Visa Update and Skype Success!

On August 20 I had my appointment at the Italian consulate in L.A. everything went smoothly thanks to my mom's hyper vigilant preparation. Even though the instructions for applying for the visa were super confusing we had all of the papers they needed! Some questions that my mom and I had when we were preparing the visa papers were: Do both parents need to be present, Does the visa cost anything, and how many copies of everything do you need? No, both parents do not need to be present just have the appropriate documents signed by both parents and notarized. No, the visa doesn't cost anything and it is actually put into your passport (i didn't know that). I would suggest that you bring three copies of all of the documents your bring this is because the consulate keeps the originals of everything you give them and also keeps a copy, so in case anything happens your parents should have a copy too. If anyone has any questions about visa stuff please ask! So while it was exciting to finally go to the Italian Consulate it was about as much fun as going to the DMV. They were in the process of moving buildings and it was super busy so everyone was in a pretty sour mood. I am expecting my visa in the mail any day now so hopefully it arrives soon. 

I had a second Skype chat with my host family last week, this time without Giammy (their son, who is currently in Denmark with AFS)  there to help us translate our chat lasted about 12 minutes, which I thought was a pretty good time considering I don't speak Italian (Io non parlo Italiano!) and they don't speak english. Right now my Italian mama, papà, and sorella Cecilia are at their beach house on the Ligurian Sea! They said they will take me to the beach house. I really like my family and they have already made plans for us to go to the beach house, Milano, and Firenze (Florence). Milano is about an hour from Tortona and Firenze is about 3 hours from Tortona. 

I also had a meeting with the Vice Principal of my American high school to make sure I was all set to go abroad for my senior year. It was nice to know that after a year of crazy hard work that I am finally done. So yay I'm graduated from high school, not officially because I didn't want to jeopardize my chances of getting into AFS, I will receive my diploma the day I get back from Italy. Everyone at school is really excited for me to go and they wished me well. If i were to stay in America this year I would start school on Monday, but since I'm leaving I don't have to go, which is kind of fun. 

13 days left until the adventure begins!