The 10th circle

Ciao a tutti :)

Before I actually get into this post, I had one of the boys from Speedwell who took pictures of us at Sunday's picnic send me some, and in the front row from left to right are 4 of the Italy Speedwell girls, as follows: In the coral dress - Brystal, to the right in black is Lauren, then Kara in white, and finally me in the red skirt!

 

Well, if any of you are 14th century literature buffs (and aren't we all hehe) you'll understand that I am referring to the circles of Hell, as described in Dante's epic poem, The Inferno. In actuality there are only 9 circles of Hell, and each circle is filled with worse sinners and punishment than the next one, ultimately making the 9th circle the worst.

Weeeeeell I'd just like to throw out there that applying for and obtaining an Italian student visa is probably the closest you can get to a 10th circle of Hell.

The entrance to Hell. Behold, the very beautiful Italian consulate building that apparently also houses the Chilean consulate too... talk about a random country pairing...

 

Y'all remember that massive mound of paperwork and documentation that I posted in my back from vacation post? Well, that wasn't even the half of it.

Let's start at 7:45 this morning, when I woke up, shall we? Thinking that I had spent over a month preparing for this visa application, I wanted to make a good impression on the consulate official, so I chose to wear wedges and a nice blouse, complete with skirt. BAD FREAKING IDEA.

8:30 am and we hit the road for Philly, which is where the consulate is located and only about an hour and 10ish minute drive from my house, plus or minus depending on traffic. I personally hate long car rides, and so by the time we pulled into the parking garage at Independence mall, I felt like screaming "hallelujah !!" because I was finally out of that car!

Independence hall which is literally right in front of the consulate building - This is where the declaration of Independence was signed for any non-Americans

Side note: As fate would have it, me and two other AFS Italy girls from my chapter, Kara and Brystal, all had our Visa appointments this morning, so we all hung out in the consulate lobby and then Kara and I got lunch and then got rained on afterwards (more on that in a sec)

10:10 am and we are attaching our visitor stickers in the consulate lobby, which  looks like something out of the Royal Genovian palace in The Princess Diaries, and all is good! Kara already had had her appointment at 9:40 so my family adopted her for the day and she is just hanging with me for moral support and entertainment at this point. We have a little over an hour to kill before my appointment,  so we screw around in the cheesy gift shop conveniently attached to the consulate. We ended up buying lollipops and a postcard, go figure :P

The princess-esque lobby complete with statue of Benjamin Franklin

 

Being colonial settlers in the gift shop >:)

11:00 am and we head back up to the consulate visa appointment room, which is basically a closet-sized miniature DMV, with maybe 8 or so plastic chairs crammed into the corner and one ticket booth where the Visa lady sat behind. Also, this room didn't have AC, so between all of the tired, sweaty people, it was a toasty 95 degrees. easy. In order to avoid heat stroke, I chose to wait out in the marble-covered hallway, which was much cooler and less crowded. Little did I know I'd be sitting in that hallway for almost 2 hours >_<

12:00 and the 10:50 appointment guy hadn't even gone yet!! I have no idea how it is even possible for it to be that backed up, but the same husband and his wife who is dressed in hippy flower pajama bottoms and fire truck red crocs (this is why I say I overdressed) has been chatting the consulate lady's ear off for a solid 45 minutes. Kara and I are dyingggggg, my parents are about one anecdote away from crying, and Brystal was trying to add last-minute corrections to her application, so she actually benefitted from the long wait!

12:45 FINALLY THNK U JEEZUS I GET CALLED UP FOR MY TURN <3 ....... Wouldn't you know that my entire appointment consisted of her leafing through my papers, stamping a bunch of crap, and then having my parents sign a few times here and there. The entire thing took maybe 5 minutes max and all for my visa, which is really just a TINY STAMP on my passport.

0_o ........ EGTREDJLIJOIUKJVHGJBJHAHHAGKJD *frustration*

1:00 pm and I am sitting down in an adorable little café in Philly eating a margarita pizza that may or may not have been a personal pan because I was super emotional at that point and needed comfort. And then after lunch we were all so tired we just decided to call it a day. As we were walking back to the car, of course it would start pouring, and we were too flustered to remember an umbrella.

Best. Pizza. In. PA.

 

After getting caught in a monsoon-like downpour and utterly exhausted, gotta get that ugly selfie in ;P

 

Our last act of tacky tourism, pinky swear! We just couldn't resist snapping a pic with that Rocky statue :D

 

So, 3 hours and decent soaking later, we finally left the city of brotherly love, or as I like to now affectionately call it, the city of poorly organized governmental institutions ;P

The moral of the story is: If you ever need to apply for an Italian visa, for the love of sassafras take the earliest time slot you can get!!

My going away party is on Saturday and I am beyond excited to see a lot of friends and family that I haven't seen since June :)

Ciao ciao :)