I spent the last couple of days in Chicago with my wonderful mother! We packed in everything imaginable- gaining Italian citizenship, fighting with mean Israelis at that consulate, dining, shopping, socializing, shopping...
It was lovely! The city was beautiful, the weather was perfect, our hotel was literally directly across the street from both the Italian consulate and the NORDSTROM. It is very exciting to have dual citizenship, my mom remarked as we took a cab to the south loop to meet my cousin and her boyfriend for sushi on Tuesday night that it will be interesting to see how this action will change the rest of our lives. It definitely opens doors and encourages opportunities that otherwise wouldn't have presented themselves. Someday we'll probably think, "X/Y/Z probably never would have happened if we hadn't hauled ass to Chicago that May weekend and made 460 copies of naturalization papers and birth, marriage, and death certificated (ALL apostilled) and presented our case to Anna at the consulate." Strange to consider. Our obscene amounts of paperwork appeared to be in order, as Anna remarked "Perfect" and entered all of our information into the computer. We are citizens by jure sanguinis law, which means that my great grandfather naturalized in the US after giving birth to my grandfather- a pretty bizzarre law that happens to work in the favor of my famiglia!
To celebrate our new nationality, we went out for a beautiful lunch with my wonderful friend from school, Daniel. We ate at Quartinos, an amazingly authentic Italian restaurant which I found online (I am notorious for choosing the best restaurants, ever since a 1st grade trip to Paris with my family where my restaurant pick led us to the WORLD's best chocolate mousse). They, true to Italian norms, did not card Daniel or I, so by the time we finished our salami, cheese, and olive plates, we had all had enough pinot noir to make a sunny chicago afternoon that much more beautiful. We walked down to the Art Institute of Chicago, crossing the skybridge from Millenium park and marveling at the views of the city and lake. This post's postcard is from inside the brand new modern wing of the museum, which opened on Saturday. To celebrate the opening, the museum was free all of this week- perfect for us college students. Another friend from Indiana, Julia, met us at the museum right after Daniel had to leave to catch his train. We hit a few more of the galleries- the modern wing could in itself be an entire museum, found coffee (must. feed. addiction.) and trekked back up the magnificent mile.
Then we shopped. It was unanimously agreed upon that something Italian and expensive should be purchased in order to truly confirm the citizenship. Prada sunglasses won the prize, although I tried on a pair of enormously flashy Fendi ones that really cannot be pulled off by white people. At this point, I asked my mother why it is that I LOVE "black people style" so much and forced myself to suppress this love and go for something slightly more professional.
We were exhausted, the morning had been stressful, and the afternoon had been long. We rested in the hotel room, but ended up heading out for sushi with my cousin, Emily, who I haven't seen for so long, but thanks to facebook, we have now reconnected! We slept so well.
This morning I fought against the Israeli consulate. It was terrible, they made me throw away my coffee -- NEVER a good idea, and then didn't even end up giving me a student visa. I hate them. I literally asked myself, "Why am I going to this rude, dirty, mean country?" We shopped more, and I got many appropriate things to wear in an office environment for my summer internship, or god-willing, JOB someday. Then we left town. On the road I found out I didn't get a HUGE and very prestigious scholarship that I put tons of work into applying for over last semester. I'm pretty disappointed, it would have made the decision about finishing up IU, even though I'm feeling uncomfortably stuck there, a LOT easier.
On the bright side, now nothing is tying me down to IU and my majors there. I'll write more about these potential big life plan changes tomorrow- the gist of it all being that sometimes you don't get your student visa and your huge scholarship for a reason. My room still looks like 40 toddlers threw a kegger up in here, and then a cyclone swept through- I need to work on that and talk to my family now... twin cities updates and big life plan updates to come.
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