Getting a U.S. visa is a task, the major hurdle is in getting the interview time slot, which takes months at times to receive. I started my application process in mid August and finally last week I got the Visa. I did the process through a travel agent because some of my friends had done it through that route and their process was completed much faster then those who it themselves. But still with the help also, the earliest I could get the visa interview date was end of October. Which ideally is a very good time period, because normally it takes sometimes 6 to 8 months to just get the interview date.
I applied here in Oman, in India it is a all together a different story, it takes more then a year to just get the interview date and the process is also very tedious. Here once I got the date, I prepared all my documents to carry for the interview. Me and hubby both applied together, and we were called for the interview also together. We received the first morning slot for the interview. I was thinking that it will complete fast since we were the first ones, but on reaching there, I saw there was already a long queue before us. We had reached half an hour early from our appointment time, so I was wondering what time would have those people come in.
The process went smooth, there was very tight security check, mobile phones and all metal things had to be left outside. While we were waiting for our turn, there were 2 girls ahead of us, and sadly both of their Visas got rejected, this made me nervous and I was wondering if we would get or not. The fees are high and we had paid the agent fees also, which was total of 500$, so if it gets rejected then a big money also lost.
When our turn arrived, hubby did the talking. We were not asked many questions and I was thinking in my mind, why is he not asking questions, is he going to reject, but then he said it's approved and you will receive the passport in a week's time. I wanted to jump with joy but in that environment I had to control myself.....hehe. Later I felt that it all happened so fast and smooth. But still I did not want to be very excited as I wanted to have the passport in my hand, see my visa and then only celebrate...haha.
So now that I have my U.S. visa I can start planning a holiday in that part of the world. I have already been there once but that's like 20 years back, so it's a long time. I also want to visit South America and for that I can use my U.S. visa to travel and get their visa on arrival. U.S. visa holds a lot of power and when you have that stamped on your passport, getting visa for many other countries also becomes easy. There are some countries who will give visa on arrival if you have the U.S. visa. It simplifies in many ways. So for an Indian traveler a U.S. visa holds lot of importance. We got a 10 year multiple entry visa so that's a very good thing. Moreover getting it from India would have been very challenging, here in Muscat the processing time is faster and this simplifies.
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