With all my documents in hand and the newly translated divorce papers, it was time to make the return trip to the Consulate in Philadelphia. My girls, Shannon from Charlottesville, Virginia and Megan from Madison, Wisconsin had come for a long weekend to celebrate their grandmother's 80th birthday, so we made the trip to Philadelphia on Monday morning. We got up early that morning, all of us really excited about finally getting these papers processed. The drive to Philly was unusally god-awful. There was some construction on the bridge near the Philadelphia Airport and we just sat and sat and sat. Finally we were moving again, and found the Consulate without difficulty.
Inside the Consulate office, we were struck with yet another blow. I had meticulously collected the missing divorce papers, and this time, the woman in charge informed me that she 1) would not accept the authenticated copies of my mothers birth and marriage certificates- she wanted to see the originals, and 2) now every document needed to be translated into Italian, not just the divorce documents. I tried everything I could to talk them out of this, but.. no one was budging. I somehow managed to get them to understand that getting the two girls back for yet another trip to the Consulate was going to be difficult, and they allowed us to fill out some paperwork which would allow the kids to not be present next time around. A small relief in yet another set back.
Status of the citizenship papers as of today.... I have the documents translated. Now I have to go to NJ, pick up my mom and her documents, drive to Philadelphia and try this all again. Hopefully having the original documents, and my native born mother in tow, we will get past the last hurdle. However, Mike and I will be moving to Venice in January, no way the citizenship will be completed, so we will have to get Visas in the mean time. We have to gather up all the required documents needed for the Visas, and also the paperwork required for our dogs to be allowed into Italy. We'll do all 3 of these on the next trip to the Consulate. I can't wait.
I truly believe that all of this is being done to me as some sort of test to see how badly I really want to be in Italy. I really want it bad. I REALLY want it bad!!!!!
2 comments:
Very interested in your progress. We just dropped off our papers for the third time yesterday and they were accepted...for review!
Good luck! After the third trip to the Consulate, they told me to just take all my papers to Italy and have it completed there. The woman at the Consulate told me they had several cases which were processed in a week or less over in Italy. It would take me at least another year of waiting here. So-- I leave for Venice on January 24th. I will be at the City Hall as soon as I recover from the jet lag!!! I will be posting my daily progress over there. Hope you will keep up by reading the blog. Thanks!!
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