Ohoh, I'm an alien! I'm a resident alien! I'm a resident in this borg(o).
Well, almost.
I am moving to phase 3 of my 4-phase residenza elettiva process in Italy. Phase 1, the most important and heaviest-lift phase, was the critical one to clear. I needed to prove, via reams of documentation, that I owned property in Italy and had enough funds to prevent my becoming a ward of the state or trying to get a job. I also had to supply a cover letter explaining just why I sought residency, which I wrote as a kind of hymn to my love of Italy. I’d tried years ago to get through Phase 1 and had my documentation unceremoniously pushed back to me at the consulate in New York with a simple “No.” I was so flabbergasted that I retreated with my little American tail between my legs. This time I hired an Italian lawyer.
Phase 1 cleared and my temporary residency visa stamped into my passport, this last visit was all about phase 2 of the process, which involved presenting myself at the local post office and completing what's called a “postal kit.” It was essentially more paperwork that had to be signed before a postal employee and then stamped and sent by that same personage, earning me various postal receipts essential to proving my temporary residency status while I await my permanent card.
I was dreading my appointment at the post office, and for good reason.
If you’re visiting Italy and a friend asks you to make a quick run to the post office to get some stamps, don’t be fooled! There is no such thing as a quick visit to the post office to get some stamps. (In fact, some of the pre-paid stamps I needed I had to buy at the tobacconist, not the post office.) The post office in Italy is a Kafka-esque universe into which you are sucked headlong and about which you don't know the rules. (You're in good company. I don't think the Italians do, either.) The post office is a seat of small business consultation, financial transactions, required government red tape, and, in my case, a kind of satellite of the embassy. You can make appointments in advance for all sorts of issues, including mine, and a screen will show which appointments will be conducted at which windows. Still, despite your having an appointment that at some point will show up on the screen in the queue for Window 1 or 2 or 3, it seems you have to take a number for service and you might wait in line for quite awhile. Meanwhile, while you're standing there with your number in your hand and see your appointment show up in the queue, are you supposed to let them know you're there? If so, did you need to take a number in order to do that? And if you just sprint up to Window 3 to let them know you're there without having a number that's been called, will the person holding the ticket with the next number to be served dress you down publicly for cutting in?
Well, I did dart up to one window to make sure they knew I was there, and I got out unscathed and unscolded.. Phase 2 completed, I now move to Phase 3: presenting myself at the county seat this summer to be finger-printed. Phase 4, the last, will be to collect my official permesso di soggiorno and register at the local police station as a resident of Fossacesia. I'll have to renew that permesso every year, but I'm not going to worry about that just yet.
{For anyone interested in elective residency in Italy, I’d recommend contacting smartmoveItaly.com or talking to a lawyer. If you want to message me separately, I’ll share contact info for mine, who is based in Florence.}
Hey, neighbors, I’m moving in for real!
Concurrent with my pursuit of legal residency are extensive renovations to the house. I figure if I’m going to spend more time over there, I should make myself at home -- make the house more conducive to my daily life and habits and also more comfortable for guests.
I already do feel much more at home than I once did, but it’s taken me years to feel this way.
I have ex-pat pals from the UK. My friend Jayna bought a home about an hour from me and already has a posse. (She's a connector.) And a few neighbors are becoming friends or at least friendly acquaintances. One sends me photos of the progress on my house. And I've even been made privy to some of the Peyton Place-style drama on the block.
It’s so nice to feel like I've landed and planted at last. These days, when I arrive in Pescara to pick up my rental car, I'm greeted by clerks who know me well enough now to comment on my haircut. When I called a shop owner in Puglia to see if she could ship something Rosie couldn’t get out of her head and launched into my story about how I’d been there a few weeks before and was calling from New York, the woman interrupted me with a "Kathryn?" Little things like that make me feel welcome and anchored in Italian soil.
I hope my renovations will ingratiate me to the townsfolk. I sometimes ponder how often my name (whatever they may call me) has come up as they tsk-tsk the state of my façade and wonder aloud if it will ever be improved.
Well, it has been. But first I had to reinforce the foundation, which I'd been meaning to do for years. Apparently, the roof and upper floor were too heavy a load, and the cracks in the walls upstairs started to become a kind of visual groan that grew louder with time.
Shoring up the foundation was no small feat. Iron bars had to be laid underground to reinforce the entire house from front to back and side to side, and getting them into the back was literally a heavy lift -- right over the roof.
We discovered that, in some areas, there was no foundation left at all. (Gulp.)
Some sort of metal mesh was installed to reinforce the vaults in the basement and attic. I don't pretend to understand the physics of how that works.
The foundation secured, we got around to fixing up the facade -- something for which I’m sure my neighbors are thanking their patron saints. It’s been a bit of an eyesore all these years. On the other hand, the folks in town might have had some choice names for me when the sand-blasting started and became so invasive that, apparently, there was a cloud over the whole piazza. The streetside scaffolding wasn't exactly a picturesque addition to the neighborhood, either.
This is the way the facade had looked in all its chipped-plaster, rusted-balcony, and broken-shuttered glory.
The below is how it looks now. We’ve excavated and, where we could, left the brick that lay underneath; updated all the windows, screens, and shutters; spruced up the wrought iron balconies; and even added two spotlights. I'm quite pleased, though I’ve decided the very pale yellow I’d selected for the bottom of the façade is too anaemic. I’ll have to revisit that next time. Meanwhile, work is starting on the back of the house. Scaffolding has just gone up.
