Sicilian time at last
Well, we finally made it, although with a lot of trouble. It was not clear when we booked our tickets that we needed to have plane tickets in-hand for trips to London and Morocco showing we would be out of Schengen countries for 2 weeks before we would even be allowed to leave Seattle or we had to have the pre-approved visa. Since you need the visa in-hand 90 days before you leave and it takes 6-8 weeks for a visa approval we weren't able to get one. Hell, we couldn't even get an appointment in San Francisco till Thanksgiving!!! Besides, I had sent an email to the consulate asking about getting one and they responded that they would not issue one for simply tourist reasons. Madre! Stupido!! We're retired. I'm not going to look for work, nor be a burden since we make about double the average Italian yearly wage in our pensions and social security payments alone. Maybe they're afraid I'll bankrupt the health-care system. Looks like our side trip to Venice will be truncated. No trip to London, and we're considering skipping Milan and only going to Florence for about 4 days after Venice before returning to Sciacca.
All told it cost us about 2 hours of time in Seattle changing our return dates from 2/28 to 2/14 and another hour or so in Paris getting boarding passes and flights to Palermo confirmed. We made all our connections, getting to the gates before boarding, but it was frustrating and exhausting. I did mess up driving from Palermo to Sciacca, missing the exit at Castelveltrano and having to retrace our steps so we arrived at Verditecnica about an hour later than we had planned. We had rented a Fiat 500L, or similar vehicle and got a Nissan Juke. It's not a bad ride. 6 speed diesel that really cruises on the autostrada. Holding well-over the speed limit, so I can drive like a Sicilian. Only problem is space. Our 3 medium bags and carry-ons stuffed the car. We'll be restricted to only one medium bag and our roll-aboards for the trip to Venice
Pascale and Toto, our hosts had not yet eaten, thank God, so we shared some wine and pizzas and spent a couple hours catching up since our last visit in 2013 when we came over from Malta with Rachel. They are looking forward to seeing her at Christmas, as we are looking forward to finally meeting their sons, who will be coming home from London for the holiday.
Today has been spent unpacking, getting the apartment stocked with breakfast items and resting up from the 32 hour ordeal. We didn't get much sleep on the airplane. I dozed off a bit between Paris and Rome but there were announcements every 15 to 20 minutes during the flight. No way to really get any real rest. I have enough trouble falling asleep on a plane anyway, until I am utterly exhausted. And then, to get interrupted every few minutes really puts the "frosting on the cake". It's now about 1:30 PM and I'll probably need a geezer nap to be able to make it through dinner tonight. Pascale and Toto have invited some friends over to have dinner with us. There will be a boyhood friend of his and 2 English couples that are not really expats but spend their winters here. I suppose we'll be doing a lot of commiserating about the Brexit and Trumpit events from the past few months. Oh well, Italy elected Burlesconi 3 times and England has Boris Johnson as their foreign minister. We all have real losers and clowns connected to our national governments to compare. I'd be glad to send them Toady Gulianni for good measure.