Dual Italian Citizenship - Part III

While I was waiting for this elusive Divorce certificate to be completed, I was also adding my oldest daughter's marriage certificate to the pile of documents we needed. This one was simple, or so I thought. My daughter Shannon had sent me a certified copy of her marriage certificate, all I needed to do was send it off for the Apostille. I got that sent off properly, only to get a reply back explaining that in order to get the Apostille, we needed the "correct" certified copy of her marriage certificate. The one we sent only had one seal, we needed a triple seal. Who knew???? To solve this I would need to request a brand new original certified document from .. who else.. Virginia Vital records, then have the Apostille added to it. I can do this. We still have time before we have to get to the Philadelphia Italian Consulate.



The next thing I get in the mail from the Virginia Vital records department is a letter informing me that the copy of my drivers license which I had sent with the Divorce certificate request was "too dark", and I'd need to resend the whole request, including a lighter copy of the drivers license. By now time is ticking away, as we have arranged to be at the Italian consulate in 3 weeks. I should mention that now timing of getting all 3 of us together ( myself, and 2 daughters) has gotten a bit more complicated. Megan, the youngest daughter, has moved to Wisconsin.



A phone call to the Virginia Vital records leaves me a bit encouraged- they tell me I can order the document online and have it expedited. Wonderful. I did this, even though it cost alot more.. 58 dollars versus 24. At this point I hardly care. I just want the Divorce Certificate and Apostille in my hot little hand. Using this expedited service, they are in communication with me via email letting me know the status of my request. I see in my email that they have sent the documents to me by UPS,they should arrive in 2 days. Everything is falling into place, and I still have time to get these divorce documents translated into Italian before the day we have to be in Philadelphia. Sounds almost too good to be true.



If only anything were that simple. The UPS package comes, however our local driver has decided he won't leave any thing without a signature, due to some problems in our neighborhood. Since we work all day, no one is home to sign. UPS tells me that I can go to the local office after 8:30 pm that night to retrieve my package. I'd never been to the UPS station- it's on Zero Road. Oh, maybe that was a warning???? The whole UPS experience has to be a blog entry of its own.. it's definitely blog worthy. Bottom line: I have the package in my hand. This is the big moment! It's the elusive Divorce certificate from Virginia. I rip open the package only to find a letter from the Virginia Vital records telling me there is no divorce certificate on file. I'm standing in the parking lot at UPS wishing there were some way to express my anger directly to the Virginia Vital records department at that very moment. That will just have to wait until morning!!!