her visa pics taken here, they took 5 mins to do and cost £5 for 2. To keep a sealed bag of your stuff costs £5 also but that is for as long as you like. They give you a ticket etc and ask for you to sign so that its all secure.
After this we were on our way to the embassy! Nothing much to say here other than we queued up for about 10 mins outside. They check your paperwork a couple of times here, so keep it out. Take all belts/watches etc off and put them in your bag and basically just follow the arrows into the embassy. As easy as that!
Once inside we had to wait in a big room with lots of chairs and tv screens and waited for our numbers to be called. We were one after the other which was handy. When they called our numbers we went up to the little booth and chatted to the officers inside and they took our fingerprints/asked a bit about our trip etc.
Then we sat down and filled out a delivery form for our passports to be delivered back to us (taking a pen is useful!) and waited for our number to be called again. This time it's a bit more random and this is where the wait can happen. When our numbers were called we went to the booths and re-scanned our fingerprints and answered a few questions about our trip. Really standard stuff like what it's for, had we worked in America before etc. And after that we were done!! All in all it took about 1.5 - 2 hours for both of us to be seen. Oh I forgot, before leaving we went to pay for our passport delivery, it's £14.50 now.
One of the most beautiful morning's ever - despite the challenge of driving in the snow...
My car survived the night of snow...
Ducky having fun in the snow...
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