Here I am. Back to Europe. Am I excited? YES! Nervous? Of course! Do I have a clue what I am doing? Not at all! Do I think I do? Sure. I like to think that two and half years of dealing with French bureaucracy has taught me a thing or two about trying to live in Europe. However, today I was reminded that: experience?! Experience means nothing in these situations. Well, maybe not nothing, but close to it.
In February, I got a job teaching 1st grade at a school in Milan for the next school year. The contract and various other paperwork was sent promptly from the school. I returned it brilliantly forgetting to include my application itself. (Yes, I had to submit a post-hire application.) No problem there, just scanned and sent. However, part of the paperwork packet was an ominous letter stating that a copy and translation of my college diploma would be necessary to get my visa. In red letters, underlined at the top, it says: "Please start this procedure immediately, as it may take a significant amount of time to complete all of the steps." Got it. Totally on it. Had Mom Fed Ex my diploma to me.
I figured finding an Italian translator may have been the time problem, but living in DC, I could find one in a flash. But wait! The letter warns that I must find an authorized translator (highlighted in yellow) from the Consulate. Ok, I look online at the Embassy website. Not there. I call. "It's on the Italian part, under situaiutaln, " the lady I finally reach says. I do not read or speak Italian so I have no idea if "situaiutaln" is really what she said; I made that up, but it doesn't matter because I never found it. Eventually, after a slick favor from a friend at the State Department and a contact from teachers at my new school. I find a translator who eventually translates my diploma 8 days after he promises it. I tell myself he is on Italian time.
Today, on spring break I finally take my newly translated diploma over the Italian embassy (open Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays between 10-12:30, just in case you were curious about how little Italian diplomats have to deal with the public). I show up and much to my surprise find it quite friendly and helpful (in contrast to those lovely French civil servants). I take a number and wait in a leather chair in the waiting room (think DMV-esque with four leather couches/chairs). One wall of the waiting room is a row of 3 windows/counters behind which one can get help from a real Italian bureaucrat! One window is taken by a man helping the people who have numbers. One window is empty and one window is occupied by a man who is busy doing unknown stuff...
I'm number 62 and number 54 is being helped at the moment. I sit down and read, prepared for the wait. An hour or so later, a Chinese man waltzes into the room and up to the window where the man is busy doing stuff. I want to pick up my passport he says. The man stops working and goes to get it!!! No fuss, no barking, no rude comments, or exasperated sighs I so often encountered in the French version of this process. All of the people sitting in the leather chairs suddenly look at each other and make a bee-line for the window. One by one each citizen receives his or her passport. Next is my turn. Suddenly I'm getting nervous because I realize that I probably should be in the notary section and this clearly is the visa one. Past experience has taught me that I am so dumb for thinking that these two could possibly be the same. (The man next to me lets me go first because this is his 5th embassy in a scavenger hunt for where to get a tourist visa and he is feeling defeated at this point.)
I slowly walk to the counter. I smile at the man. (Under my sweater is a very low-cut dress that I can use if I need to get his attention or interest-- a trick I learned in France.) "Buongiorno," the man smiles. SMILES! A sincere, helpful smile! "Uh, hello," I reply. I explain my situation and he asks for my papers. I show him what I brought. "Where is the original?" he asks. "Shit!!!!" I think. "I didn't bring it." Turns out it doesn't matter because the secretary of state in Kentucky (where my college is) has not yet put an apostille on it. The kind man explains that I when I come back I need to bring a photocopy with the Kentucky apostille (real thing), the real diploma, the translations I had made, and $11 cash. Even as I type this now, I am worried that I have left something out. Oh, yes! When I send off for the Kentucky stamp, his personal advice is to include a self-addressed stamped envelope so that the notary can send it back to me. Good thinking since I would hate to get that far and not get it back! I walked away laughing since my experience has also taught me to laugh instead of scream or cry at such hurdles or there will be lots of sore throats and tears.
As for now, I am waiting to see how difficult working with Kentucky Sec. of State will be. In any case, I can tell already that it is going to be an interesting and year full of laughing.
