A day at the Consulate

Friday, June 20 2008

There are not many postings on the Internet about what a consulate visit is going to be like, and for the few that are, there are some indefinite descriptions. Since I also had to obtain a visa for a planned internship in the US, here is a quick rundown of what to expect. [General Consulate in Frankfurt/Main, Germany].

If you have never been to Frankfurt and do not know anyone to ask, it is quite a trick to find the actual consulate, because all you find is their address, and no helping pictures or way descriptions. Entering the address into Google maps does not help much, it seems that gmaps does not have any GPS locations for the house numbers, it gives the same position for all of them. And then you switch to Satellite View and are like “just what does a consulate look like, from above?”. For added confusion for GMaps users, the consulate is located in what was formerly a US hospital. Aha! That was a very helpful hint I found after long searching. But if you would not know, you would gladly skip it on the satellite view, looking for some embassy-like building (you surely have seen one of them already).

There are reports of endless lines of people waiting to enter the consulate/embassy, but this was not the case when I arrived at Frankfurt's US consulate. There was a bystanding crowd present, but they seemed to be relatives of other people currently inside the building and waiting for them to return. They did not actually stand in line. But then came the real line, or rather two.

The whole areal was gated, but this is probably due to it being a hospital a few decades ago. The entrace building you will go through is for security. At first, you have to go up to the “reception booth” where an officer will look up your name in the attendees list. The waiting line is usually short here, it is quick. Be sure to have the printouts for your appointment date and consulate/visa fee with you, or they probably won't let you in at all. If approved, you will get a ticket with a number which will soon be used for various kinds of processing you. I had an appointment scheduled for 09:45; arriving at 09:12 (printed on the ticket) seemed to be no problem.

The next line is for entering the security checking area. While standing outside, an officer will request that you show then your ticket (see, first use). When time has come (and only time can tell), people in groups of six are allowed in for security checking. The reason for six is probably that there were (IIRC) three officers to inspect you and your belongings, or maybe they just had six wooden cases where to put the latter in. Dunno. Anyway, in English and quite good German they will request to put all things into the box for x-ray scanning. Electronic devices such as mobiles/cellphones are not allowed, though people did bring them. I did not pay attention as to what happened to these — the website says items will not be stored — but I guess people were allowed to keep them or have them stored. Still, it would be better not to bring it unless you have someone waiting outside to keep it for you.

Some pages' language may even suggest not to bring anything but the relevant forms plus a self-addressed letter inside one clearcase. (Speaking of forms, the totally assed US formats do not fit into an ISO A4 clearcase.) This kind of made me really unsure about what to take with me. I generally have an umbrella somewhere — weather can be really random sometimes, and I generally play it safe; but I left it home just in case... Petrus honored it.

When you are through security, you can get into the main building. But not without showing your ticket again. In it is a large hall (remember: hospital), er, large waiting area. According to a sign, no more than 299 people are allowed at any time inside, and I would guess it was about 250 people waiting there. That's probably what kept us up in the security line. So at the entrance to the main hall is a receptionist asking for your DS-156 (in case of non-/immigrant matters) and will hand you an orange instruction sheet telling you in what order to put your forms. Speaking of forms, there is this thing they call Paperwork Reduction Act, but I fail to see the reduction if I have to print out all forms I just filled out online.

At the edges of the hall, there are countless windows with secretaries etc., as much as 35. Not all were allocated though; perhaps 15 of them were responsible for "U" [visas], 5-10 (I did not pay attention) for "C", "W", "H" and "J" [other diplomatic] matters, and the rest was unallocated and had blinds lowered. Your ticket has a number in the range of U300–U499 (after which the numbering wraps, go figure); the W range was about 500–, but I did not care too much to look for it. About half an hour must have passed by now since arriving.

After time goes by, your ticket eventually gets called upon — there is also a billboard with the five most recently called tickets — and you go to a window to hand in all the forms to the secrettary. Make a few corrections in case things have changed since filling out the online form, give fingerprints, ask questions if you have some, that's it. The secretaries try to speak German with you (in case you are German), but their accent is worse than that of the security officers, so asking them to use English was the saving way out for both them and me ;-).

The following items however were not checked in my case, probably because they could be inferred from my DS forms:

When done, the secretary will keep half of your ticket (it has got two parts containing the same text) and you can seat yourself again until called. Time passes...

Upon called again up to a window, I had a small “interview” with that window's secretary who asked things that were really obvious from the forms, but ok, play along and just answer. Five minutes later: “Your visa was granted. We will send it to you within the week.” And then you are suddenly done. No more than 15 minutes was my presence actually required, most of the time you just spend waiting. Well, that is how things seem to be. Time: 10:40, so I had spent a good 2.5 hours (not counting the extra travel I had to make to Frankfurt).

Thursday then...

On Thursday the same week, I already received the passport back via mail. Not only was the 5×5 cm photo trimmed to a 3.5×4 cm format. Gaaah—why did I obtain 5×5 photos then?, could have used my regular 3.5×4.5 German size ones! And they stapled all the forms (well, DS-2019, DS-7002 and I-797) into the passport, making it a huge blob of paper... anyway. Good to have it.