Bella Firenze

It always feels SO good to be back in Florence. It's like a second home. I absolutely love this city.

It has been quite a day! We got up (what I consider to be) very early to head down to the government office building to turn in more paperwork and get finger printed for our Permessi di Soggiorno. (Permission to stay) Upon entering the building, we were each given a number and herded like cattle with hundreds of other immigrants into a large cold room. A very loud, scary looking man called out groups of numbers, about 20 at a time. When our group was called about 30 minutes after arrival, Chad and I got so excited thinking that all the horror stories we had heard about "wait times" from previous victims had merely been urban legends. Alas, as we were standing in our new line, we quickly realized we were there only to receive...another number. I'm sure these amazingly wonderful Italian people have perfectly logical and reasonable explanations for the "systems" that they have. Someday, I would love to find out what those explanations are. By this point, we had our new numbers and were ushered back into the same room we had just exited. My number was B166. I looked up at the board. A32, F868, D120, C521. Hmm...where are the B's? Nowhere to be seen for quite some time. Then, there is was: B114. Five hours later (not joking) B165 popped up on the board, and I was ecstatic! Finally! I jumped up from my seat to prepare for my turn. B166-window 6. I ran. Someone else was already standing in window 6. "No," I thought, "No." I waited patiently. Eventually, I was waived to another line. I took care of business in window 5, and was given a sheet of paper, explaining that we are due back in Florence in June to go through this whole process again. At least this time we will actually RECEIVE our permessos that make us legal for this year! Then, we have to renew them in September for next year...and you guessed it...do this ALL over again :)