Happily ever after

"...That is my home of love: if I have ranged, Like him that travels I return again..."

-William Shakespeare, Sonnet 109

One last look at our apartment.  The middle floor balcony is off our living room; the upper balcony is off the master bedroom.  Yes, that's our last load of laundry flapping in the breeze.

Living room.  We were lucky that our eat-in kitchen was a separate room - that is not always the case in Italy.  Our apartment was quite large by Italian standards.

The foyer.  Doctor's office to the left; our door to the right.  This was a big hangout spot for the townsfolk

Outside FCO Airport, with both passports.  I will use the US one when entering or leaving the US, but will use the Italian one at passport control when leaving (or entering) Italy.

Airport sculpture (as the airport is named after Da Vinci, there are many references to him throughout)

Paolo was a little short for this...

Well, we made it back to the USA, safe and sound.  We spent our last three nights in Fiumicino outside of Rome, since we had to drop off the rental car at the airport, as well as to obtain pre-flight Covid tests, which are still required for flights into the US.  They have a testing center in Terminal 3 of the airport, and as the current rules state that you can get the test done the day before, we opted to do that, so we wouldn't be scrambling at the last minute to make our flight.  We suspected that the wait for the test might be long.  We were able to preregister for the test online (by "preregister," I just mean fill in the required forms, not schedule a specific time).

Waiting in line - about an hour to go from this point

It seems that a lot of people do not plan for this testing ahead of time!  We were shocked by how many people waited until the last minute for their tests - there were several people who claimed they were going to miss their flight if they couldn't jump the queue.  What's that expression about your poor planning not being my emergency?  The gentleman in line ahead of us said he'd already missed his flight while he was waiting - although he seemed to take this pretty calmly; I assume he was able to rebook himself fairly easily.  There was a guy behind us, however, who asked everyone around him multiple times to let him go ahead, as he claimed his flight was departing in 20 minutes.  Super annoying.  It's not that we were being unkind by not wanting to let him go ahead, but rather, we didn't want to start a riot behind us, as there were plenty of other people also waiting who had flights to catch, too.

We stayed at the Hilton right next to the airport again - there is an extremely convenient elevated walkway from the hotel property over to the airport - and took the train into Rome proper twice.  The Monday before we left Italy was Liberation Day - Festa della Liberazione, a public holiday celebrating the Italian Resistance's overthrow of the Fascists and the Nazi powers in Italy in 1945 (in the North, anyway).   We took one last touristy open-top bus tour of Rome, to see the highlights of the city (many of which we've already visited between our 2018 trip and this one).  I took several videos from the bus (I discovered this is easier than trying to snap photos).  Here and here are links to two of my favorites.  This first was taken near the Colosseum and the Forum; the second was taken near the Monumento Nazionale a Vittorio Emanuele II - also known as the "Wedding Cake." Afterward, we took ourselves out for a nice lunch nearby.

The following day, after our Covid tests described above, we went back into Rome, as I wanted to pick up an extra suitcase, as well as a few small, last minute gifts. As we were shopping, Paolo got his pocket picked in the store - right in front of the shopkeeper, who immediately recognized what was happening - it seemed he'd dealt with this particular pickpocket before - and we all chased him down into the next shop and got the phone back, thankfully. Later, we encountered this same asshole again on the street, and he actually has the balls to joke around about it and try to pass it all off as a bit of fun. I let him know it wasn't very funny to us - and he stomped off pretty quickly once I took my phone out and started taking his picture.

Jerky McJerkface, failed pickpocket

Our flight home the next morning was more or less uneventful, except that our flight departed a little earlier than scheduled, and thus landed in Philly earlier, too.  I think that's the first time that's happened for us, so far as I can recall.  I took a short video of our takeoff, to capture a bit of Italy and its western coastline from the air; click here to see it.

Pre-flight champagne.  Not that we were feeling particularly celebratory to be leaving Italy.

The toasted BBQ sandwich served as the "light meal" toward the end of the flight was probably one of the best things I've ever eaten on an airplane.

I believe this is Elba, famous for being Napoleon's first place of exile

We were seated in business class (one of the truly "splurge" bits of this adventure, to be sure), and while I can't speak to the main cabin, I can confirm that in our section, we were two of only three passengers wearing masks.  Some of the crew wore them, and some did not. I understand that the Covid precautions have become more relaxed here in the US.  That will take some getting used to.  Italy is also just now beginning to ease many of its Covid measures, but not as quickly as seems to be happening on this side of the Atlantic.

