Italian Consulate

Yesterday we decided to try to speed up the process for applying for my Italian Visa while we are waiting on my new passport, so we took a trip to the Italian Consulate in San Francisco!

The weather was beautiful, so with paperwork in hand we hitched a ride and proceeded with what we thought would be a headache of a visit. I don't know how many of you are familiar with the Italian pace of things, especially anything government related- it's like watching molasses.  The visa office itself is only open on Mondays and Thursdays (note it's not Mondays thru Thursdays, just Monday and Thursday) from 1pm-3:30pm, so just to be able to get there on one of those days and within such a restricted time is a feat of its own! This was what we thought would be the first of several visits in the coming weeks.

When we arrived we were thrilled to find only one person in front of us already being helped so within five minutes we felt we had won the lottery when we were waved to the window. We decided we would pre-print out all of the paperwork and checklists we had found online to make sure the next visit would be error free, so Carlo proceeded to use his italian to his advantage and went through every piece of the puzzle we needed.

Marco, the southern Italian helping us, was extremely helpful, not sure if it was the Italian being spoken, the preparedness of us, or the fact we had a relatively cut and dry situation, but he told us to fill out everything we had, minus the passport and travel info and he himself would validate the documents. We jumped out of the line that had formed behind us (got there just in time!) and stepped to the side to pen out the application, and the request from Carlo to have me join him and were quickly waved to the front of the line once we had finished. Another southern Italian grabbed our marriage certificate and all of Carlo's Italian documents to photocopy them for us!

After all the copies were done and as much as we could fill out was done, Marco gave us a short list of the missing things we need to add to the packet and his own contact info so that we could overnight the stuff to him as soon as my passport arrives. No need to physically come back! Within a couple of days (2!) after he receives my packet of paperwork, I will have Visa in hand! We walked out baffled at how easy and pleasant of an experience our trip there had been! Looks like we are on schedule to hit our February 16th departure date!

Since it was also Carlo's 30th birthday we decided to enjoy the gorgeous SF weather and walked to Rogue Brewery in North Beach and then through China Town to Union Square before leaving the city. Awesome day!