Moving in

So this was it; I left Milan at eight in the morning (on a train that arrived and left surprisingly on time) after waking up at 6 in the morning to move into my apartment. The plan was to arrive by 10, haul my insanely heavy bags from the train station to my landlords office which, without baggage, was about a 20 minute walk from the train station…let’s just say that sometimes that the stubbornness and cheapness of a student doesn’t pay. My arms are still sore…two days later.

There I was, rent payment in hand, ready to sign the final contract and get my keys so I could drop off, what became at this time, my ridiculously heavy luggage and start to get settled in the city that I had only visited on frantic day trips filled with climbing bureaucratic ladders and visiting…interesting apartments.

“So you have the codice fiscale?” That being a nice long number used in Italian contracts which I believe serves no purpose but to confuse and piss off foreign students who have just arrived hauling 50 pounds of luggage and want desperately to be let into their apartment.

But this time I was prepared, as I had found the codice fiscale solely by chance on a University of Bologna website while I fiddling around with my email.

“Here it is!” (aka validate me because I followed through this time and actually have this ridiculous information).

Silence.

“That won’t do, we need the sheet of paper from the Ufficio d’entrata with the number written”.

Crushed again; Italian bureaucracy 5000, Matt 0.

All this to say that, I was still able to get my keys, sign the final contract for my apartment and move in without a problem, but I still needed to make a trip to this Ufficio d’entrata, which of course, is conveniently located 20 minutes outside the city by bus.

Life though, has a funny way of teaching you to be thankful for what you have. This was a little inconvenience.

Getting off the bus in the middle of nowhere, I noticed two older women who I had seen earlier on when I was pleading with the woman (total bitch) behind the counter of my landlords office to except the codice I had copied from the University of Bologna website. We had all been sent on the same ridiculous errand.

It turns out that these two women were immigrants from the Ukraine and Russia how had left their country in search of work. One spoke Italian perfectly and the other, none at all. We began to talk about the ridiculousness of Italian bureaucracy, the miracle of Italy functioning in the midst of seemingly absolute chaos and the differences and similarities of life for immigrants in Europe and North America.

One of the women worked in a retirement home in Bologna but was trained as a nuclear scientist in Russia. She speaks Russian, Ukrainian and picked up Italian very quickly because of the need for work. She loves to travel and wants badly to see Africa someday.

As you can imagine, I was amazed by her fortitude but also recognition of the need to adapt to whatever situation life hands to you. Talk about the power of the human spirit. She was always smiling even when talking about how much she had to work or how difficult it was being an immigrant in Italy.

We all made it to the office in time to get our codice fiscale, but unfortunately because of paper work problems (go figure) the two women had to leave and go to another office on the other side of the city before being issued the document. I got mine without much of a problem (maybe because I was one of the last people who would be served at the office before lunch hour started at 12:30 and ended… maybe).

Maybe I’m reading into all of this too much, or maybe I have to luxury to be a little more pensive and pay attention to such situations when they get thrown my way, but life is really funny; I’m happy I have a chance right now to really appreciate the little things.