Dreaming In Italian

So you would like to come to Italy for a longer period than the 90 day visa free period. One word – fuggedaboutit! I have gone to Bologna seven times, for periods from 7 to 12 weeks and wanted to go for a longer period. So I figured 6 months would really feel like living there and would help me to decide if I might, in fact, want to live there for a year or two. I love the lifestyle, the city, the food and the language. I have a number of friends there, a gym that I go to when there, volunteer work that I do for the city, an Italian phone number – in short I feel quite at home there. After 6 months I might even start to talk with hand gestures more, like an actual Italian. Ah, but there’s a problem!

For a stay of over 90 days one requires a visa. There are a bunch of different categories of visas: employment, study, family reasons, etc. but only one for a stay just because you’d like to experience a longer taste of the Italian life: elective residence. That’s right RESIDENCE. So that means that the Italians (well, I should say the Italian government) in all of their wisdom, have decided that if you want to stay for 91 days or a lifetime you must meet the same standards which are, by the way, ill defined. So let’s go through the whole sad story of my adventure with Italian bureaucracy, considered by many one of the worst in the world.

A lot of the purpose of my trip last fall from October 7 (date of arrival) and November 23 (date of departure) was to lay the groundwork for a 6 month stay. I mention the exact dates because they will become important later on. I had been concerned about the Permesso di Soggiorno (Permit to Stay) since I’ve heard horror stories about it. Fortunately a good friend of a good friend heads the department in Bologna that issues these documents. So through the personal introductions I was able to skip the line and have a nice conversation with the head guy who assured me that there should be no problem, I just had to have a visa of elective residence.

Now the list of items required for this visa include a place to stay with a lease. So I contacted a bunch of real estate agents in Bologna and came up empty. Nobody, but nobody, offered an apartment with a 6 month lease. The standard lease in Italy is for 4 years with a right to renew for 4. There are certainly shorter term leases, typically for a year but I could find nothing shorter. I knew the owners of the apartment where Karen and I had stayed in the spring and they agreed to let me rent it for 6 months through AirBnB. So I wrote an email to the Italian consulate in San Francisco describing the dilemma and asking if they would accept AirBnB for that period. They wrote back that, yes, they would accept AirBnB if I paid the full 6 months in advance. GREAT! That should do it; so I paid the 6 months in advance.

Now the fun really begins. Karen and I gathered all of the documents required: 6 months of bank statements, letters from banks that we were actually customers, an FBI background check (easier than it sounds), two years of tax returns, a letter describing why we want to have this visa fill out a multiple page form and more. So we did all of that, confident that we met the requirements. So we filed the application on December 10. We were required to provide envelopes for returning our passports (which we presumed would have the visa affixed to a blank page). This had to have prepaid priority mail. So we paid for all of this plus the approximately $130 each processing fee. On December 31 we received the return envelopes with a letter that had been written on December 18 (so why the priority postage ?!) denying us the visa! The letter said that they did not accept a RESERVATION with AirBnB. Aha, clearly this was a simple clerical error since the AirBnB document was clearly marked RECEIPT rather than reservation. So we immediately emailed the consulate (their telephone must be very dusty since they NEVER respond to phone calls or return messages). The email noted that it was in fact a RECEIPT and copied the email exchange with the consulate. No answer. Then I told my sad story to an Italian-American who had some modest acquaintance with the consul general. He wrote an email to him in Italian with my email attached. So a couple of days later I had an email response to my email from the woman responsible for visas. She basically said that they had changed the rules and they didn’t accept AirBnB (she still used the term reservation rather than receipt). She also added the term “registered” to the “contract” (lease) as a requirement for housing. That was something that was not mentioned in their info about requirements. Then she ominously mentioned that this visa was only for those with “substantial” economic means. So what does that mean? Anything seems to be up for interpretation since I clearly have adequate economic resources to live for years in Italy if I chose to. Can you trust these people? What do you think?

