Landed and connected
So this is the first post from Tuscany. The last month was hard work! Getting the Internet connection to work at all took time, although now that it is working it seems to be very good. Getting the computer here took even more time, largely because it was difficult to make contact here. My Vodafone from Australia has, for mysterious reasons, failed to “top up”, and the shipping agent had given the people here in Italy the number of our fixed line back in Sydney. So the Italian authorities (perhaps quite rightly) had reason to wonder whether we were real people, or just dummy identities being used to pick up contraband of some description. Anyway, it arrived in the end, and – apart from a little screwdriver operation inside to put the CPU fan back on – it seems to be OK.
If you thought the Germans were keen on bureaucracy, come to Italy. Just as an example, take the number of our house. It does not have one. The bank manager was shocked, and felt sure that the bank would not attempt to post a bank card without a house number. The post office, however, was adamant that the houses here have no numbers, so we gave it a name (“Casa Leslie”), and then he was happy. But we urgently need to buy a car. In Italy, you can’t buy a car without, amongst other things, a residence permit, though it might be possible to get away with a copy of the application for a residence permit. So at the council (“commune”) offices I presented the pile of papers that they requested to apply for a residence permit. So far, so good, but the registrar cannot accept the application without a proper address, and a proper address includes the number of the house. He tells us that in an office upstairs we can obtain it. With a couple of visits over two or three days to the office upstairs it is explained that there are no house numbers, but the planning officer will visit on Monday and invent some. He will then inform our surveyor, who will inform us, so that we can apply for the residence permit. We are still waiting. A copy of the application for the residence permit is also needed to clear the shipment through customs when it arrives, so hopefully something will be done before too long.
Update to this story: on Monday, we heard nothing. On Tuesday we tried to get hold of people but couldn’t. On Wednesday there was a public holiday. On Thursday our helpful estate agent, Lois, got on to the surveyor and the council to discover that nothing did happen on Monday, but the person concerned has now gone on holiday and will not be back till next Monday. I think that Lois spoke to them a little firmly, as we have now been told that someone will be out tomorrow to assign numbers. I have a suspicion (now why would that be?) that this will not happen early enough for the council worker to dream up numbers, for him to contact the surveyor, for the surveyor to contact us in time for us to get down to the council offices (again) and tell the man in the registry office downstairs what the man in the planning office upstairs gave us for a number, so that the man in the registry office downstairs will now accept our application for a residence permit, give us a receipt for our application, and allow us to buy a car and also make the applications we need to receive the goods and chattels that are coming by sea.
When I have a bit more time I will write more about what has happened so far – in particular, I want to comment on the risks of transporting a greyhound. But for now, here is a picture to “set the scene” – the red arrow points to the house, as you might guess.
