July 26, 2002
We left for Montreal from Toronto on Thursday, July 27 at 2:00 p.m. and arrived at our hotel at 7:30 p.m. We stayed at Le Tour Centre Ville, http://montreal.hotelguide.net/data/h100055.htm, which was literally across the street from the consulate - if our room had faced Rene-Levesque, we would have had a view of the building. We parked in the hotel garage for $15 a day. Our room was a dream, a small suite(petite, pardonez-moi) with a kitchen, queen bed, pull-out couch, cable TV, and a full bathroom with a tub. The room was $102 CAD, plus taxes, and well worth it. We bought food at an IGA grocery store down the street (in a mall attached to the Wyndham Hotel about two blocks west on Rene-Levesque and Rue Jeanne-Mance) and made breakfast both mornings. There's a full-size fridge, oven, stove, and coffee maker in the kitchen, and basically we can't recommend the hotel highly enough for those doing interviews in Montreal.
The main reason that we recommend the hotel is that it is literally across the street from the consulate. You walk out the front door of the hotel, go left and walk up Rene-Levesque to Rue St. Alexandre, which is the first street you come to. Go right on Rue St. Alexandre across Rene Levesque. The Consulate is in the building on the north east corner of Rue Alexandre and Rene-Levesque, but the entrance for the consulate is up the street, just north of the corner. It's probably 100 steps from door to door, max. If you don't stay in Montreal, there's a parking lot just north of the consulate building, on the same block of Rue St. Alexandre, which seemed to have spots available even at 11:00 a.m., so that's probably the place to park. I don't know what they charge.
We left for the consulate at 8:35 a.m.; our interview was scheduled for 9:30 a.m. We arrived at the embassy at 8:40 or so. We were asked for our appointment letter and had to put all of our stuff (my purse and Serge's briefcase with our documents) on the x-ray machine belt, take everything out of our pockets, and then walk through the metal-detector. As others have said, it was like an airport security check. The security guard looked through my whole purse, and then told us to go up to the 19th floor, and to check in at Window 25.
The elevator has only three options - RC (ground floor in French, we think), 19 and 22. We got off at 19. The room was large and open, with many signs indicating which window was where. We walked to Window 25, where we waited for the clerk to come back to the booth (she was more than a little elusive all day, by our observation) and she gave us two copies of number C-12. There were about 20-30 other people in the room already, and the numbers being displayed on the electronic system were mostly As and Cs all morning.
We sat down to wait at 8:55 or so. At 9:10, our number was displayed on the system for the first time, and we went to Window 3, one of three windows taking paperwork for what appeared to us to be couples seeking visas. The clerk asked for Serge's appointment letter and went to grab our file. While we were waiting for her to return, I noticed a line of files behind the desk with ?K3 and K-4? written above. A man (who later would interview us) walked by, saying ?a rejection, right off the bat?, which wasn?t exactly reassuring. :-)
The clerk came back with our file (which was not fastened with ACCO-type fastener but held together with a rubber band). Serge was asked for his original birth certificate and a copy, his passport, a new letter of my intent to marry him, two copies of DS-156 and one copy of DS-156K, which she had him sign in front of her, the police certificate, the medical (she gave him back the x-ray, another souvenir of the K-1 experience!), two passport-style photos, and finally my affidavit of support (I-134). She did not ask for the letter from my employer or my bank statements, although they were on the consulate's list of evidence we needed to provide. She complimented Serge on being so well-organized. :-) She gave him a slip and told him to go back to Window 25, pay and put the receipt and slip in her box and that we would be called for an interview later. She took one of the two copies of our number. Serge went and paid $65 and took the receipt back to the window, and left it, although he worried because the woman was nowhere in sight. We were done with this part by 9:25.