So we decided to just go ahead and go on our originally planned date of February 2 since we had rented my house starting February 1. Thank god we found a renter that was OK with 3 or 4 months rather than the advertised 6. Ah, but then I happened to think “wait I was in Bologna this fall”. Remember those dates that I mentioned earlier in the post? The Schengen country rules that you can be in that zone 90 or a 180 day period. Uh-oh. I calculated that if we arrived in Italy on the 3^rd of February I would have to leave the Schengen zone on March 17 for about 3 weeks to avoid overstaying my tourist 90 day period. SHIT! So we changed the arrival date to February 23; that meets the requirements. So we will stay in Italy for 85 or 86 days, then go to England/Scotland for a few days, return to Bologna for 2 or 3 days and return to California on June 1.

Ah but there’s still more. Since the house is rented from February 1 we are effectively homeless for 3 weeks! So a little bit of luck. I found a house-sitting opportunity for 2 of those weeks. All we have to do is feed a couple of cats and we will have a house to ourselves while the owner is away. Then we managed to fill the remaining gap with 3 days with some friends (thanks Doak and Sue) and 2 days with Karen’s sister in the Sierra foothills and one night in a nice hotel.

So much trouble and anguish because of the damned consulate in San Francisco. Can we ever trust them? Can I ever fulfill my dream of a longer stay in Italy? Does anyone know how to put a curse on that place?

Ah, this is the last post on this trip since my flight back is tomorrow. I have a few random photos of Bologna that I think are interesting. But first a discourse on the art of a longer trip. Part of the reason for this relatively short trip (6 weeks) was to lay the groundwork for the longest trip yet – 6 months. This turns out to be more of a challenge than I had imagined. I should have done a bit more research before I came. I thought that the biggest issue would be getting the permisso di soggiorno (permission to stay) which both Karen and I will need to obtain here soon after we arrive. I did not realize that to remain for more than 90 days one also needs a visa. To obtain a visa you basically need to show that you will not be an economic burden on the state, that you are not a criminal, etc. Much of this is not a big issue. The parts that turned out to be most difficult were a residence for 6 months and getting a timely appointment at the consulate in the U.S. for the visa application. Leasing an apartment for 6 months in Bologna is virtually impossible. Fortunately the consulate will accept AirBnB if the entire 6 months is paid in advance (there is a receipt to record that). Fortunately we stayed in a place that we liked last May and became friends with the owner of the apartment so they were willing to rent it for that term at a reasonable price; so that’s done. The appointment with the consulate is really difficult. They are open for visa appointments only 2 hours a week. So you can imagine the difficulty. This has further complications. It’s inadvisable to buy plane tickets prior to at least the appointment. I am assuming (and praying) that at the appointment they can we can be close to 100% sure that we will receive the visa within 3 or 4 weeks and we can go ahead and buy the plane tickets before they become really expensive. After further research on the web I found that there are locations called “honorary consulates” or something quite similar. These are kind of like branches of the consulate in other smaller cities. So we were able to get an appointment for December 10 in San Jose (rather than December 23 in San Francisco). So hopefully I can buy airline tickets the next day.

The problem is this: to get the visa you have to have a committed place to stay. So you have to have a lease (or in our case a prepaid AirBnB) starting on a specific date. So you really want to have the flight arrive on that day. So all of this then depends on getting an appointment at the consulate and their ability to approve the visa in a timely manner, etc. So everything winds up depending on the consulate. Whew! So I think that all is working out.

While in Bologna, in addition to contacting at least a dozen realtors about short term apartments, and spending hours searching the web for same, I got an appointment at the Questura (the central office of the police department). One department of the Questura has the responsibility to issue the permesso di soggiorno. A friend here has a good friend who is the head of the department that issues these permits and I had a pleasant conversation with him and he said that when I return to come directly to him and essentially bypass the line. So I think that end of things is covered. Now I just need to keep my fingers crossed that all will go well, including renting my house for the same period in Oakland.