And here we are, unpacked and (mostly) settled in.  It took me a couple of days to get over the jet lag; Paolo seems to have had an easier time adapting.  It also took me several days to wade through the six months' worth of mail that had accumulated.  For now, I am just working through what I consider to be an adjustment period - trying to assimilate myself back into our American lives (we already miss the fresh bread and excellent produce - the bell peppers are so puny here!).  We are already thinking about how soon (and for how long) we will return to il bel paese...

I'll just take a moment here to pay tribute to Paolo, most excellent of travel companions (and husbands), without whose love and support my dual citizenship dream might never have become a reality.  I am not certain whether I'd have had the courage to pack up and move to another country, to live a very different kind of life, where I don't even speak the language, without him.  Thank you, my love ❤️

Passaporto e Permesso

 "Got three passports, couple of visas/You don't even know my real name..."

-Talking Heads, Life During Wartime

Well, I have two passports, not three - and it certainly wasn't no party, and it wasn't no disco, and it definitely wasn't no foolin' around...but I did it!  I finally have my passaporto italiano!  I'm so excited I think I will post another picture of it:

There are some slight differences between the US passport and the Italian one (other than the obvious ones of country and color).  For one thing, the Italian passport lists my town of residence (though not the street address). It also lists my height (in cm, which kind of makes me feel a bit taller) and my eye color.  By the way, according to the clerk at the questura here, there is no such eye color as "hazel," so for Italian purposes, my eyes are listed as grigi (grey).  The Italian passport includes two photos, not just one.  The biggest difference between the two passports is, of course, my name - because Italian women do not have the option to change their surname when they marry, it reflects my maiden name (as do all my other official Italian documents).  

There's an interesting website called Passport Index where you can compare passports of different countries.  As of this writing, Italy is ranked #2 in the world in terms of where you can go; the US is ranked 6th (taking Covid into account).

My passport was actually issued a few weeks ago, but was sent to my service provider's office rather than to my apartment address.  Since Paolo had an appointment to apply for his documentation today, I opted to have our translator bring it with her to give to me when we met for his appointment, rather than trust it to Poste italiane.

Now that I am a citizen, complete with ID and passaporto, I can live here (or anywhere in the EU), and/or come and go as I please.  I don't have to worry about the 90/180 day rules.  As the spouse of an Italian/EU citizen, Paolo has some limited rights as well - as long as he has the proper paperwork.  So today, we headed into Campobasso, the provincial capital, so he could present his documentation at the Immigration office in the questura, in order to receive a permesso di soggiorno per coniuge di cittadino italiano (residence permit for the spouse of an Italian citizen).

The questura opens for business at 9 AM; we were advised to get there by 8:30.  When we arrived at 8:20, there was already a line outside the gatehouse!  I was a little surprised, because I wasn't expecting it to be so busy - after all, Molise is not a very populous region (I think only Valle d'Aosta has fewer people).  But there must have been at least 10 people waiting in line when we arrived, and more showed up after we did.  I use the phrase "waiting in line" very loosely, as according to my personal observations, Italians don't really queue, they just mill about.   Our translator (today it was Saya again) joined us shortly after we arrived; she had all the relevant paperwork with her (we'd coordinated this last week).

At 9 AM the gatehouse opened and there was a rush to the front of the "line;" we did get through relatively quickly (after Saya and I presented our Green Passes for scanning, and Paolo's CDC vaccination card for review).  Paolo was given a little ticket (like you might get at the the deli counter); he was #76 (I couldn't puzzle out how the numbering system worked; there were not actually 75 people ahead of him, but whatever).  We walked around the gatehouse and down the side of the questura building, and entered a little outdoor courtyard to continue our wait.

We waited outside in the cold (low 40sF) until about 10:45, because there was only one person working the immigration counter.  Because Italy.  Once it was finally Paolo's turn, it went smoothly, if a bit slowly.  We handed in copies of the documents they require:  our estratto per riassunto del registro degli atti di matrimonio (extract of our marriage information recorded in my comune); a copy of every page of Paolo's US passport (yes - every single page, including the blank ones); a copy of my Italian ID card; a copy of my lease for the apartment here; some bank statements (to show he can support himself); a Dichiarazione di ospitalità or "hospitality letter," a form I had to sign that confirms that I'm letting him live with me; and a dichiarazione di soggiorno straniero - a foreigner's declaration of stay.  He also had to supply two Italian passport-sized photos, as well as a bollettino postale (it is the form that confirms the fee has been paid - kind of like a receipt that you fill in yourself - in this case, €30,46), and a marca da bollo (€16 tax stamp).  It seems as if everything needs a tax stamp in Italy.

