01 Monday Jun 2009
Posted in Italian bureaucracy, Italian habits and customs, Italy, Uncategorized
The Captain found Il Postino and showed him where our mailbox is. He turned out to be a very sweet man who said, “I’m so sorry, I don’t know this zone, I didn’t know where your box was.” Sigh. The next day the missing mail appeared in our seemingly invisible mailbox, and all is well. For a time.
We’re getting a new mail man in two weeks.
30 Saturday May 2009
Posted in Italian bureaucracy, Italian habits and customs, Italy, Uncategorized
Our postman was kind of grumpy and never returned our greetings.
BOO!
We have a new postman!
YAY!
He won’t bring us any mail.
BOO!
It does seem that Italy is conspiring to give us every frustrating experience we’ve ever read or heard about. Crummy mail service? Oh come on, that news is so old it’s no longer true. Italian mail service has improved considerably, even in the few years we’ve been here.
Except for packages. If someone sends you a package from outside the EU, heaven forbid, you are likely to be asked to pay twice the contents’ value in duty.
And except for when a new postman takes over the route.
We haven’t received a piece of mail in almost three weeks. The Captain went to the Post Office and was told they couldn’t help him. But the nice woman there gave him the phone number of the Capo della Squadra Rapallo. He told Louis that probably there just hadn’t been any mail for us, because “I’ve checked your bin and there’s nothing there for you.”
Rosa across the street sings a different song. “The postman doesn’t know where your box is,” she explained. Gee, the kids that put firecrackers in it last week didn’t have any trouble finding it – maybe he could ask them. Or maybe he could ask Rosa; or his boss at the Post Office; or, a novel idea, the man who delivered the mail until three weeks ago. If he was a particularly enterprising person he could get off his scooter and look down the stairs that lead to our house. There he would see it, proudly green and red, and mounted as close to the road as possible – our mailbox! (Because we live below the road there is no street-level place to hang a mailbox.)
I hear you saying, “Well, maybe you really don’t have any mail. You don’t get very much, do you?”
You’re right, we get precious little – the odd billet doux from the IRS, perhaps a stray check or bill, and the envelope with a pair of CD’s in it that friends sent a while ago from the States which we’ve not yet seen. It’s not much, but we’d rather like the chance to look at it ourselves.
The Captain is irritated. He is about one day away from disgruntlement. He is going to lie in wait for the post man and lead him by the nose to our box.
Meanwhile, we kind of wonder what may have happened to our mail…
21 Thursday May 2009
Posted in Customs, Italian bureaucracy, Italian habits and customs, Italy, Uncategorized
Tags
buying matches in Italy, matches, monopolies in Italy, monopoly on matches in Italy, salt monopoly in Italy
“Don’t forget to pick up some matches,” I reminded the Captain when he was headed out to market for dinner the other day.
“It’s on the list,” he answered. But this was no guarantee that the matches would come home with the groceries, because it takes a special stop at a special shop to get matches; you cannot buy them in a grocery store or supermarket. Or at a gas station or a restaurant. In fact, the only place you can buy matches (fiammiferi – fee-ah-me’-fair-ee) is at the shop of the tabachaio (tah-bah-kaay’-oh), the tobacconist.
The tabacchaio sells more than just tobacco and matches. As you can see from the sign above he also sells Lotto tickets, salt (sale) and Valori Bollati (literally stamps with value). Salt? You can buy salt in the grocery store now; I’ve never actually tried to buy any from a tabacchaio, it might be fun to try.
But WHY?? Why can we buy matches only at the Tabacchi? Ha. It’s because the State still has a monopoly on the sale of matches (as well as tobacco). Look under the Right cross piece of the T in the photo – it says Riv No. 14. That stands for Rivendita – a resale point – and this is tobacco shop #14 in Rapallo. Our friend Sandro told us that the number of such shops is limited in each town; which is to say that if you or I wanted to open up a new cigarette store we’d be out of luck. One must take special exams to sell tobacco, matches, etc., and it is difficult and complicated. No surprise there.