And now for thoseb photos.

Need a little parmigiano e prosciutto?

A word to the wise – don’t leave a nice bike in centro overnight!

Peanut butter has arrived in Bologna

Una  ciambella – doughnuts also have arrived in Bologna!

                  Very evocative walkway close to where I live.

                             Night lighting for Nettuno

                                  Shadow of Nettuno

That is Biblioteca Sala Borsa. This is the third or fourth time that I have done volunteer work at the library (biblioteca) in the center of Bologna. I did a post about this fantastic library  – you can read more about it by clicking here. My volunteering consists of using a skill that I obviously have and which is in great demand here in Bologna: English. The program at the library, run by my friend Liu’, consists of face to face conversations in a variety of languages. The English version is in such demand that those that want to have English conversation are limited to two visits a month. My duties are usually (and this trip is no exception) 2 afternoons a week for 2 hours each time. Each person is allotted 40 minutes. Not particularly hard duty. I also go 3 times a week for Italian conversation which is a great for improving my Italian. Most of the people who I meet for English are interesting people and some become friends. If we seem to hit it off I also try to establish times outside of my library duties for a “tandem”. That is, we speak some in Italian and some in English so everybody benefits. Some become long term friends.

                                       Andrea

One such friend this year is Andrea, who I’m looking forward to seeing when I return in February. We really hit it off and since he is currently (unfortunately) unemployed we spent quite a bit of time together. He showed me some cool places like the Jukebox Cafe not far from the very center. Follow this link for more info. It’s in Italian but the home page gives a slide show. The menu includes stuff like pancakes and french toast for breakfast and hamburgers for lunch. And yes, there is a Jukebox full of rock and roll and it’s all free.

                                     The Jukebox at Jukebox Cafe

                                           Elena

I also had tandems with Elena. A 20 something who has graduated from university and now doing her masters in some form of business. She wants to do a lot of travel when that phase is completed before settling down to a career. I think that her plan is to spend a semester in Chile or Argentina soon.

                                                 Rafaele

I have done some tandems with Rafaele who is originally from Calabria. He was initially also unemployed but now has found something at least temporarily. I wish him and Andrea luck. The economic situation in Italy has not recovered as it has in the U.S.

In all, this work is both satisfying and a good way to meet people. And, I even have a library card. I don’t plan to borrow any books or movies, at least not on this trip but they limit bathroom visits to those with a card (una tessera in this context in Italian). When I come back in February I plan to take out some movies. There are lots of them available.

                  My library card – good at all of the Bologna libraries

As I have said before, there’s always something happening in Piazza Maggiore. This time CioccoShow has taken over. Not only in Piazza Maggiore, but also in the adjoining Piazza Nettuno. In the recently reopened main street of via Rizzoli and the still closed central street of Hugo Bassi there are additional little tents full of chocolate vendors. I found a nice video of the show but cannot embed it. However if you click on Bologna Cioccoshow 2015 and scroll down a bit you can see the video for an interesting tour through tons of chocolate.

Of course I did some sampling. In addition to a few free tastes I couldn’t resist the temptation of a couple of chocolate truffles and some slabs of chocolate with cranberries and in another case peperoncini (hot peppers) and it was definitely spicy. And of course I took some pictures but I hope that you’ll try the video.

              Tons of chocolate truffles

Slabs of chocolate with a variety of candied fruit and nuts

                        Chocolates in shape of tools

                         More novelty chocolate – iphones

Chocolate shoes – mostly women’s but some men’s too

As I mentioned above they had reopened the main streets but then they put these vendor kiosks there and I guess one poor bus driver did not get the message with a humorous result. It’s pretty hard for a bus to back up for a long distance so it created quite a mess in that area.

                                               Autobus oops

http://www.bolognatoday.it/cronaca/bus-via-indipendenza-cioccoshow-stand.html