The officer slowly shuffled through the documents and entered information into his computer; then after scanning two fingerprints (one from each hand), he handed us the very flimsy and not-at-all-official-looking-but-they-swear-it-is receipt for the permesso.  The actual permesso document will allegedly be ready...sometime in the next four months.  Because Italy.  There is a number on the receipt that you can enter into the questura's website to check to see whether it is ready to be picked up.  They do not mail them, as they must verify one's identity via fingerprints before releasing the document.  However, the receipt serves as a temporary permesso document; in fact, we were told that lots of people never bother to go back and pick up their actual permesso.  

We thought being handed the receipt indicated we'd reached the end of the appointment - but we thought wrong.  We had to go back outside (brrr!) and wait until called by another officer - this one wearing a lab coat - who scanned fingerprints from all of Paolo's fingers, as well as his palms.  I'm not sure what the lab coat was in aid of, as I can't image you get very dirty just scanning fingerprints all day.

We returned home about 13:00, lunchtime here.  Now that Paolo has proof that his permesso is being processed, we don't have to worry about anyone questioning his right to be here, and/or why he's been here longer than 90 days.  Not that we were too worried about it - except that time we were lollipopped.  Now maybe we will think about doing a little cautious traveling, especially now that Covid numbers are looking a bit better here (*knocks on wood*). 

In other news:  we heard that there is another American couple here in our comune!  They are living around the corner from us.  They only arrived a day or two ago, so we haven't met them yet, but I am sure we will soon.  They are also here for citizenship recognition.  They hail from the Philly region, too.  Small world!

Questura

We woke up Monday morning to see a little snow on the surrounding mountains:

View out my bathroom window

Fortunately, it didn't snow here in town (yet) although the temps have dropped considerably.  Currently it is about 39F and a bit windy (though less windy than it was yesterday).  The Weather Channel app had predicted we'd have a little snow overnight, changing to rain today; happily, this did not come to pass, and all was dry as of when we woke up this morning.  Later in the week, the sun will allegedly return along with some warmer weather predicted to be in the high 40'sF - low 50'sF - I'll take it!

Yesterday (Tuesday) I had my passport appointment at the questura in Campobasso.  Ironically, this would have been the day that I would have had an appointment at the Italian Consulate office in Philadelphia, had it not been canceled for Covid.  I'm not complaining, as going to the consulate would have entailed a wait of at least another two years for the processing of my request for recognition of my citizenship - so it all worked out in the end, as life often does.

The questura is the provincial headquarters for the polizia di stato (not to be confused with the carabinieri - which are actually a military police force, like the French gendarmerie - or the guardia di finanza, which deals specifically with financial crimes, smuggling, and drugs).  The questura is also the administrative office where one goes to deal with immigration issues (non-EU immigration in particular), request passports, obtain firearms licenses (quite rare in Italy compared to the US), permits for various things, etc., etc.

Main entrance, for my purposes.  It appeared that folks with immigration issues enter via a side door.  It's quite a large building, extending much farther on either side of this door than you might guess from the photo.

My appointment was for 10 AM; we managed to get there on time despite having taken a couple of wrong exits off the roundabouts in Campobasso.  For some reason, the GPS system in our car sometimes gets a little fuzzy on exactly which exits to take when going around a traffic circle.  As it turned out, the questura is located just down the street from the agenzia delle entrate, where I obtained my codice fiscale.  To our (happy) surprise, we were able to find a parking spot in a lot across the street - a minor miracle.  Also a minor miracle that we didn't get flattened while crossing said street - Italian drivers rarely stop for pedestrians (or other drivers, for that matter).

Nicoletta was not available to translate for this appointment, so we met with her colleague Saya, who was very sweet. We walked up to a sort of gatehouse next to the questura building, which was manned by a somewhat grumpy looking officer behind a glass window.  Saya explained (more than once, actually) that we were there for my passport appointment.  I noticed he was checking a clipboard, presumably reading through a list of scheduled appointments, looking for my name.  Eventually he found it and we were waved through to the grounds of the building.  Interestingly, while there was a device for checking body temperature on a stand in front of the officer's window, we were not required to scan ourselves before being admitted.

Surprisingly, when we entered the building, it seemed pretty empty; I'd expected to see more people bustling about their bureaucratic business.  I'd mentally prepared for a long wait, red tape, requests for documents I didn't have, additional fees, whatever.  Italian bureaucracy really does have a poor reputation.  However, my appointment was actually very quick; we'd brought the filled-in application forms with us, along with two passport-sized photos (note that they are not the same 2x2-inch size as you'd use for a US passport; Italian photos are a bit smaller).  Once we greeted the woman at the passport counter and Saya explained that the appointment was for me, it went fairly smoothly.  The forms were reviewed and deemed correct; I just had to sign them.  I was also fingerprinted - one finger on each hand.  The fingerprint machine at the questura worked much better than the one in my comune; I didn't have to jam my fingers down on it, or have someone apply pressure to them for me in order to make the scan work correctly.  I was then told my passport should be available in about a week.  

