... next step

In the spring when I was considering Plan Bs, I happened upon an advertisement for a volunteer opportunity in Costa Rica. Long on my bucket list of places to explore as a US retirement haven, this gig pays no cash, but provides room, board, transportation, laundry services, and I would be teaching professional adults who need English to improve their careers. What's not to love?

A short term gig - 4-6 months - it gives me the opportunity to explore Costa Rica and perhaps explore some medical tourism! Plus, I expect a Christmas break that is the polar opposite of my 2018 trip to Krakow and Aushwitz. 85F and sunny beaches, here I come!

After contacting the school, going through the interview process, and being accepted, I'm now making plans to fly to San Jose, Costa Rica.

Once again, we’ll pop over to Just A Quick Detour for my adventures in the jungle paradise of Costa Rica.

See you there!

And so...

So VisaQuest 2019 has come to an end without the hoped for pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.... However, that doesn't mean that I didn't learn a lot during this struggle.

Without going into drawn out details, yes, after my visa was declined my attorney and I thought of every option that you have thought of... we called the right people in Milan and Rome, asked all the right questions to the Visa Gods in Philadelphia, considered various appeals, etc. Seriously, two intelligent women spent days strategizing on this, we covered every angle. I'm not going to beat the dead horse any longer....

We're both baffled, as is the school who had hoped to employ me.

But, oh well, it's time to dust myself off and move on -- for now.

Augury, portent, omen

OMG! How could I have not known this before!!??

The Italian Consulate is directly across the street from Independence Hall!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I believe this is a good sign!

A stroll through the park

Since I’m here for my appointment at the Consulate, I might as well “do” Philadelphia.

With only two tours scheduled, I have lots of free time and I take it slow. I started by strolling through Washington Square Park and Independence Park. After a terrific lunch outside at Franklin Social Kitchen - with Pennsylvania’s own Yuengling, America’s oldest brewery — I spent the afternoon in the Museum of the American Revolution. This is a pretty new museum, and they’ve done an excellent job making it interactive.

Independence Hall

Liberty Hall

The Second Bank of the US

Wrought iron detail

First Bank of the US

Hmmm, thinking I’ve seen that eagle somewhere before……….. Outside the First Bank of the US

Outside the Museum of the American Revolution

Outside the Museum of the American Revolution

Outside the Museum of the American Revolution

Avocado BLT, hold the T

Yummmmm

Morris house hotel

Nice hotel in the historic district.

PHL

Impressive airport. $6.75 train to city center. $2.50 subway system.

The girl who flew to Philadelphia

Today I fly to Philadelphia for my Visa appointment. I've reviewed my Visa application package, made a list and checked it twice... and I'm confident it's pristine.

But as we know there is no guarantee of the Visa being issued even if all "i"s are dotted and "t"s are crossed.....

Please send good thoughts of an immaculate inspection from the Visa Gods.

Here I come!

Just booked my September flight to Milano… from JFK on AlItalia, round trip, $550!!!!!

Sonnet to the Potluck*

Misty remembrance, close beyond my mind’s sight

The groaning table spread with mismatched plates

Lovingly secured by armor so bright

And underneath, the artists’ names on tape.

Nary bag of plastic nor crinkling film found

Just Tupperware, Anchor and Pyrex well used

To transport the salads, the morsels so browned

Provisions designed to keep the gathered amused.

And when the signal finally given and the steel pulled away

The congregants descend upon bounty piled high

Ne’er again to experience this selfsame array

Of masterpieces forged through years and try.

I know we’re all busy, the lifestyle’s to blame

But a grocery store salad is just not the same.

* Where I’m from, it’s called a “Covered Dish”

Visa 101.4

When we hear the word "freelance" we envision someone who goes out and drums up their own business, assignment by assignment... In the days of black-and-white TVs it was pounding the pavement, going door-to-door, beating the bushes, but now it's more likely Fiverr, personal networking, and social media advertising. At any rate, these folks are braver than most because they have made a commitment to live on the assignments they can find themselves and they know that there may be times of feast and times of famine... times when they may be waiting to get the next assignment before they can hit the store for beer and Cheetos.

