We got up early this morning, Max went on the moped to go stand in line and I dropped off Sophia at the preschool, then took the metro to meet him. This was attempt number 3 to get the Permit of Stay.
Max stood in line and got number 959. At 9:21 the number counter was at 925. We took bets as usual Max guessed 10:40 and I guessed 11:00. At 11:12 they called our number - Max owed me lunch again. I am 2 for 2 - if there is one thing Italy has taught me its how to guess how long the wait will be! Time flew anyways, I had a bottle of water, sudoku and episodes of csi, my name is earl and lost uploaded onto the LG.
The guy who helped was young and nice (amazing-usually they are older and jaded). Which made the fact that we were smashed between a service window that had never been cleaned (it had forehead imprints and spittle marks all over i) and people behind us trying to ask '1 more' question (and apparently dont believe in 'personal space') to the first person they saw since there was no information desk, slightly less annoying. Then guess what happened - we were missing 2 documents that we didnt know we needed, (one was the receipt to the last disastrous appointment/attempt to get the permesso di soggiorno. Apparently we had to 'officially' claim that we didnt go to that appointment, only the last idiot didnt tell us that we needed to do that). Max was like 'please dont tell me we have to start all over again! Can we come back tomorrow? or later today?' Thank god the guy said yes. Soooo...went back home to search for missing documents (which we werent even sure we had anymore-but eventually found them), Max paid his lunch debt at the new South American restaurant down the street and we went back again.
There was hardly anyone there (and now we were able to see how disgusting the place really was, it was sooo dirty, and dingy and grey. i don't think anyone every cleaned, i really wanted to take a picture, but Max wouldnt let me - from fear of what happened last time. The smell of pee filled the now empty room, but at least there was a place to sit. The floors were marked by old gum turned black and old abandoned wrappers/newspapers slid across the room in the rare breeze, and other disgusting things, I tried hard not to look too closely). This time around we were helped quickly - still smashed in between the spittle window and a group of people trying to get some answers (the few people that were there, were all congregated behind us). Finally, the documents were exchanged/entered/dealt with and we were given ANOTHER number.
It was actually lucky that we had left and come back because there was no waiting this time. But....we entered another disgusting room, there was a broken sink on the floor, pieces of all scattered around, another broken and dirty sink dangling from the wall and black finger prints squished on the walls - left over from before the electronic era. I had leave electronic finger prints (and touch a dirty nasty wet chamois - even the girl who took the finger prints stuck latex gloves on first) and stick my phalanges on a very dirty and disgusting high tech, csi lookin, scanning machine. When we finished, I could not get the Bath and Body Strawberry Scented Anti-Bacterial Soap out fast enough!!! Seriously, I thought I was going to throw up - that place can make anyone a germaphobe!
Then we had to wait ONE more time for the document to come out and be handed to us. Again, this went by quickly because it was late in afternoon. There were few who were still waiting. Now you probably ask, why didnt we just come in the afternoon to begin with? Thats because they only give out a certain number of numbers in the morning and then you are SOL. Anyhow, the long of the short of it is...
Max stood in line and got number 959. At 9:21 the number counter was at 925. We took bets as usual Max guessed 10:40 and I guessed 11:00. At 11:12 they called our number - Max owed me lunch again. I am 2 for 2 - if there is one thing Italy has taught me its how to guess how long the wait will be! Time flew anyways, I had a bottle of water, sudoku and episodes of csi, my name is earl and lost uploaded onto the LG.
The guy who helped was young and nice (amazing-usually they are older and jaded). Which made the fact that we were smashed between a service window that had never been cleaned (it had forehead imprints and spittle marks all over i) and people behind us trying to ask '1 more' question (and apparently dont believe in 'personal space') to the first person they saw since there was no information desk, slightly less annoying. Then guess what happened - we were missing 2 documents that we didnt know we needed, (one was the receipt to the last disastrous appointment/attempt to get the permesso di soggiorno. Apparently we had to 'officially' claim that we didnt go to that appointment, only the last idiot didnt tell us that we needed to do that). Max was like 'please dont tell me we have to start all over again! Can we come back tomorrow? or later today?' Thank god the guy said yes. Soooo...went back home to search for missing documents (which we werent even sure we had anymore-but eventually found them), Max paid his lunch debt at the new South American restaurant down the street and we went back again.
There was hardly anyone there (and now we were able to see how disgusting the place really was, it was sooo dirty, and dingy and grey. i don't think anyone every cleaned, i really wanted to take a picture, but Max wouldnt let me - from fear of what happened last time. The smell of pee filled the now empty room, but at least there was a place to sit. The floors were marked by old gum turned black and old abandoned wrappers/newspapers slid across the room in the rare breeze, and other disgusting things, I tried hard not to look too closely). This time around we were helped quickly - still smashed in between the spittle window and a group of people trying to get some answers (the few people that were there, were all congregated behind us). Finally, the documents were exchanged/entered/dealt with and we were given ANOTHER number.
It was actually lucky that we had left and come back because there was no waiting this time. But....we entered another disgusting room, there was a broken sink on the floor, pieces of all scattered around, another broken and dirty sink dangling from the wall and black finger prints squished on the walls - left over from before the electronic era. I had leave electronic finger prints (and touch a dirty nasty wet chamois - even the girl who took the finger prints stuck latex gloves on first) and stick my phalanges on a very dirty and disgusting high tech, csi lookin, scanning machine. When we finished, I could not get the Bath and Body Strawberry Scented Anti-Bacterial Soap out fast enough!!! Seriously, I thought I was going to throw up - that place can make anyone a germaphobe!
Then we had to wait ONE more time for the document to come out and be handed to us. Again, this went by quickly because it was late in afternoon. There were few who were still waiting. Now you probably ask, why didnt we just come in the afternoon to begin with? Thats because they only give out a certain number of numbers in the morning and then you are SOL. Anyhow, the long of the short of it is...
We did it!
2 comments:
so what does this mean? you can work?
Congratulations!!! Wow that was a process. Oh and for the record, I'm sitting here rather grossed out myself! EEEEEEWWWWWW.
TammyJo
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