Pieces of me: An entire morning at the US Consulate in Sao Paulo - Brasil

Since 1 and a half year ago I’m one of those few who don’t need a visa to go to the US. That is due to my Italian citizenship, acquired as my grandparents were Italians. However, due to the nature and long stay of my upcoming trip to the US, I found myself obligated to apply for a visa, and that’s when the nightmare begun…
It took me one week to gather all the documents the US government required of me and my employer - BP. The pink slip to my car, bank statements, ownership of my apartment, BP's declarations…..the list was endless.

Then, the day I had to pay the visa fee, It took me two hours to go from BP’s office to Citibank, all because there was a car and 2 trucks involved in an accident on the surrounding streets of the office. At the bank, I had to face a 40 minutes line to pay the fee for the visa, as US law now forbids it to be paid by others. A good note here would be that, in Brazil, bank lines can’t go longer than 20 minutes according to our laws…..someone forgot to tell Citibank’s manager about it. Then, 1 and half hour more to go back to the office, where I had to go online to schedule my interview at the consulate and then, there was another - bad - surprise: no dates available for 2008. At this point, one of my bosses was loosing his mind.

We were forced to pay 300 Reais extra (130 dollars at today’s exchange rate) to an expediter to arrange us (me) an earlier date than Jan-2009. We were all a bit skeptic about it, but the guy delivered on his promise and arranged a date for 2 weeks later (which was today).

Today I woke up at 6 a.m. (Brazil time, but obvious), took a shower, changed into my clothes, sipped some coffee, grabbed a bagel and set off to the Consulate, which is about 8 Km (5 miles) away from my house.

The weather was terrible!!! It’s spring time in Brazil, but someone forgot to tell the weather about it, cause it was all gray, cold, windy and rainy.

I arrived at the consulate and, even before getting out of the car, I could see a very loooooong line. There was about 100 people in front of me. My first thought was: “Oh boy! It’s gonna be a looooong morning!”. Poor me, I didn’t know, at that time, that my definition of long would be “prolonged”.

There was I, first line (Yup! First!!!), and a girl was passing by all the poor souls in line to check everyone's visa forms, another girl was coming right after the first one, with the bar code reader and validating all the forms.

After an hour standing up in line, in the cold, comes another person, a young man this time, and he was ALSO checking everyone’s forms. Useless, in my opinion. Why the hell so many checkings?

Another hour would go before a fourth, a fifth and sixth person would come to perform the same useless job as persons no. 1 and 3. And there I was, standing up in line, in the cold, in the wind, under the thin rain, getting all moody and…guess what….starting to feel some weird pain that, after a few minutes I was able to identify as colic…..yup!!! It's those days of the month, you know….the ones when every girl in the planet wishes she was a boy so she wouldn't have to deal with this "situation" and its horrible pain every single month, from age 12 until the moment her body feels like shouting at her saying: YOU ARE TOO OLD, WOMAN!.
But, ok…..I had to stay there. And again I say: In line, in the cold, windy, rainy morning of Sao Paulo (which was looking like London!), feeling moody and baring my period's colic pain!

Two hours later I was entering the building and thought worst had passed…………….poor me (again!) Worst was yet to come.

Inside the building I had to turn off my mobile and hand it to the security guard, as well as all other electronics I was carrying, which were an ipod, a second mobile, a blackberry and a gps…….all because, you know, maybe I'm a terrorist…….But ok, as a BP employee, I, better than most people, get it! It's all about safety! Safety no matter what. And am all for it!

Ok so, the security guard comes and say: "Madam, please follow the yellow line on the floor."…….Ouch! Did anyone here traced a parallel to jail at this point???? Yeah…..me too! Everyone in line, following the yellow line…..I was expecting a big moody guard to come and say: "Keep moving you sissies!"
Oh and, this freaking yellow line was NOT inside the building, it was out side, behind it. So there I was……..again……line, yellow line, cold, wind, rain, moody, colic…….

We were all being sent to a place with a sealing and no walls, like a gas station. In there, hundreds of people, screens showing numbers, and lines……..more lines then in a Madonna's Concert's entrance.

So, First line (actually second, cause first one was at the entrance of the consulate, remember?), when my turn came up, all the guy wanted was to check my visa form. ARE YOU KIDDING ME?????

I set off to the third line, which was a pre-interview line, and 45 minutes later I was talking to another Consulate employee, and she asked me in Portuguese (while looking at my passport and picture) - "Are you Melissa?". I felt like saying: "Nope! I'm her avatar!"

Fourth line was to take all my finger prints……..a parallel to jail all over again….hehehehehe. I felt convicted to something even before committing any sort of crime.
40 minutes later I was "playing the piano" on some green light. Digital finger prints, you know…….

At this point I just couldn't stand the cold, the wind and the colic pain, so I faced a fifth line…….the one at the coffee shop…..and 35 minutes later I was ordering my hot coco, a coxinha (a Brazilian chicken snack) and taking a pain killer.

I went back to the "gas station sort of thing" where all the lines were and faced my sixth line…..the one to the actual interview.
2:30 hours later It was my turn to talk to one of the American employees. So I set off to counter #09 with a huge white folder containing all the documents they had asked me and the dialog was:

American Lady: Are you Melissa?
Me: Yes. (Nope! I'm her second avatar!)
American Lady: Are you traveling alone?
Me: Unfortunately! (she did not smile at my joke…..it hurt my feelings!)
American Lady: Where do you work?
Me: British Petroleum
American Lady: For how long?
Me: 1 year and 7 months?
American Lady: What's your income?
Me: *#*#*#*#*#*#*#*# US Dollars
American Lady: OK. Visa approved. Next!
Me: What? Next??? But wait, what about the documents?
American Lady: What about them?
Me: Don’t I have to give you the documents?
American Lady: No. Next!
Me: Excuse me but, shouldn't I at least show you the documents this consulate asked me?
American Lady: You have already been checked Lady. Now, off you go. Next!
Me: Ok. Thanks. Bye. Have a Good Day.
American Lady: Next!!!!

Oh boy……what a day!