My apostille is enjoying a leisurely transcontinental journey on its way to becoming (knock wood) the final document in my immigration folder. The DHL "overnight" service from here to Washington lasted a week and took in visits to New York City, Cincinnati, and Baltimore along the way before finally landing in Washington. My fabulous brother then took it to the US State Department where we learned that "5 to 7 business days" means "2 weeks," which was close enough for government work, I guess. Then we waited tensely for two weeks to see if the dipshit in the White House would completely destroy the US government in the next, apparently, 5 to 7 business days. 

But Mango Mussolini didn't completely ruin everything (yet) and so my brother went back to the State Department last Tuesday, retrieved the document and sent it (FedEx this time) directly to the translator in Lucca, who is on high alert for it. So far on its return journey, it has enjoyed trips to Memphis TN and Paris, France ("Package in Paris. I'm a little jealous," my brother texts). But it is now in Bologna*, where we ourselves could drive to get it if necessary. It is supposed to be delivered today (Thursday) and the translator has promised that if it arrives no later than tomorrow, she will translate it right away and take it to the judge to swear to its authenticity on Monday. Jonathan and I will then drive to Lucca to get it from her and take it immediately straight to our attorney with a cool 24 hours to spare to get it into the electronic system (which, let us remember, was completely down with a technical glitch the first time we tried to get into it.) Fingers crossed!

In the meantime, spring has burst out with all jubilation here in lovely Capriglia-by-the-Sea. On Tuesday, the actual Mardi Gras, after several weeks of celebrating Carnevale, we went for a big final tordelli lunch at the pub. We waited out in the sunshine on the terrace for it to start, all of us chatting together of this and that, spread out among the tables and chairs like song birds in the branches of a tree. Ugo had shaved off half of his beard as a joke for Renata and there was some talk of getting every man in the village to follow suit, but (unlike Ugo) the rest of them (including Jonathan) are big wusses when it comes to their facial hair.

*The GPS on our Italian phones inexplicably speaks American and pronounces Bologna as "Baloney." Sometimes when we're going to Viareggio, we go a bit out of our way just to hear the GPS tell us to "turn left on Via Baloney." We think this is hysterical. We are a simple people.