The Good and the Bad

On Sunday, we drove down to Siena. We knew that we had a busy week ahead of us, especially that we needed to find an apartment! Monday morning we got up bright and early to return the car we rented and then to go to our appointment at one of the rental agencies, Tecnocasa, to look at some apartments. We had been in touch with a few agencies since April and Tecnocasa had been the most helpful (or so we thought). We knew it would be difficult to find an apartment that allowed a dog but the lady at Tecnocasa, Carla, told us it would not be a real problem. Foolishly, we trusted her. We got to Tecnocasa only to find out she had done NOTHING. All she could offer us was an apartment about 3 miles from the center. This was an impossible option without a car seeing that Reed will likely be working long past the last bus! Thank god Reed was confident and positive about the whole situation!! We proceeded to go to a few more agencies along with calling some numbers we found. In the end, one of the agencies that I had been in contact with found us a great apartment! We went to see it on Tuesday and LOVE IT!!! This apartment is so much nicer than our apartment in C'ville- it is huge, has a new kitchen with appliances, a washer and dryer, is fully furnished, only 100 meters from il Campo (2-5 minute walk) and has a grotto! Part of teh grotto is a wine cellar and the other is this really loooong tunnel that was used as an escape route! The only drawback is that we can’t move in until October 1. The same agency found us a temporary apartment to stay in for 2 weeks (we are going back to Lucca to watch Lena from the 23rd-30th of September).

The Bad. We went to the Questura on Tuesday morning very early. There are a lot of people and it is mass chaos-no lines here. We had absolutely no idea what they were saying- very frustrating. We waited in line and they gave us a form to fill out and come back the next day. Wednesday we again went very early and waited in the cold for 2 hours. Frustrated, we went to the main desk and the told us to go speak with another person. Turns out, our visa is wrong!!!! The consulate screwed us and gave us a non renewable visa so technically we are only allowed to be here for 82 days. We had requested a visa through March 31, 2008 and he gave us a visa valid for that time-too bad only 82 days in that period despite the fact that we provided all the requirements (housing, financial, health insurance etc for a 7 month period). Also, our visa is a “C” visa and should be “D” visa. Too bad we had no idea what a “C” visa was! We’ve been in contact with our school (part of the reason this happened was the term we signed up for was cut short because of Christmas), as well as the Italian embassy in Washington, D.C. Everyone, except our consulate, agrees that this is a big mistake. In fact, the Qurestura only needs a fax from the consulate indicating our visa should be a “D’ instead of a “C”. If he were to do this, everything could be fixed. As of now, he refuses! He wont even speak to us on the phone! As of right now, our last resort is to get the questura to call him next week!