Posts Tagged ‘Frankfurt’

The train I take to work every morning passes by Frankfurt airport, which is an international airport where many long distance flights depart. This morning I had a group of teenagers in the train with me. They were going on a four-week-long educational trip to California, were very excited about it and couldn’t stop talking. I normally can’t stand it when people entertain the whole train with their talk in the morning, but this one was to good to be overheard or to be annyoing.

Those kids were so damn cute with their big dreams and naive thoughts about the time ahead of them. The girl that stood next to me was going to stay at a family in Chino for the four weeks. I guess this girl knew Chino from the TV series The OC, where the main character Ryan is a Chino resident. So I guess she thought Chino has some kind of Hollywood glamour and is next to the coast! That girl actually thought that she would land in a TV series world, where girls wear bikinis to school and where it is always 38° Celcius, sunny and everyone is doing great!

The cutest statement I overheard from her, was: “It will be so hot in Los Angeles right now. About 38° Celcius I read on the internet. When we will do our trip to Las Vegas for the weekend we will be freezing!” Freezing in the desert would be knew to me! Freezing in Las Vegas also would! But it got even cuter!

The girl totally freaked out about the customs check at the airport. She told all the other girls that you MUST tell the customs that you brought food to the US with you, because otherwise they will open your suitcase. She than got totally freaked out, because she seemed to have a bag of gummibears in gift wrap and guess what another girl told her: “You can’t do that! You will be in big trouble, because the X-Rays at the airport can’t scan through gift wrap and they will think that you carry a bomb or something dangerous with you!”

Luckily our arrival to Frankfurt airport interrupted their talk! I still wonder, if the girl unpacked her suitcase before the flight to rip off the gift wrap and what customs told her when she announced that she brought food with her from Germany! But even if I have to laugh a lot about their naivity, a part of me wishes to be that age again, to go to the US without a care and only with great expectations and to know that no matter how the trip will turn out to be I will go back into mommy’s arms after four weeks anyways!

So, it’s finally time for me to tell you about our Greencard interview at the american consulate in Frankfurt. This day is not a day that I love to remember, but I can’t forget it neither! Okay, you know how the day started, so right now we are at the point where Flo and I were again sitting in the waiting area of the consulate. At the time we were waiting, there were three people doing the interviews. I prayed that we won’t get to take to the woman that looked the meanest. But guess what: It was her, who called our number!

Before the interview we had read that you can ask for a translator, but we chose not to, because our english is good. So, we went up to the window and handed over all the forms we had to. The woman started to ask Flo some basic infos and than came to the question that changed all: When did you marry? Flo was very excited at that day and by accident told her a wrong date. I corrected it and with that pissed off that woman seriously! She nearly yelled at me that I did not have to say a word at all, because I was only his wife and that I would get serious problems, if I would again! As you may imagine that didn’t calm down Flo a bit and the interview went on very bumpy! The woman asked some more questions about our wedding, looked at our marriage certifacte and than said that we had to hand in wedding pictures after the interview. She told us that she didn’t exactly believe that we were married for real and that she had to check on that fact!

Than she asked Flo about the money he would bring to the US. He told her (it is a high figure for our age I guess and much more than you need to bring for the application) and the woman seriously had the nerves to laugh and ask us (sorry, ask Flo), if he thought that he could live from that money for real! Before Flo could answer that question, she gave us a very mean look, asked us if we had any more questions and than told us to go, because we were done!

Imagine you standing there like shaking with horror, because this interview could decide about your future and knowing nothing! She didn’t tell us, if we still had a chance to get the Greencard or what would happen to our passports!

As you may see in the post below we do have our Greencards! It actually took our passports about 4 weeks to arrive home – but still this day till now was our worst in this whole Greencard process!

I told you before: This is not how the usual interview goes, so please don’t be scared! But: Prepare yourself for that interview the best you can and take this thing very serious! Because the staff of the american consulate obviously does!

Our interview date at the american consulate in Frankfurt was in October 2009. It didn’t go very good, but please don’t be scared. We talked to a lot other Greencard winners after it and it turned out that our horrible interview wasn’t like the average interview at all. But let’s start at the beginning.

Our interview was at 8.15 am. We arrived at the consulate at about 6.45 am which was a very good idea, because there already were tons of people waiting in line. You are not allowed to bring any technical devices into the consulate, so leave your mobile phones and laptops in the car or even better at home. When you enter the consulate you have to go through a security check like you do at the airport. We had a bottle of water with us (which you are allowed to), but to prove that I didn’t carry any poisonous liquids in there I had to drink some of it and wait for 30 seconds to prove that I was still alive. Then you enter the waiting room, which is a huge hall with tons of people waiting in there.

You will spend the most time waiting from that point on. So bring time! We didn’t leave the consulate until 12 pm that day! First you have to go to a window, where you have to hand over your passports (they will stay at the consulate) and your id pictures. The woman who talked to us there was a bit annoyed, because she thought Flo had only brought pictures of him wearing his glasses along. But he had ones without the glasses, too, so we were done there. Next you have to go to a window where you pay the money. We had to pay 775 dollars each (I am not sure if it is the same this year). Remember to tell that officer that you won the lottery. We didn’t know that and annoyed him by not telling him!

When you enter the consulate you get a list, in which order you have to arrange your documents. Do that immediately, because it will spare you trouble and you really shouldn’t wear out the consulate staffs nerves! At the next window you have to hand over all your documents, tell the officer how much money you will bring to the US and tell them about your education and your job. Note that you have to bring the originals and copies of all your documents!

If you are done with that, you are ready for your real interview! In our case the most horrible part of that day!

To be continued…