We went back and sat, and observed others with C numbers getting called for interviews, coming back and then being called for their visas. There were two interview rooms for the "Cs" and we got very excited as C-11 got called for their interview. Our number was displayed at about 10:20 and we headed for interview room 13. We went in and there was a man sitting behind another partition (we had no face-to-face interactions with anyone other than security, everyone on the whole floor was behind SOLID glass partitions). He began by explaining that he was administering an oath, and gave Serge a form to sign that indicated he had been sworn in. He explained he would be asking Serge a few questions.
The interview started with a question about whether Serge had lived anywhere other than Canada since age 16. Then he asked how Sergio had met me. He then turned to me and said, I assume this is Kristin? and we agreed. :-) He asked when we had begun dating seriously and what Sergio did for a living. He noted that I live in Michigan and Serge in Toronto, and said "so you guys probably can see each other pretty often, even every weekend if you want, huh?" We affirmed that we are indeed lucky in that respect. Then the interviewer turned to me and said "I am going to ask him the next question and I know you know but I want to see what he says" and we all laughed a little. He asked what I did for a living, and Serge explained I work at the U-M Medical School.
Then the weirdest thing happened. The guy broke off the interview and said, you know, I have a friend who went to the Med School there and told me his name - and I actually knew him! We talked about our mutual acquaintance for awhile (Serge was kinda like, hey, wait, aren't we here about a visa? Let's get this interview over!) After we were talking for a minute he turned to Serge and said, "sorry, we'll get to you in a second", or something, but it was really funny and made both of us relax.
He asked Serge if he was born in Italy, which he wasn't but his parents were. Then the interviewer said the words we had waited six months to hear - "I'm approving your application!!!!" Serge asked if he could kiss his fiancee, and the guy said sure! We were so happy to be approved.
He told us that the K-1 visas were not printed in this office, but "on the other side of the building" and that they were printed in groups of three, so he couldn't tell us how long we would need to wait, because he never knew when they would print the K-1s, although he thought it would take somewhere between 30 and 45 minutes. It turns out that we were probably the only K-1 applicants there that day, although we didn't realize it then. We went back to the waiting room to wait for our name to be called. It was probably 10:25 - 10:30. The whole interview only lasted 5 to 10 minutes.
Then we had a REALLY long wait, especially since we were approved and all we wanted to do was get out of there and celebrate (oh, and eat, since we were both getting hungry!). It took another hour for Serge's name to be called. While we waited, we noticed that others who came in after us were getting their visas and leaving. We realized that no one had gone through the same process as we had - they were all paying for the visa AFTER they had their interviews. Also, everyone else seemed to have wedding bands on. So we figured that we were probably the only ones there for K-1s (I think I read somewhere that they usually do K-1s on Wednesdays) and the consulate probably waited to see if there would be any more fiance apps before printing ours alone.
Finally, at 11:35, Sergio's name was called (no one else was called at the same time) to report to Window 3 again, where we dealt with a new clerk. She gave us his passport, with the visa imprinted in it, and the "mysterious brown envelope". We asked her what he should do when visits the US, because he's not moving yet. She told him to make a copy of his passport, carry his birth certificate, and explain that he has a K-1 but he's not using it, and he shouldn't have any problem. The interviewer suggested we check with the INS folks at the border, too, so we're going to do that, since Serge won't be using the visa until November and will be visiting several times before then. We spent a few minutes reviewing the visa, making sure the info was all correct, which it was.
An interesting thing we noticed is that the visa says "PET EXP/REVALIDATED SEPT 3, 2002" and then it says "EXPIRATION DATE 25JAN2003" which is six months from the date we were approved. So I guess Montreal knows that you need to revalidate the petition approval (ours would have expired on Sept. 3).
We finally left the consulate at 11:45. It was, all in all, a pretty painless and straight-forward procedure, and we were in and out in just under three hours. Overall, we were extremely impressed with the consulate and the staff there. The whole system was extraordinarily easy to follow and we knew what we needed to do at every step. Everyone was pleasant and friendly and we just couldn't have been more pleased.
Now, on to the business of using the visa and getting married!
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