More Bureaucratic Niceties

One of the requirements of our extended stay with employment is that we must present ourselves to the local authorities within 8 days of our arrival in Viterbo. I really have no idea what the reason for the visit is, but we were informed today by Roberta, the SYA-Italy administrative assistant who is the glue holding the program together, that we have an appointment with the local prefettura on Wednesday, August 24 at 10 AM. That gives us 6 days between our arrival on the 17th and our first commitment to either hang out and scope out our surroundings or venture further afield for a mini-vacation before the start of fun for the year.

Preliminary Calendar Available

We have been given access to the preliminary academic calendar for next year. They ask that we keep it confidential since it is still in flux and subject to change. They don't want students from next year getting hold of it and then wondering why we aren't adhering to it. That being said, no one who has access to this page is a future student so we would be happy to answer questions about what our schedule will look like next year. Give a call with any particular questions.

Pictures and Bios

We were asked to provide pictures and biographies for inclusion on the various SYA websites next year. The bios are predictably boring and you can see them when you visit the website next year. I have included the pictures here, mostly as a practice run at uploading pictures to the blog.

Amy hopes that nobody notices the booger in her left nostril. I said it wasn't noticeable unless it was pointed out. Wasn't that nice of me.

Credit Cards

Once upon a time, when visiting Europe it was recommended that you carry traveler's checks. They cost a few extra percent to buy AND a few extra percent to cash, but it was considered worth it since they could be replaced if lost or stolen. But, it got so fewer people would accept them and places like the American Express office in Rome shortened their hours.

Enter the age of the credit card. The cards gave you a good exchange rate since they were buying currency in bulk. Mastercard, in particular, is widely accepted throughout Europe (beware, Discover is not accepted anywhere). But then credit card companies discovered they could make a killing by using slightly different exchange rates for selling than they were buying AND added a few percent (3-5%) on as an exchange fee. Ouch.

Now it is the ATM card. They give a reasonable exchange rate and you can negotiate things so that withdrawal fees are eliminated or at least kept to a minimum. But, scammers have skimmers, readers, and cameras skillfully deployed so that if you aren't careful somebody can gain access to you account and empty you out to the tune of a thousand dollars a day for as long as your account can handle it.

So, what is a person to do? We plan to use an ATM card and pay for most things using cash. We will gain some measure of security by linking it to an account where we hold minimal cash, replenishing the account through online transfers as necessary. Plus, for those times when only a credit card will do, we have discovered that there are some cards which do not have foreign exchange fees. We use Capital One, although we haven't done enough with it to be able to recommend it to anyone else. And that is more than you need to know about the finances of travel.

Translation

A valid US driver's license is acceptable for use in Europe. Amy used her's when we drove around last summer. Anybody who visits can rent a car, if needed, using their US license. However, since we will be living there for an extended period it was recommended that we have our licenses translated, so we did. AAA will do the job for a $15 fee. What you get back is a sort of folio with information translated into half a dozen European languages. I'm not sure if it means much, but at least we can wave it around at the police officers if we get stopped.