The Permesso di Soggiorno Journey: Phase Two

This week, we embarked on Phase Two of my journey to getting my Permesso di Soggiorno. The Permesso, as a reminder, is my permit to stay here in Italy. Once I have it, I'll need to renew it every couple of years, but for the most part it is the "Be all end all" of mandatory paperwork for me here. Once I'm through with this process, I'm a fully legal resident, and as such they do not make it simple to acquire.

Phase One involved trips to the post office(s) to chase down the proper paperwork and application forms, hours of internet research to ensure I had covered each necessary bit of documentation with relevant stamps, various fees, and finally the initial submission process. At the end of submitting my application, I received a piece of paper with an appointment date and time and address to appear for fingerprinting and final inspection and submission of documents by a police officer. This phase, we imagined, could not be too bad. We had a definite address telling us where to be, and an appointment, so they should be expecting us - which is often half the battle. Piece of cake?

My appointment was for 1PM, at a Questra (police office) about 15 miles from where we live. In the early day rush, we'd left the house without breakfast or lunch, though we had managed a large espresso each. My fingers were crossed for a quick process to be followed by a large, lazy victory lunch. These hopes were swiftly dashed. As we walked up to the large government building, we were greeted by the sight of dozens and dozens of people waiting outside. Many looked confused, others worryingly bored or annoyed, as if they'd already been waiting for hours. The day was hot and humid, so the sight of all of those waiting outside was a little bit horrifying to us. Naturally, there were no signs pointing anyone in any kind of direction. Aside from those waiting idly in chairs beside an entrance guarded by policemen in military gear, a large clump of people pressed against a gate waving appointment notices identical to mine. We noticed that one of the guards was opening the gate every 5 or 10 minutes, letting between three and five people through into the building. Deciding to be proactive and as Italian as possible, we pushed our way through to the front of the clump and tried to make our way in with the next wave of people. It was now 1:30, half an hour past my appointment time. As the guard opened the gate, he took my appointment notice and gave me a look of complete incredulity. I politely pointed out that my appointment had been for 1PM, to which he replied "This is for 1:00. We are admitting 11:30. Later." and brushed me aside. A little bit more careful observation gained us the realization that there was somewhat of a system to the clumps of people at the gates. The left half of the clump had appointments at 11:30, while the right half of the clump has appointments at noon. Those sitting on the sidelines had later scheduled times. With this we realized we would be there for a while. Really wishing I'd eaten breakfast, I headed over to the vending machine to get something to eat. The poor showing inside displayed one row of cookies and pastries at the top, and a few randomly scattered bottles of Coke and orange juice. I put in one euro and pressed the buttons for a cherry pastry. Despite a full row of them, the screen flashed Not available. I tried every other food item on display...Not available. Finally, after refusing to return my euro, the machine gave in and released bottle of Coke. Victory. Until I twisted off the lid and it promptly exploded all over me and my white shirt. A disgusting looking row of outhouses baked in the sun, and of course with no running water available to clean up, I sat down with Roland to begin our wait - covered in sticky soda, hungry, and hot. A very good omen to begin an important day, no?

We passed the next four hours watching our fellow foreigners arrive and go through the same process we'd just completed: arrive, stare in confusion, join clump of people, get turned away, head over to vending machine, punch/kick it, lose money and/or receive exploding Coke. Frequent yelling arguments broke out between those waiting and the uniformed guards over the long wait. Unlucky people joined the wrong side of the clump and reached the front, only to be told they had joined the wrong half and had to begin the wait again. The three guards stood behind the gate, chain-smoking, eating cookies, texting on their phones, and otherwise ignoring us all. Finally, we heard a guard say those with a 1PM appointment should join the right side of the clump. We were pressed in tightly among a very smelly and warm group of people for the next 45 minutes, an experience I don't really care to remember, until FINALLY we made it through the gate.

This allowed us into a building where we followed signs to the third floor for fingerprinting. We arrived and found our next line. Chairs wove up and down the room in a large U shape. We took the two chairs on the end and began another wait. This line moved in a slightly comedic fashion. Every minute or two, the person waiting at the end of the line of chairs was called into a room. At this point, each person in the room stood up and moved over one chair to their left. In this way we shuffled along for the next half hour in a silent, sort of silly version of musical chairs.

After some time we reached the end of the line. We were handed a laminated card with a number 7 stamped on it and pointed toward a room. Inside, we found about a dozen desks, each one manned by an officer processing an application like our own. We sat down in front of desk 7 and hoped for the best. The woman began very uncharacteristically, with a big smile, which I took as a good sign. She started flipping through our paperwork, asked a few questions, then said the dreaded words: you are in the wrong place. You needed to go to another desk, downstairs. We both must have looked near tears after our morning, so she seemed to take pity on us. She asked around to her fellow officers and produced a form, seeming to intend to process our paperwork desptite some error on our part. We made it another 10 minutes before the next scare: The officer took one particular form we handed to her (a declaration from the landlord stating that I would live in his flat) stared at us, aghast, and asked the dreaded question... WHERE IS THE STAMP? Apparently, our form was missing a large blue rubber stamp at the top, meant to be obtained at an earlier time from a different police station. The woman could hardly believe we did not have it (Italians and rubber stamps make a inseperable couple, as I've explained before. For Italians, they are like oxygen...or spaghetti). I apologized profusely, explaining I did not know about the stamp. That seemed to seal our fate. She explained we would need to leave, get the stamp, and return to begin the process again. She started to scribble and address and phone number on the form, ready to send us on our way. Then, by the grace of  someone who must have been looking over us that day, the officer began to take interest in Roland's job. She found out he was a pilot and was thoroughly impressed. Seeming to have a change of heart, she took a photocopy of his work contract and accepted it in place of the missing stamp on our form. How they could possibly be related and/or interchangable, I have no idea and was afraid to ask. We took our luck and ran with it and she scanned my fingerprints and handed me a receipt, telling me to return to pick up my Permesso di Soggiorno on October 10th. We hurried out of there quickly, before our Guardian Angel lady could change her mind. Of all of the difficult people we have dealt with in the mess of paperwork processes here in Italy, we were so lucky to have the officer we did...almost certainly, with anyone else, we'd have been kicked out and waited through the horrible process all over again a few days later. So to you Officer Number 7, wherever you are, GRAZIE MILLE!

Of course, we won't really consider this a victory until October 10, when they hand me my Permesso without any further difficulty...but for now, I'll take it.