Final Count Down, Day Zero

Hii Guys,

Again this is my final post before posting from another Country :D

Any way I did many things in the previous days, and I'll just mention them here as points and may discuss them later when I get some time:

1. Change money from the Bank.
2. Buy a lot of things (many of them are really weird!).
3. Meeting a lot of people and making a lot of family visits.
4. I don't remember what else.

The most thing which is really amazing, is the way we'll pick up the keys for our house when we arrive to US.

But this is another story, I'll post it as soon as I arrive and have internet access with tons of picutres.

Stay tight ;)

On the way to Redmond 1

Hello all,

Starting from now and until I find my-self out there in Redmond, I'll write a new post every couple of days to discuss what I've done during this period before traveling, now let's start with the first one.

So, from where I'd start?!

Let's start from the last time's end, in my previous post regarding this issue; I stopped on the embassy interview.

After that with 3 days, I received my passport with the visa stamped in it, so during this period I called the shipping company to ship my goods and stuff, they took my passport to make some arrangements with it in the Airport (I don't know really what are these arrangements), and returned it back to me and I told them that I'll call them again as soon as I decide to ship my stuff.

Then I send to my candidate move specialist to reserve me my seat, she sent me a word document containing a lot of questions about my preferred seat position, my preferred food on the plan, my preferred place to leave my temporary car for me, if I prefer to have a hotel room during the period between my arrival and going to my housing, my preferred housing and how many rooms I want, etc.

I sent her the document with all these questions answered and asked her to reserve the next seat with me to my friend Mostafa who's traveling with me and who's working with me in the same team, and also asked her to make the travel date and time any where beyond March 02, 10:00 PM GMT because I've a special event which I need to attend.

Then I got an email from her telling me that she has reserved the seats and this is the confirmation email and I'll receive the tickets by DHL service within several days, so my travel date and time has been reserved to be March 03, 2:55 AM.

I'll go first to Amsterdam through KLM airlines in a trip which is taking 5 hours and stay there for about 6 hours and then through Northwest Airlines in a trip which is taking around 11 hours directly to Seattle.

After that I went to make the international driving license, and after spending around 2 hours (and paying additional money to get it finished quickly, as you know Egypt ;) ), I got it.

I was thinking about it to be something like the local driving license, I mean good and small license covered and looks clean, but here you're what it's looking like:

After getting it, I went to the "El Shahr El Akary" (Don't know its meaning in Arabic) to make a general permission to my father "Tawkel 3am we shamel" to use it in any thing here in Egypt which is in need for me without my physical existence.

After that I went in a small outing with my friends (college friends) into Pizza King El Mereland and spent some time with each others.

Next day, I went to the Army to get my travel permission, and I really admit that this is the first time in my whole life to find that making a paper in the Army is the easiest part in this whole post, it was really so easy and so quick, I just filled a paper with my info, pay the fees, and wait for about 10 or 15 min and get the permission!!!
Really it's nothing when compared with my old adventure in Hykesteb ;)

And here you're a photo for how the Travel Permission is looking like:

That's all for today, soon I'll continue talking about what I've done next, also I hope if I could get an entry visa during my transit in Amsterdam to visit the City in this 6 hours.

So stay tight ;)
To Be Continued.....

The final countdown to Redmond (Part 3)

After I got there, I found a very very very long queue of people, actually there were 2 queues, one for those whom supposed to enter to the embassy at 9:30 am, and those like me whom are supposed to enter at 10:00 am.

It was about 9:40 am, so I found my place in the 10:00 am queue, and I have waited for about 15 min till someone got out from the embassy and told us to show him the photos we've.

Once she has seen the photo I've, she told me this is an invalid photo and I must get a photo of 5x5 cm size!!!

At this point I didn't know what shall I do, shall I get another interview time or what?!

Until she told me that I've 30 min only to get a photo and come back, for my good luck, there was a man very near to the embassy who's working on this type of photos only, so I went there, and found as much people as any one could imagine waiting there to take a photo too!!

After waiting for about 45 min (at this point I was sure that I missed the interview time), and after paying the big fees (when compared with any photographer in whole Egypt, it's about 2x, I went back to the Embassy and found that the 10:00 am queue is about to enter in few seconds, so I got my self a place with them and entered into the embassy.


Without talking with more details about how many queues I have found inside the embassy and how much time I've spent inside and how many interviews, let's skip all this to the final interview, it was so simple, just few questions about what I'll do in Microsoft, and when I've joined it, and when I've been graduated, ..... Etc

The final question was about my base salary, when she knew about it, she told me ohhhhhhh, toooo much money!!!

It was the first time for me to know that envy is not a special feature in the Egyptian culture, it's exist too even in someone who's working in a very good position in one of the embassies for the biggest country all over the world :D
Really weird :P

Now, what I'll do next:

1. Get my travel permission.
2. Get an international driving license.
3. Ship all my stuff with the moving company MS has provided me with.
4. Send them an email to book my flight for me.
5. Enjoy my time in Redmond inside MSFT :D

Stay tight ;)
Catch You Later.....

The final countdown to Redmond (Part 2)

After that the process for my training visa (H-3 Visa) has started, and at the same time I have scheduled an interview with the US Consulate in Cairo in February 09.

Few days (exactly at February 03), I got the visa petition approval notify, on February 08 mid-night, I knew that the visa package has arrived to the airport, and so I need to go there to pick it myself to be with me in the next day in the embassy, so I went to the air-port, take the package, went back to home, open it and oopppssssssssss all the papers surname is meshref and my surname in the passport is Moshrif, ohhhhhhh my God, what shall I do?!!

I picked my mobile phone and called Lori the attorney for my case in US, and for the continues bad luck she was away, so I left here a message on her answer machine to call me back.

Few moments later, I went back to my papers, I noticed something, only one paper has this phrase:
Surname (As in Passport)
And the rest aren't having the same phrase, also I noticed another paper which has this phrase:
Surname (list all different spellings)

So I think I got it, in the first paper I changed my surname to be Moshrif like in passport, and in the second one I put Meshref and Moshrif, and left the rest as they are.

After that it was about 4:30 AM, so I put all these papers aside and went to my bed to take some sleep because I must wake up at about 8:00 am, so I have slept and then woke up at 8:00 am, then left at 8:45 am to the embassy.

After I got there, I found .....

But this is another part, stay tight ;)
To Be Continued.....

The final countdown to Redmond (Part 1)

Hii all, Iam back and ready to blog again, I've just group all things together and post them after I finish them all because Egyptians are very good on Envy and such bad manners like no other nation in the whole world!!!!

As you you noticed all from the title Iam finally in my way to Redmond, but how this happened?

Before any thing, I knew from weeks ago what shall my position in MS be, it'll be working on the SQL Server Engine Performance Team, that's for my position as FT employee in the SQL Server team, But, I got an email from MS telling me that my new H-1B visa won't be ready before the end of the year as usual (as US system stated), so I've two options, either to leave to US at the early begining of March with training visa to attend a training program there (but with the same benefits plan like the FT position), and after completing it at the end of the year, my new visa should be ready and then get into my FT position again, or I could simply wait till I get the FT directly.

When I heard the word training, I've decided at first not to accept it, but after knowing that this "Training" is like a full post graduate diploma which is containing very amazing topics and very good Syllabus which made me accept the offer immediately :D, also I'll have the same benefits plan, and every thing I was gonna get in the FT position from A to Z.

After that ....

But this is another part, stay tight ;)
To Be Continued.....