After over 3 years of living in Italy, I am officially an official resident! Why did it take so long??? Well my permesso di soggiorno (permit to stay) was at the police station, just sitting there waiting for me to get it for almost a year... I was just supposed to know to go and get it by telepathy, I guess...(with my first permesso, I received something in the mail and a text message to tell me that it had arrived - it had arrived expired, but it was there...) Then I applied for residency here in our little commune of Cannara last May, but the police kind of forgot to process my papers until now... I'm sure they were just busy - I can imagine that there must be tons of things to do in a town with a population of 4000......
Anyway, now the big question is what to do with it? Like most things that have to do with documentation, or technology, etc., Italy is about 50 years behind. They actually used a glue stick to stick on the photo inside accompanied by four little metal ring stamps to hold it in place! Plus, this thing is big - no slick little credit card size documents to fit in your wallet, no sir - this thing is about 3x4 inches - does not fit anywhere. And its just paper, so its obviously going to deteriorate like any other receipt or paper document that you may have living in your wallet. So....what to do? The uptight american in me wanted to laminate it immediately...but after living here for 3 years, I know what exactly what to do - the italian thing to do - what everyone else has done - fold it in half, stick it somewhere in my wallet, and watch it slowly fall apart over the next 10 years until its time for a new one.
Originally posted March 2010
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