Prologue

So, according to Wikipedia, the prologue gives a sort of account of what precedes the story.  The preface is about why you're writing something.  Well...I found it interesting anyway...

Before the prologue, I forgot to explain the name of this blog.  GooglyElmo comes from the opera Cosi fan Tutte by Mozart.  The character's name is Guglielmo and while the Italian pronunciation of gli sounds more like an l stuck in the back of your throat, I've heard many people unknowingly say Googlyelmo.  So, I thought it was fun.  Also reminds me of Giggly Elmo.  And then all the other stuff is me trying to be fancy and fit in a lot about myself in a title.  So, I'm young, I sing opera music and am a baritone, I am an ambassadorial scholar for Rotary, and I'm hoping to travel to a lot of Rotary clubs in Europe, essentially taking a tour.  Also, the tour part refers to cycling tours.  So that's that!

So, for about two years I have been in the process of applying for this Rotary Ambassadorial Scholarship, applying to schools in other countries, and being accepted by everyone.  For the scholarship alone I had to write three different essays and translate them into Italian, French, and German because I was applying to go to those countries.  Some of the translations were better than others...

So, for most of the summer I've been working on getting all the applications and paper work in on time.  The most complicated situation has been that I'm singing in a music festival in France on Belle-Ile.  The complicated part is that I had to apply for an Italian Visa, and for an Italian Visa you are required to go to an Italian Consulate in person for a brief interview and to hand in all of your paper work.  The consulate for my district is in Houston, TX.  Pretty far away.  Also, their earliest available interview date was in mid-July when I was supposed to already be in France.  Luckily, we found out that I could go to a vice-consulate in New Orleans, LA.  Slightly closer, but I would still have to ship all of my documents to the Houston Consulate.  Once again, not too bad, except for the fact that I would have to ship my passport to them and they were going to keep it.  That's right, they would keep my passport until I got my visa.  Very scary as the website said that it would take about two months in the summer and I only had about 3 weeks.  Every day I would check the tracking number, hoping to see that my passport was on it's way.

Then about 10 days before my departure, I checked our mail at 4:30 in the afternoon to discover a note that the post office had tried to deliver a package that required a signature.  I left immediately and made it to the post office, in the middle of Jonesboro, during rush hour, in about 8 minutes.  I got my passport!  They were only about 5 minutes from closing and I had to sign a few things and confirm my address, but I got my passport and visa with time to spare.  It was great.

So now, I'm just about ready to leave.  All that is left is to complete my Rotary orientation and then hop on a plane to France.  Hopefully I'll be able to upload plenty of posts and pictures of my travels.  So, my next post will probably be from the airport or France!

Also, check out the tour!  I'm going to try and make it over to see at least one stage.