Friday, March 7, 2008

Italian Immigration


Once you've gone through the hassle of acquiring an Italian visa in the States, you still have to apply for a Permesso di Soggiorno within eight days of your arrival in Italy. This means lots of paperwork and handing over copious Euros for postage and processing.
According to our student advisor, no one ever actually gets there Permesso di Soggiorno due to Italy's crazy beaurocracy, but all you need is the recipt from the post office proving you sent all the documents.
Well, a couple weeks ago, several of us got text messages at 2 am from the Uficio di Immigrazione in Viterbo. Both messages were in Italian and I forgot about them until another student mentioned that she had recieved similar messages. Apparently, no students have ever gotten this far in the process.
So today we had to go to Viterbo to get fingerprinted. This involved waiting in line (not as bad as the DMV and Italians actually know how to form a line), getting each finger copied and then going down the street to a different office with alot of Polizia. Wait a bit longer and then have a complete set of prints taken (each finger, thumb, four fingers, and palm). The two technicians were pretty impressed with my new US passport and laughed about my cold hands.
So, I'm still not sure whether i'll be getting my Permesso di Soggiorno before I leave Italy, but I can check the Immigration office of my list of places to go...

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