US Visa Approved!
Fantastic news - yesterday I went to the US Embassy here in London to have my L1-B visa interview. It was a rainy morning and apart from the initial queues at security I was in and out pretty quickly.
The first part was actually getting through the barriers to gain access to the embassy, which involved a short wait and then an airport style metal detector and an x-ray for my posessions. Once I walked around the huge building, I went into the visa side entrance and was given a ticket - #228. The waiting room was fairly large, with a lot of bored people sitting around, staring vacantly at four large plasma screens with ticket numbers flashing on them. After five minutes of staring at this also, I was instructed by a recorded american voice to one of the windows. The british guy checked all my forms, and I had my fingerprints scanned. I then was told to sit down again and wait for my interview.
I only had another short wait of five minutes before I was called to another window, this time down the corridor to the right of where I was sitting. The american guy which greeted me was pretty cheerful, and seemed like he was excited to be in London. He asked me a couple of questions about my job and then said, “Ok so your visa is approved.”
I thanked him, and as I walked back down the corridor a great relief was lifted from my shoulders. After lot of waiting and about six months of planning all culminating into one five minute interview - it almost seemed weird.
I gave my address details to the SMS couriers, and am now awaiting the delivery of my passport, they said about five working days. I have just over two weeks left in the UK, it is incredible how time flies.