This is the usual and customary interpretation of the word "freelance", but this is not the meaning of the word "freelance" in the context of Italian National Visas.

In your campaign to qualify for a Freelance Visa to Italy, you don't just say 'hey, ho, I'm pounding the viales of Rome to get a job as a web designer, so uh, gimme that Visa', oh no....

You must gather one (or more) legally executed hourly contracts for your services from businesses in your hot little hand. These contracts will have a start date and an end date and the rate of payment. These contracts taken together must add up to a pre-tax payment amount of at least 700 Euro per month or 8,400 Euro per year (as of 2019).

But don't get too excited just yet, because the contracts are just the first baby step. Next you have to take these contracts and some other legal documents from EACH of these companies who want to give you contract employment, and take them to an office within the Police Department (of the city where you'll be working in Italy) called the Questura, where they will review the docs to determine if these are real companies who actually have the wherewithal to hire and pay you.

(I've dumbed this process way down. Important points to take away are that the Questura is an office in the police department in Italy, where people speak Italian and probably don't have fluency in English... and that this process follows Italian law, which is not some subset (superset? any kind of set...) of English Common Law (as most of us English speakers are used to), so it's probably going to feel very chaotic to you. It may behoove you to engage an Italian immigration attorney to help you though the process in Italy.)

After about 10 days, if the Questura decides everything is A-OK, they will issue a document called a "Nulla Osta", which you'll bring with you to the Visa application appointment you'll have at a Consulate inside your home country.

If your application for the Visa is then successful, you will be be granted a Visa for the length of time that your combined contracts will pay you the minimum as stated above. To repeat - your Visa will last only as long as the contracted employers (altogether) will be paying you minimum amount.

Head spinning yet? More details here.

Wtf!

… I’m totally speechless… almost brain dead… but I was at Walmart after all…

Shoes AND socks!!!!

Ch-ch-ch-changes

I’ve just done a complete overhaul of my website and it looks mah-velous.

There’re a few outstanding items I’m working on… but I’m pleased overall.

If you have a couple of minutes, I’d really appreciate some beta testing. Hit me up if you find anything especially egregious.

Thanks!

Visa 101.3

When I first started my Italy Visa Quest, the conventional wisdom was that getting a Student Visa was a piece o' cake. A student visa could be had by enrolling in and paying for 20 hours per week of almost any kind of instruction in almost any private school in the land. Massage therapy school, tai chi school, cooking school...

Then there were the work-studiers. I've heard anecdotes first hand of people enrolling in private schools for 20 hours of Italian language lessons per week and then teaching English for that same school 20 hours a week (allowed within the Student Visa)-- and conveniently forgetting to attend the Italian language lessons.

But the times they are a-changin'. In this era of sea-based and overland poverty-, drought-, or violence-fleeing migrants, wall-builders, and the global passage of translucently-veiled jingoistic government policies, Visa requirements in Italy have been beefed up and enforcement has clamped down.

Today it is difficult to be approved for a Study Visa without enrollment in a University full-time.

This could actually be an interesting option for parents because University tuition in Italy will more than likely be less than the in-state tuition of your local university. But that's a conversation for a different day.

(Visas are apparently no longer issued for private school programs in basic language instruction.)

The Study Visa application needs to be accompanied by two copies of a letter in Italian from the accredited academic institution on official letterhead and bearing the official seal, stating that you have been accepted and admitted, and specifying the exact period of study. It also needs to include an official transcript of the most recent completed studies, and a letter of enrollment from the home academic institution indicating the student’s current status (full-time in good standing) and expected date of graduation.

Further your Student Visa research here.

Visa 101.2

There are many different longer-stay Visas available, which are considered "National Visas" and are controlled by the sovereign country.

(It's important to note from the git go that meeting all the requirements does not guarantee the issuance of a visa.)

First we'll look at the "Elective Residence" Visa, which we lust after from watching movies such as "Under the Tuscan Sun".

Sounds pretty easy, huh, to say I think I'll just move to Italy? Easier said than done!

First, to get an Elective Residence Visa you must be "retired persons, persons with high self-sustaining incomes and financial assets - who have chosen Italy as the country of permanent residence and who are able to support themselves autonomously, without having to rely on employment while in Italy, whether as dependent employees, as self-employed employees or employees working remotely online. You cannot finance your residence in Italy through any type of work."

