As anyone who deals with the government knows, things do not move quickly. This move has been a year in the making. Yes, it was last January we started talking about this job opportunity. Here we are 11 months later wrapping things up. One of our last critical pieces was the visas. One cannot stay more than a month in Italy without one or they will ship you home!
The passport office at Ft Meade seemed very confident they knew what to do to get our visas, but after two failed attempts and three more weeks of lost time, Chris took it upon himself to cut out the middleman and go directly to the source in D.C. This required two awful drives to D.C. (are there any pleasant ones?) and two visits with the snooty Italian consulate who insinuated we were impatient, pushy Americans. Well, we are Americans, no? We want what we want and we want it now! They were miraculously able to take our paperwork and generate a little sticker for each of the families' passports within 24 hours.
In the meantime, Chris was able to take a little walk up Massachusetts Ave while waiting for the Embassy to open and he happened upon some landscapers taking down a tree. He asked for a piece of wood to give his wood-turner father and they hesitantly obliged. The man had to climb the inside security fence and balance one foot on the inside fence and the other foot on the outside security fence and heave the log over the outside fence. Why two security fences you ask? Yea, he was at the Naval Observatory, AKA the Biden residence. I told Chris he should email Dr. Biden and ask if she would like a bowl or wine-stopper made from wood taken from their property. On second thought, that might instigate research into the acquiring of such wood, the viewing of security cameras, and some friendly landscaper might not have his job anymore.
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