Our interview was scheduled for April 18th, and the group was supposed to gather near the coordinator at 9:30 AM. In reality, we arrived even earlier and wandered around Novinsky, lost, lonely, and agitated, from about 8 AM (which, I admit, doesn't speak well for our sanity).

The line moved veeery slowly; we only crawled into the embassy building around 11:00-11:30 AM. Inside, it looks most like an airport waiting area—both in scale and atmosphere. The coordinator sat us in a row, told us to hit the vending machines, and declared that we would see the consuls in, at best, 2 hours.

By the way, such a long wait significantly reduces stress, which is a good thing.

A small aside: we are evening students with full-time jobs, so we were in the risk zone from the very beginning. When we found out the percentage of people getting a Work and Travel USA visa in Moscow in 2013, we turned pale and started calculating where we would spend the money we'd get back after a rejection. The media, led by Kommersant, scared us mercilessly, as if our mental state was healthy before that...

So, we are sitting, waiting for a miracle. There was absolutely nothing to do, and Yulka and I decided—since we were lucky enough to be in the same stream—to chat about life in English, just to tune into hearing a foreign language. And for the next hour or so, that's all we did, and quite successfully, I might add. Interestingly, the people sitting around us were fellow sufferers who looked at us as if we were speaking Hindi.

By the way, we are by no means gods of English (well, okay, Yulka has a fancy translator certificate), but let's be honest, anyone planning to be a guest worker in America for 4 months should be able to speak fluently (even if a bit clumsily).

Finally, we were called to the consuls. We stood in another line, sat for another 45+ minutes in another waiting room, stood in line again... In short, I think you understand what I mean.

So, it turned out a bit dry up to this point—well, that's because a couple of weeks have passed, and the emotions have subsided. For the continuation, I'll throw in a fragment from the post I wrote the very next day—it will be better that way, IMHO.

"...right before our eyes, more than [much more than] a hundred people passed, and only one young man got a visa. The rest either got rejections or notifications for additional processing.

For more than 1.5 hours, which we can vouch for, because not a single student who left the hall escaped our intense gaze at the final stage of the quest—so, during those 1.5 hours of waiting, there was only one visa. One damn visa. Out of hundreds who passed.

And suddenly, a girl from Kyrgyzstan, who was standing in front of us in line, gets a visa. Shock. Panic. Because Yulka is supposed to go to the same consul who had just been interrogating the Kyrgyz girl for 10-15 minutes, and two visas in a row can't happen, right?

I listen intently, but Yulka speaks to the consul surprisingly quietly (usually, when she's nervous, not only does her volume increase, but the frequency goes up too—well, she and Sheldon are from a defective episode). And then, after 3 damn minutes, she finally says in a familiar descant: 'Do u mean that my visa is approved?!' and crawls away. I haven't seen such wide eyes in any Disney cartoon) I would have laughed if it hadn't been so scary. Now it seems to me that if there had been a couple more people between us, and I had time to think it all over, I might have even truly envied her. Fortunately, I was next in line.

I go to the same consul, my head pounding: 'Well, three visas in a row—that's impossible, right?'. I smile at him as if he's my favorite person and start our dialogue. A few questions, and silence on his part. My passionate: 'Please, don't tell me no!'. His laughter. Wonderful, I think, he's definitely going to send me to hell now. But he suddenly asks: 'Where do you want to visit?' - 'Honestly?' - 'Honestly.' - 'New York. Broadway.' And he nods, somehow very benevolently.

He asks: 'What will you do if you arrive at the location and no one is waiting for you there, and they tell you to go home?'.

I first say all the right words about calling the embassy, etc., but suddenly, giving in to an impulse, I laugh and say that such a thing will definitely not happen to me. He says he is sure of that too, and congratulates me, handing me the signed DS-2019 form. In a suddenly hoarse voice, I say 'Thank you' and slowly walk away.

I walk through the hall under the same intense gazes that I had previously used to measure those leaving the consul, and I try to comprehend whether they gave me a visa or if it's just additional processing and I didn't understand. I hear loud whispers from everywhere: 'Look, she has a visa! It's a visa! Do you see, she has a visa!', and I realize that it's all about me.

I meet Yulka's eyes. She realizes that I also have a visa, and her face changes. I realize that my smile also looks more like a spasm, but who cares, who cares—I have a reason to smile like that!"

So, the visa has revealed its face. In the next post, I want to summarize what is most important when preparing for an interview...

by Ryboginyushka