The applicant must have a minimum monthly income of Euro 2,596.60 generated from investments.

No work is allowed to be done while in residence in Italy under the Elective Residence Visa. Not even online work.

Visa 101

It's a little confusing to jump right into the middle of the Visa process (Apostille) without providing the background info, so let's take a dive into my Visa research.

And let's start from the very beginning. Italy is a member of both the EU (European Union) and Schengen Agreement. What are those, you might ask, and how do they differ? I'm gonna tell you.

The EU is a political and economic union, wherein the member countries are bound by a certain group of law. The "single market" aspect of the EU allows for free movement of people, goods, services and money. At this writing there are 28 countries in the EU.

The Schengen Agreement allows for no internal border control among the member countries. There are 26 Schengen countries at this writing.

A country in Europe can be EU but not Schengen (UK and Ireland), Schengen but not EU (Iceland, Norway, Switzerland, Liechenstein), both, or neither.

Most American citizens who travel to Europe are taking advantage of a "Schengen Visa Type C", which is basically a tourist Visa which you don't need to apply for, in which you can stay in Europe 90 consequtive days in a 6 month period. Beginning in 2021, the no-application Schengen tourist visa will be replaced by the ETIAS (European Travel Information and Authorization System). The ETIAS will have an online application process, and applicants will be screened by Interpol. Let me state this clearly - beginning 2021, Americans will need to apply for tourist Visa online before traveling to Europe.

Takeaway from this is that the Schengen border control agreement controls tourism and airport/transit visas.

Visa Quest

Monday was a major score in my knightly quest to land a visa.

You may remember in April my ignorance led me to take a trip to the US Embassy in Warsaw, hoping to get a Power of Attorney notarized and then get a document called an Apostille. Came away with nothing in hand, but lots of new knowledge.

Here is the dealio with an Apostille.

Whenever you sign a contract or other important document, you must have the signing of the document "notarized". Research tells me that notarization by an impartial (and governmental-ly sanctioned) person is legal assurance that the signature is genuine and that the signer was acting without duress.

This single step of notarization is enough for contracts within your own country. However when sending said important documents across borders, there is an extra step of certifying that the person doing the notarization is legitimate (and therefore, by extension, the signing of the document was legal in the country in which it was signed). For this purpose we use an Apostille.

The Apostille is issued by the Secretary of State (of the geographical place where you are at the time of the notarization) and is attached to your notarized document (in my case it was stapled). It attests to the document's validity and basically states that the notary is authorized to notarize right here right now. The Apostille is accepted (and required!) in 116 countries around the world for contracts crossing borders.

Why couldn't I get it done in Warsaw, you may ask... So, I could have gotten an American notarization at the Embassy in Warsaw, but I couldn't get an American Secretary of State Apostille issued in Warsaw... And you cannot take that contract notarized in X-country to a different country for Apostille.

I contacted 6 different notaries in Poland via email, not one responded. That would have been the easiest route, but the level of service just wasn't there.

Finally, had I been able to get a document notarized by an Italian notary (even in Poland) I would not have needed the Apostille. I sent emails to the Italian Embassy in Warsaw, explaining my situation and asking if I could come there for the notarization.... but apparently the Embassy Notaries are only available to Italian citizens.

And so, after over 8 weeks of trying, I finally got the Apostille in my hot little hands and sent it off to my immigration attorney. Score! Woot! Woot!

Adventures in getting an Italian visa!!! More to come I'm sure!

What I miss...

Spending time in a non-English speaking country, the conversations around me were white noise. I didn't know the language, therefore I didn't (whether consciously or unconsciously) listen to, process, judge the conversations around now.

Now I'm in the US where everyone speaks English, and I am bombarded with noise! Conversations swirl around me, which I must laboriously block. At times it feels like a dozen smoke detector batteries all failed the same night! And the garbage truck in backing up.

The Righteous Path

I'm back in the US, and back on my rightful path. All my energies are currently directed at bringing together so many seemingly unrelated threads into a trucker's hitch of a national visa to Italy.