Inside, we’ve expanded and renovated the kitchen, reclaiming a space that had been walled off back when I thought I'd run a ramp through to the backyard so I could park a car there. This is the "before," with the new layout scheme adjacent.
I love the way the kitchen-cum-hangout-area is turning out (below). And I'm doubly excited at last to have a spot for the La Murrina "Medusa" lighting fixture I've been lusting after for years. On the "meh" side, my property manager and his team, who on the whole are a godsend, discarded all of my housewares thanks to a huge misunderstanding. So Rosie and I had to go shopping just to get the tools to cook and serve dinner.
We’re converting a utility room to a full bathroom on the ground floor and will upgrade what had been a dark den to a brighter living room that can double as a bedroom. Prep is done and flooring, paint, and wallpaper will soon be underway.
A word about that ground-floor bedroom option: Although I’m not quite decrepit yet, I have reached the age at which a person starts planning for trouble (either my own or a guest’s) making the stairs. The genesis of the idea was my having dislocated my hip in a yoga class about six weeks before one of my last trips to the house. It was Rosie who had the genius idea of making the house more hobbler-friendly.
So that's where we stand. I can now accommodate seven guests (more if I get a couple of blow-up beds).
Should I decide to stay abroad for an extended period, I'll still have to figure out the travel papers for my cat, and that's a real concern. I don’t want to leave her with her sitter for months at a time, of course. On the other hand, doing what’s necessary to have her with me will mean putting her through a lot of stress. And she’s now of an age where…well, let’s just say she might prefer to sleep and bathe in the downstairs accommodations.
Not much R&R of the usual variety
While I was delighted with the progress on renovations and residency, the visit to the house did not involve much rest and relaxation. The afternoon after the dread post-office appointment, I felt a weight lifted and was ready for some leisurely shopping. But that was not to be.
Heading onto the autostrada, I inadvertently got into the Telepass lane. When I tried to back out of it (the toll gates closed fast), I managed not only to get my tire severely punctured, but also to rip a plastic panel off the side of the car. I still don’t know exactly how that happened. To make a long story short, the gate suddenly opened and I dashed through thinking I’d pull off on the shoulder. Unfortunately, there really was no shoulder because that portion of highway was under construction so I just got as far right as I could. It was less than ideal, because we were stuck on a curve and the vehicles whizzing by on the autostrada were whizzing by at Italian autostrada speed and rattling the very bones of our poor wounded car. I was rattled, too, and Rosie clearly was suffering in silence so as not to stress me out any more. She told me later that she was thinking this wasn’t the way she wanted to die. So that must’ve been fun for her.
Anyway, the whole affair was a fright and a time-soak. Not knowing whom to call, I turned to my property manager, who called the authorities attached to that strip of the A14. First, the highway caretakers arrived to delimit a distress area, then the police, and finally the tow truck.
Rosie was kind enough to photo-document the unfortunate affair. I have to admit that in trying to explain what happened to highway authorities and police and tow guy, I was pretty flustered and found much of my vocabulary out of reach and my grammar less than exquisite. I'm glad she didn't catch me on video.
Me talk stupid that day.
The next day, with a temporary tire beneath us and plastic panel riding in the back, we went to exchange our rental for a replacement. And that, my friends, is why I take every last line of insurance every time I rent a car abroad. If they had insurance for stupid decisions made while in the driver’s seat, I would take it. It’s also why I always have an international driving permit. You don’t need one to rent a car in Italy, but you will need it should you get stopped for any reason --including spot checks by the financial police, for which I’ve been pulled over twice.
We spent the next couple of days racing to find furniture and fixtures and housewares. The days were productive but exhausting. That, together with the stress of the residency appointment, the myriad decisions necessary for the reno, and the misadventure on the highway made me remark to Rosie that, while I generally enjoy being at the house, I'd be glad when we were on the train to Venice.
And at least we could do some laundry and have fresh clothes for our non-stop clippity-clop in that most beautiful of cities. Or so we thought. That's where the water torture began.On the eve of our departure, laundry in arms, we found the washer wasn’t hooked up due to the work being done in the utility room. We practically amputated a limb trying to reach into the crawl space and attach the hose ourselves. We never did succeed.
Meanwhile, I spotted a leak under the kitchen sink which had me worried, all the more because we were leaving and the next day was a Sunday. Ironically, early the next morning, the water suddenly shut off completely throughout the house. That was good news for the leak but bad news for Rosie's shampooed and unrinsed head. It turned out the problem was with the town; I wasn't around long enough to find out why.
When we got to the train station to turn in the car, we found that some really nice bowls I'd bought as part of a major haul at Ikea had rolled under the seat, so we hadn't noticed them when we were carting everything into the house. There was nothing to be done. We couldn't carry them and we couldn't even try to leave them at the Avis office till next time because the office was closed Sunday. I hope someone will make good use of them.
We got on the train to Venice and exhaled...
Till we learned there was a strike that might affect our connection in Bologna...
We stared at the screen anxiously as two out of three trains came up cancelled over the course of a half-hour...
And then, we saw our track assignment and ran.
Updates on off-season Venice to follow anon.
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