Guus Bosman

Yesterday I went to the American consulate to apply for my visa that will allow me to work with my new employer in the U.S.

I've been to the consulate, which is at the Museumplein in Amsterdam, a few times before. Twice with Sasha, and before that in 1998 and 1999 for my two summer jobs, so I kind of knew what to expect. I had an appointment at 11:00 o'clock but I arrived around 10:30 o'clock. That was a good move, because they let me in anyway. It took the guard a little while to find me on the list with appointments which was a bit scary but everything was fine. Nowadays they have a pretty flexible call-center in place for appointments that's much better than the computerized system they used to have.

Security was tighter than when I went there in 1999, which is sad. In the consulate the TV had a special broadcast on the murder of Theo van Gogh.

Inside things went pretty smoothly. They took my finger prints using a neat electronic machine. The lady who helped me was very friendly and told me the visa should be back in my possession in about three days. She said she'd try to mail it this afternoon.