My Italian Visa

and a change in birthday plans

I started celebrating my birthday on Friday night. Which is to say, when my bowl of ice cream was empty (Bryer’s Lactose Free vanilla topped with chopped banana, pecans, Hershey’s syrup, and a spritz of coconut rum), I hesitated for about five minutes and then asked for more. Great way to start the weekend.

This is not, however, how I had expected to be celebrating.

cannolli on my birthday in Sicily in 2022, the day we saw the train stop house for the 2nd time and decided to put in an offer

During my last visit to Sicily, I finally- after four months of trying- got an appointment with the Italian Consulate in San Francisco. If you’re puzzled, yes, our home is in Idaho. Idaho, it turns out, is in the jurisdiction of the San Francisco Consulate. Which means any appointment is an endeavor. Plane tickets must be purchased, a hotel room reserved, and a sitter for Mazie has to be arranged.

But the biggest challenge is getting the appointment.

Expat sites like to say that the online calendar is updated at midnight, so this is the best time to try. For me, that means waking up at 12:58, (since I’m typically asleep by 10:30pm) connecting my VPN, opening Safari (which I have found is the best browser for the Consulate and not my normal browser), signing in, and then clicking on the appointment button: “National Visas – all visas over 90 days long”. Except that this is written in Italian. I’ve done this so many times that I no longer need to translate the page. And here’s what happens:

Nothing

Not nothing exactly, rather, no visual movement. The equivalent of the spinning circle. I can get onto any other page on the Consulate website at that time, and I can get onto any other website. I cannot get into the appointment calendar for national visas. Why? Well, I’ve researched this and overwhelmingly the online response is: too many people are trying to access it at the same time.

Which is why, when in Sicily last November and I was able to book appointment for February, I was beside myself with glee. More than that, the ONLY appointment available in the twelve weeks that are configured, was on my birthday. Come on! That HAD to be a good omen, right? Obviously, I booked it.

I knew it would be tight. The last two years of tax returns is just one thing in the long list of items required with the application. In my case, that means 2024 and 2023.

It turns out we couldn’t pull it off.

For those of you that are interested, the only visa I can apply for is the Elective Residency Visa. I investigated going back to school (why not?) but the only programs of interest to me where in Tuscany (makes sense, as this is the birthplace of the Renaissance and home of the Humanities), but I don’t want to live in Tuscany, and I already have a home in Sicily. Then I researched all the schools of higher ed on the island and could not find one with programs in mythology or world religions, the equivalent of my PhD. Even Kore University of Enna has nothing I might be able to teach. Kore! (As in the goddess Persephone, daughter of Demeter and Zeus. She is often referred to as Kore in her maiden form, before her abduction into the underworld.) Drats. I could possibly teach English as a second language in Palermo but that’s a huge commute, an hour each way by car. First problem is that I am uncomfortable driving in Palermo. Scooters zip around cars like mosquitoes and traffic is just as bad as New York. And driving is the only way to get there (reliably and in an hour’s time). But law states I am not allowed to purchase an auto in Italy until I become a resident (which the visa technically leads to). There’s more, but that’s enough for my point.

Neither returning to school or teaching was going to happen. And, in case you didn’t already know this, despite my looks and hand gestures while talking, I am not Italian.

It appears the ERV, commonly referred to as “the retirement visa”, is my only choice.

But wait, Jan, I didn’t know you were retired! Well, I’m not. Yet. But Tom is.

The ERV requires passive income of 31,000 euros a year for one person. That’s the basic requirement. But every consulate, and, in fact every agent, can demand more. The San Francisco consulate (unlike the Dallas consulate where I would go if I still lived in Tulsa) focuses on “wealthy persons . . . who can demonstrate a stable and ample pension income and high financial resources.” Note that the words I bolded do not describe me and Tom by a long shot. However, we do, at least, have his stable monthly pension having worked for the local government for thirty years. The ERV is also the most strictly regulated visa. That emphasis comes directly from the consulate website.

This means we really must nail the application with other means to emphasize I am worthy of this visa. We do have a rental property (Grama Clara’s house, 98 years old) which Tom has been rehabbing for over a year now. Passive income includes rent from properties, so this is good. Unfortunately, it still isn’t done so we can’t show that income yet.

We also need to show several months of bank statements. This, too, is tricky. We have both had our own accounts for so long that it took us awhile to merge. Even having opened the account in November, we are still transferring all the auto payments of various things over to it. And, finally, all the rehab we did on our place in addition to Grama Clara’s came at a cost. Not to mention what we’ve done at the Sicily house. All of which was charged to credit, which doesn’t look good on paper. So…. we’re still trying to smooth that out.

Additionally, I’m still working on the letters. A cover letter must provide my reason for wanting to live there and highlight all the ways in which I meet the requirements, all in no more than 1.5 pages. In addition to this, since Tom is not also applying but I am using his pension as my means of passive income, it seems like a notarized letter from him stating his support (emotionally and financially) would be a good inclusion. My neighbor and friends in Sicily have also agreed to write letters of recommendation. Naturally, they’d prefer if I draft something that they can expand on, and I still need to craft those in a way that feels authentic and not flat.

Finally, in my excitement to return to Sicily, I booked a ticket for March 23. My hope is to have our bathroom installed before cousins come to visit at the beginning of May. I knew that the consulate has up to 90 days to make a ruling on your application and wasn’t concerned because I don’t actually want the visa until late September. But here’s what I forgot: the Italian consulate keeps your passport while making their determination. If they rule in your favor, they stamp the visa into the passport and then mail it back to you. So, while I don’t need the visa until September, I do need my passport to travel in March. With much disappointment, I was forced to cancel my my San Francisco trip.

For the last few weeks, I’ve been back to getting up in the middle of night to try and book an appointment. In what seems nothing less than ironic and sometimes even taunting, the three times I HAVE been able to access the calendar system, meaning an appointment IS available, it has been ON my birthday (just like the appointment I cancelled) or on the day before or day after. WTF??? Not the new days as they come up, no day in late May or June, but all in late February. By the way, I need an appointment by June 26 in order to return to Sicily on September 26. Also, my FBI background check (another requirement) is only good for 6 months and will expire in July. With all that’s happening these days, it’s possible that getting a new background check may be more difficult than in the past. We’ll see.

I just have to trust it will work out.

guess what my birthday wish will be this year…

Now it’s Sunday and my sister arrived last night. We just finished a big brunch, and it has finally stopped snowing. Over the next few days, we’ll hang out and eat poppyseed cake – our Grama’s recipe, made by Tom (God bless him), watch movies, play cards, do puzzles, lounge in our pajamas, laugh, and eat well.

I expected to be in San Francisco for my birthday this year. Instead, I’m in Idaho and my sister is visiting. I’m not complaining. I’m not complaining at all. There’s no better gift than this.

“sisters, sisters, there were never more devoted sisters…” (my 35th bday at a blues bar, Christmas 1986 in San Francisco, and Christmas in Venezuela, 1995)

the first time Tom made our family’s poppyseed cake (for my birthday), 20 years ago