Today's post is dedicated to the work leading up to going to Venezia, because traveling is never simple with me, and Italians are nothing if not monkey wrenches (I mean that in a loving way). I received my letter of acceptance into the Peggy Guggenheim Collection Internship on 30 November. A couple weeks later I asked them about the official documents I would need in order to get a student visa while I got all the other necessary documents together. The Italians need everything to process your visa short of a blood sample, though if I offered that I'm sure it would not have been good enough. For one reason or another I didn't get my paperwork until 16 February. In case you failed kindergarten, that is a grand total of at least 9 weeks, most likely more because the initial application was due in early October. You can see that on a scale of 1 to crazy town I was somewhere between shaving my own head and Jack Nicholson after he gets the lobotomy in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.
Cut to 17 February when I called the Consulate to make an appointment and the earliest one I could make was Monday morning. So I paid the $15 it costs to make an appointment and they emailed me a list of requirements. As it happens, the insurance I bought specifically for the trip which covers all medical, dental, and emergency costs, was not good enough for them and I had to also get a letter from my insurance listing my primary coverage. This took some doing since the insurance company is based in California and could not assure me that the letter would be in my email on time. (Thanks to my incredible sister for talking me off the ledge and calling them until they promised it would be sent in time.)
The next step was to drive to Philadelphia and simply had in all the documents and hope for the best. Wrong. What should have taken 5 minutes took and hour. Naturally, the Consulate opened 10 minutes late and when the woman finally arrived, I was not on the list of appointments. In fact, the list was blank. What did I pay $15 for? Non lo so. So the woman grilled me about the internship and talked in circles until Pops was ready to start screaming. But she took the paperwork on the condition that I email her a copy of the brochure of the traveler's insurance which they originally said was not acceptable. REALLY?! So at that point I was ready to shave my head and have a lobotomy.
But that is not all! That Thursday she called me asking again about the insurance brochure even though I had emailed it to her right after leaving the appointment on Monday. She then assured me it would be in the mail that day. Nope. Not in the mail. No where near a FedEx. Instead, it was sitting on the desk in her office the next morning when Pops dragged me back up to Philadelphia. At this point Pops ripped it out, made sure it was there, and then wanted to leave. In fact we were still yelling at each other in the elevator down and when it opened to a bunch of people in the lobby. (How very Canadian of us.)
So it turns out the lobotomy wasn't necessary, too late, I can't feel the left side of my face.
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