This journey is not for the faint of heart!

I started my laser-focused journey (this time!) in February, with a blast of CVs to English schools throughout Italy that meet my requirements of teaching adult/corporate clients. The barrage led to a trickle of email responses over several months, and eventually to an intermittent drip of requests for interviews.

Once in the interviews, it became evident that many schools are taking the "if we ignore Brexit, it won't hurt us" route. Others have been tracking the discussions about visa reciprocity, but are simply paralyzed to make the first step of thousand miles. Many are content to let others be the pioneers of visas for English teachers. But through perseverance I finally found a (woman-owned - girls rock!) school that was ready to tackle the initial effort of adding a freelance teacher (who needs a visa!) to their staff.

Throughout March and April I had sought, and finally found, an immigration attorney (another female!) who also recognized the coming crunch of filling English-speaking needs in the EU from a pool in which GB workers are no longer visa-free.

And so I brought together my Society of Sisters and we have been busily working through the steps needed to create a contract which can be "certified" by the Italian government as valid, which I will then used in my visa application package.

Oh, trust me, I've dumbed this explanation way down! There were dozens of road blocks I had to climb over or go around. There is so much bureaucracy, so many documents that must be translated (certified!), signed in triplicate, original copies sent to attorneys and various government agencies, appointments with several government agencies.

Factor the required unwavering focus in chasing the visa with the ins and outs of everyday life -- errands and expirations and eye appointments -- and a person could quickly become overwhelmed.

But I can almost see the promised land, and nothing will keep me wandering the wilderness!

I'll keep ya posted.

Detour

I've been thinking a lot about the path we choose to take.

Everyday you're presented with decisions, most have very little impact on your life as a whole... Paper or plastic... Soy or almond... But sometimes we make a simple decision which, either alone or in conjunction with other random bits of life, really turn the whole thing upside down.

In a good way or a bad way -- that is the question.

For me, I can honestly say that good or bad is uber amplified based on how the random decision was arrived at. I told a boyfriend once, "You're trying to influence me to do X, and I really want to do Y. If I choose X and it goes wrong, I will blame you for the rest of your life. If I choose Y and it goes wrong, I will take it as a lesson learned."

In the grander scheme of things I believe that when you are on YOUR PATH -- making the decisions that speak to YOU -- the happys are somehow happier and the sads are definitely happier... But when you step off your path, whether by peer pressure or fear or the noise and chaos of life, and you take even a single step on someone else's path, the sads are devastating, the angers are raging, and the happys are meh.

I also believe that when you try to walk someone else's brick road or march to their drum, the universe throws obstacles in your way... boulders fall from the sky, nails puncture your tires, traffic jams abound... until you either accept your new shitty, soul crushing path as inevitable... or take Herculean steps to shove and shoulder your way back to your strawberry fields.

Why is she waxing so fucking philosphic, you may ask.

Because I stumbled off my happy path in Italy. I got distracted by someone else's ideals and as a result I've been dodging sky boulders, stepping knee deep into quicksand, and running through acid rain for four months. To the point I was almost ready to go to Oregon.

But now, in order to retake control, I've changed my 'tude. I decided that these past four months have been "just a quick detour"... And in order to get back onto my path I'll need to follow this detour until it merges back into my previously high road.

Therefore, I've taken a job teaching ESL in Poland. September - June.

I'm super excited to start a new adventure -- I've never been to Eastern Europe... My research indicates there are beautiful cities, cathedrals, art. And in my childhood Poland was out of reach of most Americans, so there is a certain cachet slipping behind the curtain. So New Adventure, here I come!

But I can't really catalog my Polish adventure under the heading "Conversational Italian"... so I invite you to read "Just a Quick Detour" until I can find my way back to Italy.

Aperitivo in Charlotte

While I'm in the US I decide to have a workshop on "Planning Your Own Trip to Italy"... We had a typical Aperitivo spread, with Spritz and Chianti (with not a fava bean in sight -- email if you understand this reference! :-) )... and a slideshow of tips and tricks. It went very well... 

Thanks to my friend Julie Wall Burris at @Lilac Realty for hosting! Love ya, Jules!