Twas the night before xmas....

And I still haven't got my visa!  I went to the Questura at Siracusa this morning, just as my appointment letter told me to, and they said that the package with the actual application hadn't yet arrived.... from the post office 100 m away.  Hmmm.  Well, that's the postal service for you at Christmas.  So now I have a new appointment for 13/1/10.  The question is - will the Italy Immigration people at Catania airport let me back in the country after New Years???

A couple of weekends ago I went to Taormina.  A very pretty town on a very pretty coastline but if the number of tourists there on a chilly day in December was anything to go by, I'm very glad I didn't go in summer.

One of the key attractions is an ancient Greek theatre, strategically located on a cliff with magnificent views of the beautiful harbour on two sides and looming Mt Etna on a third.  Now you know an historic site is truly historic when your guide book laments that it was ruined by more modern construction... ie the Romans.  The Romans had built walls around the theatre because they were less into Greek tradegies and comedies and more into gladiator sports.  Fortunately these walls have crumbled allowing you to see the views as per the original Greek design.

Yesterday I went exploring the Valle dell'Anapo, a beautiful valley with (you guessed it) the Anapo river running through it.  This place was remarkable though for the *truly* ancient Necropolis di Pantalica. 

By truly I mean this site dates from as far back as the 13th century BC.  In this picture you can see (even better if you click on it to open it to full size) many holes in the rock.  These were carved out of the limestone by the civilisation of the day to rest their dead.  Along the whole site there are about 5000.

Here's a close up of one of them.  The door was a bit smaller than me.  This one was a single little (man made) cave, but some of them have multiple chambers, presumably for members of the same family.  Amazing.  Particularly the ones right on the cliff face.  Of course, I suppose the layout of this porous rock was a bit different 15,000 years ago, but still I wouldn't have wanted to be a gravedigger in those days!

Along the valley itself I had a lovely time rock hopping over the water and climbing along the path.  This spot in particular struck me as the perfect swimming hole - I was pretty cold but even so mildly tempted to jump in.  Just like home.  All in all a great day, and I'm definitely going to go back one day and explore further.  Although, my knees hurt a little bit at the end... hang on, I'm way too young for my knees to be giving way!

Speaking of cold though, I am absolutely going to freeze in a few days time when I return to Manchester for Christmas.  It's been snowing and about -6 degrees.  Of course, that's assuming that I get there - many delays at Gatwick airport already.  England's absolutely useless when it comes to snow, a few flakes and everything shuts down.

Brinkmanship

To paraphrase our favourite 1980's commentator, Europes aint europes.  You have of course the continent of Europe, although even that's a bit confusing with some countries (notably Russia and Turkey) spanning across to Asia.  There are 50 sovereign states in Europe.  Although an island, the UK is considered technically part of the European continent.

Then you have the somewhat smaller European Union which currently has 27 members.  The EU is the current form of the club that was started after the second world war to "make make war unthinkable and materially impossible" (surely the most successfully accomplished mission statement EVER).  Switzerland is not a member (those guys take their neutrality verrry seriously), but lots of other countries want to be still so we can expect the EU to continue to expand.  The UK is a member of the EU.

Now we get to the Eurozone.  The euro is the official currency of the EU and there are 16 member countries who have adopted it.  Most of the other EU countries have to adopt but haven't got round to meeting the economic criteria yet.  Some non-EU countries like the Vatican (because changing currency in the middle of Italy would be a right pain) and Montenegro (because when you're a tiny country who finally gets independence out of the mess that was the former Yugoslavia, what else are you going to use) also use the euro.  But because the UK is oohhh soooo special, they got to keep the pound sterling and are thus not a member of the Eurozone.


We also (and now we are starting to get to the point of this blog entry) have the Schengen Zone.  The Schengen zone (I am amused that this key accord was signed in a place that is virtually unpronouncable to the vast majority of Europeans not from Luxembourg) is an area where all of the countries have no internal border controls.  So for a third country citizen (such as an Australian) being in France, for example, is the same (visa wise) as being in Italy.

As you can see from the map to the right, the UK (and Ireland) are the only EU countries that chose to opt out of this convenient arrangement.  Why?  I don't know, they're just "special".  So the UK is not in the Schengen Zone.

All of this and more is neatly summarised with the picture here... Supranational European Bodies.

Why does any of this matter? Well, I am an Australian. I have an Australian passport (and only an Australian passport). I am not English. My right to live and work in the UK is based on a 5 year "Ancestry Visa", so called because I qualified through my English born grandmother.  So, does this or does this not mean that I have the right to live and work in Italy?

The title of this blog entry refers to how long it took me to answer that question... on day 89 of my time in Schengen zone!  An Australian is allowed 90 days in any 6 month period, and with various holidays I hit that number this weekend.  The majority of the problem was that the local immigration authorities (not the brightest bunch of beaurocrats) thought that my UK working visa wasn't valid because the UK is not part of the Schengen Zone even though Regulation 286/1998 Article 27 1-bis clearly refers to memer states of the EU and not the SZ.   Bof.

Finally, after getting this piece of paper and that piece of paper and contracts between different companies and letters from the union and the passport of the directors of the Italian and UK companies and my entire life story in triplicate and filling out this application and that application and talking to all sorts of lawyers.... I went to the post office on Friday, filled out a form (with an Italian assistant), gave a copy of my passport and received my receipt.  Done.

Well, sort of, I still need to go through some more hoops.  So, if you don't hear from me again you'll know that I've been thrown in gaol as an illegal immigrant!