Screech-a!

Screech-a! That’s the sound – in Italian – of the Italy portion of our trip coming to a sudden halt after we learned a couple weeks ago of some regulations regarding travel in Europe that have developed in the past decade, while I was busy earning a living, giving birth, getting settled in Moscow, Idaho, and not traveling overseas for more than 4 weeks at a time.

Ever heard of the Schengen countries? Neither had I, until the owner of a house in the Abruzzo region informed me of their existence, when I was trying to talk him into letting us housesit for him for four months this coming winter, during the months when we weren’t at Spannocchia (see earlier blog entry). And in case you’re wondering, like my husband was, why I didn’t know about this earlier, it’s because the French consulate website says nothing about it, even though they are a Schengen country; plus, they never answered my emails which laid out our original travel plans and asked if they were acceptable. I figured, no news was good news, but apparently that phrase doesn’t translate.

Never mind what your friends try to tell you about bopping over the border into Switzerland to re-start your immigration time clock. You can’t be in the Schengen countries (there are fifteen of them which include most of the countries we’d want to spend time in) for more than 90 days out of 180 days, unless you’ve got a long-stay visa from one of those countries. And getting a long stay visa isn’t very easy; you need to visit the appropriate consulate in person, pay a lot of fees, produce a lot of paperwork, and in general, convince them that you’re rich enough to afford to live in their country and have enough insurance to get shipped home in the event of an emergency.

At first I didn’t panic, I thought, no problem: I’m not afraid of paperwork, I can get an Italian visa, the consulate says it only takes 30 days. But then the reality of it sunk in, when I discovered the consulate’s visa office was only open a few hours each week, and when I got two different explanations from two Italian consulates about the type of visa we needed. “Welcome to dealing with the Italians,” my new Abruzzo-based friend consoled me.

I spent one whole afternoon, evening, and night barely able to function, I was so distraught. My husband suggested I record the funk – unusual for me - for future reference. I woke up the next day determined not to be beaten, going so far as to actually get through to a live person on the phone at the United States Passport Processing Center in order to get my updated passport expedited to me. Later in the day, after a couple of emails from the consulates and some research about the Schengen regulations, I realized it was useless, and gave Italy up gracefully, feeling like Joan of Arc or Anne Boleyn, dying a dignified yet completely unnecessary death. I’m trying to get out of the U.S. so the fact that my citizenship is preventing me from spending as much time in various places throughout the world as I’d like is ironic and frustrating. I don’t even have the advantage of having ancestors who recently immigrated, which might make it possible for me to get citizenship from another country like Italy or Ireland. But no. My ancestors came from England and Wales, long long ago, too long ago to make it easy for me to go back.

Fortunately, our travel plans include Ireland and the U.K., which are not Schengen countries. We’ll spend a few months in France this fall, and then go to Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland for the winter and spring, before returning to France for the summer, legal as camembert. I’m excited about Ireland but believe me it has not been easy to let go of my desire to experience Spannocchia. I’m beginning to think of this trip as a shakedown sabbatical, in preparation for the next one, in which I’ll have long-stay visas arranged well ahead of time, perhaps through the Dutch, who aren’t famous for their impossibly frustrating red tape (to my knowledge).