atmospheric pressure

This will be the first posting in a series of posting to keep track of my trip to the US. Yepp the United States of America..the land of opportunities. So who wants to go to US? What should we do first? Just buy tickets and go? It's not that simple....

The first step is to get a PASSPORT. This piece of document is the most important to travel and without it you can forget about going overseas. How to apply? Just go to the Imigration Department, fill in the forms and get the money ready. Next is to get a tentative date. This means a trip to the travel agent and ask around for some flight dates. This dates are needed in your application for VISA.

Now comes the hard part. The application for VISA involves 2 process.

1) Interview dates
You will need to get an interview date for the VISA. This is being managed by a third party company appointed by the US embassy. The company VFS-US will check all your documents and you will need to fill in an online form through their website and once the form is completed you will get a date to come to their office for them to check the documents needed. Opppss before hand, you will have to go to any Alliance Bank and pay an amount of USD 131 plus 32RM and this payment slip is needed for the application.

VFS will screen through your documents and asks you some questions. Once you get over this, they will provide you with a date and time for an interview at the US embassy in Jalan Tun Razak.

2) The interview itself

The first step is to get a pass to enter the embassy at the guard post. The guard will need the interview date letter from VFS US office and you'll have to line up outside the embassy to get in. There is 2 security checks before you can get in through the front door of the embassy. The interview involves several steps where you will get a number and your number will be called several times at different counters until the last interview counter. The staff will scrutinize your reason of going to US and this final counter will determine whether you get your VISA or you don't. Once you passed this, you can choose for the visa and your passport to be couriered back to you and you can opt to pick it up yourself at the VFS US office.

So that's it for the VISA application and once you get your hands on the VISA you're halfway there!