It's Getting Closer ...

... and the reality is setting in, especially for Amy. This past week she made a first pass at packing her bags for the trip and clearing out the rest of her things to be stored on the third floor. She is worried she won't be able to make friends and already plans to join some activities and perhaps take a class or two to meet people. However, as one of our friends here pointed out, she could be marooned on a desert island and she would still somehow manage to make good friends! I am confident it will all work out once we are on the ground in Viterbo, but for now it is an exciting but scary transition.

The going away parties have begun. We had a most excellent evening out with a couple of former neighbors on Wednesday which was followed by a neighborhood gathering last night. The couple who will be living in our home were able to be there so that everybody was able to reconnect with Tony and meet Michael. They are sad to see us leave, even for a year or two, but at the same time excited for us. We can rest assured that there will be many pairs of helpful eyes watching over our home in our absence.

In addition to continuing to make headway on house projects and to getting the house in order, the next big task on the horizon is to figure out what we are doing with our vehicles while we are gone. The first step occurs tomorrow when I "sell" my Sebring back to my mother and get it off of our insurance on Monday. Then we need to decide what will happen with the Amy's Mini and Vespa. We need to keep at least one vehicle on our insurance at some minimum level to maintain a relationship with our current insurer. Just one of many more decisions to be made.

Visa Success!

We got an early start today, dumping Diesel with Maggie before 6 am, and then drove all the way into downtown Boston. We hit just the tiniest bit of rush hour traffic inside 128 and then we were there. The Italian Consulate is in the Boston Federal Reserve Building about 100 yards from the South Station subway stop. We parked in an (expensive) underground garage less than a block away and then frittered away the hour plus that we needed to wait while Amy sipped iced coffee in the South Station Train Terminal. When the appointed time arrived we made it through the security check and up to the 17th floor to discover that they only accepted cash and we weren't carrying the nearly $300 we needed for our visas. Amy sorted paperwork in the waiting area while I scurried back to the lobby to hit up a favorably placed ATM. It was a good thing I rushed since I was the second or third person called to the window from a room full of close to 30 people.

As it turns out, the advice we had gotten from everybody paid off. While there were definitely a few things that were returned to us as unnecessary, there were several papers which they felt we needed which were not listed on the website as required for the class of visa we were applying for. Namely, a statement from our bank declaring our solvency and copies of our contract letters. Fortunately, we had all the things they wanted in all of the multiples they needed and so we were successful in navigating the torturous pathway of Italian officialdom on the first try! I was reluctant to trust our passports to the mail so at least one of us (me) will have to return to the consulate to pick them up. They were unable to provide a date for them to be available so I will make the trip as close as possible to our departure in the hopes that they will be ready - probably on Amy's birthday.

As Amy said in a Facebook status update, "The secret to navigating the petty bureaucrats? Copies of every possible document issued to you within your lifetime, formal attire & smiling obsequiousness."

Visa Preparation

Now that we have returned from Thailand, our focus turns to obtaining our visa for our trip to Italy. Realistically, nothing else really matters. The house can be left a shambles and our caretakers will deal with it. Our cars can be left as is and we end up paying much more for insurance, but that is only money. We can run out of space while packing and end up buying a wardrobe in Italy, etc. But all of that will be moot if we don't get a visa.

So, today we gather all of the paperwork we were told we needed on the website and all of the other things we can think of that we weren't told we needed but that they could request, make multiple copies and hope that we make it through the process. We have yet to decide exactly how we plan to make the trip tomorrow, whether we will try to drive all the way in during rush hour and park downtown or park somewhere on the outskirts and take the subway in. No matter what, we will get an early start for our 9 am appointment and hope that the consulate has good air conditioning since the forecast for Boston tomorrow is 99 degrees with an excessive heat warning.

Travel Bags

During our trip to Thailand we are experimenting with "travel bags". They are essentially heavy-duty, zip lock bags that have a special vent at the bottom. You place your clothes in them, zip them closed and then roll toward the bottom of the bag. The air gets pressed out of the clothes and can't get back in leaving a much condensed (and wrinkled) version of your belongings. Some types can also be prepped using a vacuum cleaner which sucks the air out without producing quite as many wrinkles. They appear to work fine, but the tendency is to overfill the suitcase so that it doesn't meet the weight limits. If you were a clever and careful packer before who always managed to reach the maximum weight allowed you obviously won't be able to get any more into your suitcase using these. However, you won't have to sit on it and strain the zippers just to get the bag closed. My suitcase is only about half full when my clothing is inside leaving plenty of room for shoes, condiments, etc. before reaching the weight limit.