Memoirs of a Visa

American dream... but first you need a visa. Of course in many other countries this is just a formality, but not in USofA. And so it begins the story of a visa

Step 1
First thing you have to do for a visa .... well .... it is to pay for it, but anywhere, only at BT by filling out a special form. Nothing complicated, everything ok, except for the huge line of 2 persons in front of you. You might laugh at first... but when you wait half hour for them it's not so funny any more.

Step 2
Next thing is to send the request to the embassy. The company took care of everything ;)) which is nice. I just received an forwarded email with the confirmation and the day of the interview.

Step 3
You can't just go empty handed there :D, it wouldn't be nice. So you have to have some papers with you. One of them consists of a printed barcode after filling an online form. Let's talk about this form. There were normal questions like given name, passport number, sallary ;)) etc. But in order to make things funny some interesting questions were added. For example, how would you answer to this question:
   Are you a member or representative of a terrorist organization? (i think if I were, i would like to boast :> )
or
   Have you ever committed, ordered, incited, assisted, or otherwise participated in torture? (oh yeah baby spanky spanky... but i don't think that counts as torture)

Anyway a lot of questions and at the end... the famous barcode with 3 (three) options: Print, Print whole form, Email. A normal person would say: "hei, I think I will email this to have it saved just in case shift happens". I am also a normal person (contrary to some colleagues belief) and I said the same thing, with an extra caution to save the page as html archive. Well .... lucky extra caution. Because after pressing the email button...puf...shift happened, server error ... puf no more barcodes for me :).
  Next: printing the barcode. Always use a laser printer ;) after 4(four) failed attempts at home I printed the barcode at work. The deskjet printer just couldn't be so delicate with black and white stripes.

Step 4
Bucharest. Lucky me, I didn't have to go by train. 
It was my first flight ever. Actually the second flight ever, but flying when you are 2 (two) years old doesn't count. Destination: baneasa airport... which should be called a romanian flying train station. It is very small and not so elegant. After leaving the "train station" we took the bus to the embassy. Or so we thought. We arrived at the real train station, where we were told that we took the wrong bus. Awesome.
'Taxi!!!' because we were late. There are 2(two) types of taxis in bucharest. Affordable and expensive. please look carefully at their fares. We were lucky and took an affordable one.

Step 5
The embassy: 4(four) waiting points. One for 'gun' checking, one for papers one for finger prints and one for interview. =2(two) hours spent int the embassy for some fingerprints and a half minute interview. I don't know why we had to go there. 

Grand finale (steps 6,7,8....)  
The return of the king. After getting all wet from a summer rain in bucharest, we arrived at the baneasa 'airport'. Of course that our flight was delayed, but after 1 and a half hour we were back home. To see the difference between an airport ticket and an 'airport' ticket, take a look at the picture below.

All in all... getting a visa is an interesting adventure. I'm waiting to see if it was worth it.