Thursday morning, the request to the FBI for our federal criminal records went out yesterday by FedEx (your federal "rap sheet" is one of the documents needed for the visa application). It seemed fairly ridiculous that we needed to get the children fingerprinted but we could not get the consulate on the phone, either in Washington or Philadelphia to verify whether that was necessary or not, so we decided to do it just in case. Now it is a waiting game - will we get the records back in time to get to the consulate before we head to St. Thomas for the month, or will we have to make a stop back in Philadelphia first to complete the visa process before leaving for Italy? It makes it hard to have any idea of when to buy the airline tickets, or what date to leave on...