And...that was it.  It was a bit anticlimactic.  The total fees, for the passport, plus the tax stamp that must be paid for and added to the application (this stamp costs more than the actual passport), plus mailing, I think was just about €126 (just over $143). My expedited US passport renewal in 2021 cost more, plus it took longer than a week to receive.

I suggested that we might perhaps check out the shopping mall in Campobasso, since we were already pretty close to it, but Paolo opted to head home instead, saving the shopping trip for another day.  So rather than celebrate this milestone by buying myself a present, I decided to mark the occasion by cooking dinner - I made capellini with clam sauce, which I'd never done before.  I melted some butter, added olive oil, a jar of clams with juice, some garlic, some very finely diced zucchini, and some seasonings; I let it come to a boil, then let it simmer a bit before stirring the sauce into the bowl of pasta.  It was delicious, if I say so myself:

Notice that Paolo got a haircut?  Unfortunately for him, I had to give him one of my Covid-specials with the clippers, since we can't figure out when, exactly, the hair salon here in town is opened.  Every time we go by, it is closed, and they don't seem to have a website.  I always forget to ask when chatting with neighbors.  I really should try to remember, though, as I myself desperately need a cut and color.  Paolo kindly offered to return the favor, but I declined as 1) we don't have proper haircutting scissors; and 2) I'm not that desperate yet.

San Giuliano di Puglia & Pandoro & CIE

There wasn't much happening here to report on in the last week.  I didn't get a message indicating that my Italian ID is ready (maybe today?); but I imagine as we're rolling up to Christmas things might have slowed down a bit, so that wasn't really unexpected.  The most exciting thing going on is that we've now had three whole days in a row without rain!  Whoo-hoo!  I think I will wash sheets today...

Since the weather was so nice yesterday, we decided to take a drive over to the next hilltop town to check it out - San Giuliano di Puglia [note:  the Italian Wikipedia page I linked to has more interesting info than the English one; you can translate the page via your web browser if you're interested]. The "di Puglia" in the comune name reflects the fact that it was once part of the Puglia region (in English:  Apulia), rather than Molise.

San Giuliano is a smaller comune than the one in which we are living.  There was a terrible earthquake in this region in 2002, during which the elementary school in San Giuliano di Puglia collapsed, killing 27 children (you can still see obvious damage from this earthquake in some buildings in our own comune).  There is now a memorial park on the site.

Here are some pictures I took as we explored the comune:

Top of the memorial park

View of the comune.  Very far in the background you can see our comune on the next hill

Looking down the town

A devotional cross above the comune dedicated to several members of a family, I believe...haven't found anything more specific about it online yet

 

View looking down from the top of the memorial

As I was typing the above, there was a knock on the door - the vigile officer came (accompanied by my landlord) to drop off my new Italian ID card (CIE - Carta di Identità Elettronica)!  I wasn't expecting it to be hand delivered; that was nice of them.

This is what the front looks like (certain information redacted):

Perhaps not the most flattering photo, but it will do.

I just messaged Nicoletta to let her know I now have my ID; she asked me to meet her in Campobasso this afternoon, so that we can schedule a passport appointment.  The appointment itself will also take place in Campobasso, as that is where the questura is located (the provincial police headquarters - I think the closest US equivalent might be the regional State Police barracks).  The passport appointment has to be scheduled via an app that needs to be downloaded to my phone - and of course as it will all be in Italian, she will need to help me to navigate the scheduler.  

And now back to our regularly scheduled post:

The only other thing I was going to write about today was that we recently tried pandoro (or more properly, pan d'oro - golden bread).  Pandoro is a popular Christmas treat here, a kind of sweet bread/cake.  You see it in all the markets; there are a variety of brands ranging in price from quite cheap (maybe 3-4 euro) to fairly expensive (I think I saw one for about 15 euro).  It is made with yeast, and, to me, has a light texture not unlike an angel food cake, though with a denser, less "spongey" quality, if that makes sense:

As you can see, it has a very distinctive shape, too.  It seems it's often served with a dusting of powdered sugar.  I like it a lot, particularly because it is light and, in spite of the powdered sugar, not overly sweet.  This is not the same thing as panettone, which is more like a fruit cake/bread.  I haven't tried the panettone here yet; we used to have English-style fruitcakes at Christmas when I was a kid, and I was not a huge fan.  But I will keep an open mind (and palette), should the opportunity to sample some arise.