"Here I am, sitting in a Starbucks down the street from my house in my hometown and I feel....out of place. I definitely don't belong here anymore." - Me
First of all, apologies for the lack of posts in the past month or two. I am a horrible blogger, but for the record, I never claimed to be such a thing but a girl trying to live her life and share some experiences while she's at it. But seriously, I'll do better, I promise.
This is just a quick post to serve as an update before the heavy stuff comes through. In a nutshell, after trying to find loopholes, alternate routes and some way around the devastatingly obvious path, I had to come back to LA for my student visa appointment in order to stay longer than the allotted 90 days. I tried [almost] everything from asking for a work visa at my job, to even considering getting married-- Hey random, hot Italian guy, wanna marry me? No? Fine! You think about the consequences to your actions the next time you cat call an American girl on the streets of Florence with that sexy Italian accent. Oh yeah, we're crazy!
As I was saying, I tried almost everything until finally I found an accredited and fairly priced language school willing to help me out with my student visa. Almost every expat I spoke to mentioned it and I thought I'd give it a shot. With a few weeks of feeling like a rebel and overstaying my tourist time of 90 days, less than half of the money previously in my bank account and a lot of hope, I flew home for my visa appointment. Well, after a total of 4 months, a lot of stress, worrying and hard work, and a complete change in circumstances later and here I am with my Italian Study Visa in hand! It feels like a miracle. I will post about the school and that process soon.
So, I'm back in Italy after almost a full month in LA waiting on the consulate to process my visa so I could have my passport back. Although I had to suck it up and fly back home leaving my new jobs hanging hoping they'll be there when I get back, everything worked out for the better because I got my visa, I got to visit all my friends and family, and I got to be home for Thanksgiving, which was entirely unexpected when I embarked on my journey earlier this year. I couldn't have been happier.
Sometimes following the rules isn't so bad....well, kinda following the rules. Stay tuned for my next few posts I have coming up about the visa process, how I did it, and what not to do!
