We showed up at the Italian Consulate in Philadelphia this morning all ready to get our visas. Things didn't turn out so well. It seems they were stuck on where our money is going to be coming from. On the Extended Stay Visa you can not work - at all it seems - including for yourself. We had documented what we thought was plenty of reserve cash, enough clearly to last a year comfortably, but we couldn't even get the staff to recognize the total we had at the bottom of the letter we wrote. We are talking to our accountant and trying to better organize the situation and we will make another attempt on Wednesday - I think.
Anthony