Three memorable things:

1) The “private security” people are assholes. They will be rude to you.

2) Bags, Computers/Cellphones and any electronics are not allowed inside the US Consulate – but there’s a nice network economy of fastfood joints/stores across the street from the consulate that will keep your bag for you for the duration of your interview for CAD10 – smart entrepreneurship

3) It now takes 4 days to get your visa, or at the least, 3 days including the day you had your interview. No more same day or next day processing, as of 11/20/2007.

I don’t remember how the security guards at the Toronto consulate behaved but they definitely weren’t as rude as the people at the Vancouver consulate. The visa officer himself was pretty cool, and joked about me being single!

Update: Most people that came from big companies (such as, one of the Top 1000 Visa sponsors via this blog) got their visa’s in three days – if you’re at a smaller company your visa will most likely take 4 days.  But this is my guess, based on some empirical evidence, only, as is most of this blog!

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Tags: h1b, visa_interview, visa_appointment, visa, us, canada, vancouver, consulate