We got the Visa, Sort Of....

Tuesday morning was a long morning. Up early, before the sun. Kylie and I made it to the consulate 20 minutes early. Good thing because you have to wait in line to get scanned by a security guard. After being scanned, you take a seat and wait to be ushered into an elevator by another guard. The elevator takes you up to the 59th floor of the MLC Center, the official US consulate. When the elevator doors open, you are presented with, you guessed it, another line. In this line you wait to have any personal belongings scanned as well as another pass through a metal detector. Kylie and I actually had to wait for at least 20 min in this line, as the man before us couldn't seem to find a small pocket knife he had in his bag. However the security guard was able to find it in 30 seconds. Go figure.

After being checked through the security station you go through another door and are presented with a waiting room. There is small ticket machine right as you walk in, you press a button that corresponds to the type of visa you are applying for. In our case, an immigrant visa. Then you wait, and you wait some more. There is a nice view from the window though. We waited for about an hour before our number was called, the number 004. We walked up to window 1 where we passed through all of our visa papers. The lady behind the window was quite nice to us. She handed me a small piece of paper to take to the cashier, where I quickly paid for the all the visa fees. Then I went to back to sit down and wait for our number to be called again.

About 15 or 20 minutes later, our number was called and we approached window 1 yet again. The lady behind the Plexiglas window, said everything was in order, but that there was only one small problem. Well it would have been a small problem if we had been married in New South Wales, however we were married in Queensland. The problem was the marriage certificate we received on the day of the wedding was not sufficient evidence of our marriage, we needed an official copy from the Births, Deaths, and Marriages registrar in Queensland. Apparently this was recent change to their operating procedures. At this point we were a little frustrated and not sure what to do. We were told that we can still do the interview but we will not be able to get the visa without the marriage certificate. So Kylie and I, a little dejected, stepped back from window 1 and returned to our seats to wait for our number to be called again.

It was about a 10 min wait until our number was called for yet a third time and we got up and went to window 4. Window 4 is where the interview was held. They captured Kylie's fingerprints and started to go through our visa forms. The man behind the counter was probably no older than Kylie or I. He asked us how we met and how long along ago it was when we met. He then asked Kylie, if I had brothers and sisters and what she thought of them. He also asked her if she like my parents. He then turned to me and asked if I had met her parents. All of the questions were easy and straight forward. We were finished with the interview portion in about 5 minutes. He then said that the request for the visa was pretty much granted, but we can't get it without the correct marriage certificate. So at this point Kylie and I said "Thank You", stepped away from the counter, and proceeded to the elevator. Talking and trying to figure out how to get our official marriage certificate quickly.

We came back to our hotel and made a call to the NSW Births, Deaths, and Marriages office but there is no real communication between the states, so no way to get our certificate from them. So we called the Queensland office and they said if we print a request form off from their website and fax it to them with id, they could mail it to us and it would be here Wednesday morning. Kylie and I thought great, we ran around the hotel, printing, copying, and faxing and sent it off. Well, Wednesday morning came and went and no letter. We called them about 11:30am and were told that they had just found our marriage paperwork, but that it had never been entered into the system officially. We explained to them the urgency of the matter and they said they would get some people on it. We hoped to have the certificate Thursday morning, as Thursday morning is a walk-in day at the consulate.

Well, Thursday morning came and went no letter. Good news however is that we did receive the letter this afternoon. Now Kylie and I only have to get back into the consulate to drop it off. We hope to do this tomorrow (Friday). The downside is that it takes about 12 hours to get the visa processed. What this means is that it won't be ready until the next business day, which is Tuesday, since they are closing the consulate for Memorial Day. So we are probably going spend some more time in Sydney unless they can get everything processed so that we can pickup it up Friday afternoon.

So for all those wondering, that is where we are at.

P.S. Kylie and I went and saw X3, make sure to stay through all the credits.