Biometric Appointment

One of the things you have to do for your visa is go to a biometric appointment. The biometric appointment basically consists of getting fingerprinted and having your photo taken. Why? I'm not sure - they tell me to jump, and I don't even ask how high, I just do. I've found it's useless to ask questions of the government. Luckily, our appointment was at a tiny application support center that was pretty much empty when we arrived. Another bonus was that it had its own free parking lot - a rarity in LA!

The appointment was for 1:00pm, but we showed up at 12:35pm just cause we like to show up early to everything. A nice lady at the front desk stamped our biometric appointment confirmation, took a look at our passports, and handed us a number each. We then sat patiently in the special red chairs that were located in a special blocked off area. We were feeling special indeed. =)

After waiting on the red chairs for about 10 minutes, another nice lady called our numbers, and we got to sit in the fingerprinting area. Once I was called, I confirmed the info on the appointment paper, and the digital fingerprinting commenced. Now I've done this once or twice before, but damn is it annoying. The machine kept rejecting my stupid fingerprints, and I could tell the lady was getting irritated. Okay, SO not my fault. I got these ridiculously skinny fingers, and she kept telling me to relax while she tried to squash down my hand onto the reader. That is not relaxing, but I tried to loosen up as much as I could.

After the fingerprinting torture was over with, I had to take yet another unflattering picture. The lady took my picture after instructing me to smile but not to show my teeth (they're not that bad!), and asked me to take a look to see if I was happy with the picture. It's not like I want the visa people to think I'm hot, so I don't really care what the picture looks like, but man, was it bad. =P

All in all, we were out of there by 1pm, which is when our appointment was supposed to start! Not bad, not bad at all.