Sandro said, furthermore, that once you have your tobacco store you serve at the pleasure of the State; you must be open at certain times, according to a state-determined schedule. As in any monopoly, prices are set by the monopoly-holder. The box of matches that eventually found its way to our kitchen carried a tax stamp,
like the ones that come on liquor bottles in the U.S. No doubt the State gets a nice profit from the whole enterprise; they get to set the price and to tack on a tax. One kitchen-sized box of matches cost E1.
Valori Bollati are tax stamps. A document frequently needs a tax stamp before it can be presented. For instance, when we applied for our permessi di soggiorno we had to attach a tax stamp for E 14.62 (I know, but that’s what it was!) to each application. Most applications carry a tax charge, and you get the stamp, the bollato, from the tabacchaio. This is the same thing as the ‘application fees’ that US residents know so well. The only difference is that there’s an added layer of inconvenience: you have to go to the Tabacchi to get the stamp, instead of just paying at the office where you’re filing your paper.
And the salt? Turns out the State used to have a monopoly on salt, but gave it up in 1976, at the behest of the European Economic Commission. Why the signs have not been changed in the intervening 30+ years is a mystery. (Lotto has been around in Italy at least since the 1880’s, as this New York Times article explains).
It’s seems odd to an American, this business of a monopoly. We have laws forbidding such things in the States, but here in Italy it is part of the government’s business. The only monopoly I can think of in the US is the postal service, and even that has competition from FedEx and UPS. Other than taxes I can’t think of another government monopoly – can you?
You won’t find The Little Match Girl in Italy. In fact, unless you go to the Tabacchi, you won’t find any matches at all.
25 Saturday Apr 2009
Posted in Italian bureaucracy, Italy, Law and order, Uncategorized
This is a two-part post. The first was written before April 21st, the second part afterwards…
Some stories just grind on, and on, and on… the end just may be in sight, though, for the Tale of the Elusive Permessi.
Our former Permessi di Soggiorno, the very important documents that give us permission to be in the country, expired last July. With the invaluable help of the Patronato office in Rapallo we each applied (in May!) for a Carta di Soggiorno, which will give us a permission of longer duration. (The accounts of this adventure up to now can be found here.) Unfortunately the process was not completed before we left the country in November.
The Captain was able to navigate the Questura’s website when we got back, and found, to our delight, that our Permessi are now ready for us. Yippee!! But of course one cannot simply show up at the Questura and ask for them; one must make an appointment. And there’s only one way to do that. One must go to the Questura. In Genova. On a Tuesday or Thursday between 3:30 and 5:30 p.m. Well, okay… seems a little Baroque, but we’re game.
So we hopped on the local train (I love any train ride, so I was thrilled), rode 40 minutes to Genova, trotted t
o the gate at the Questura, thrust our passports under the glass and were issued with two little slips of paper with the day (April 21), the time (10:00 a.m.) and the numbers of our appointments. Then we jogged back to the train station and just caught a train which, 40 minutes later, dropped us in Rapallo.
Next Tuesday, April 21, we will repeat the exercise, although we know full well that we will sit in the waiting room for an indeterminate amount of time until our names are called. At least this time we have been given appointments on the same day. We had to go on successive days last time. With luck we will be given shiny new Carte di Soggiorno that will last us five years. By which time we will have forgotten what a long process this has been.
I’m not really complaining about Italian bureaucracy (yes I am); it’s their country, and they are very nice to allow us to be here at all, and we are happy (well, willing anyway – what choice do we have?) to comply with any and all requirements to stay here. But doesn’t it seem odd that one cannot make an appointment by phone, fax or e-mail? They’ve seen the passports before and taken fingerprints and, and, and… In fact, why not just mail us the Permessi? Oh gosh, there I go again, being all American and efficient. Where’s the fun in that?
———– TIME PASSES————-
Okay… it’s disclaimer time…
We went to the Questura at the appointed time, and after only a little confusion were sent down to the Immigration waiting room. Here is the rest of the 10 o’clock gang:
It’s a stuffy room at the best of times, so we prefer to wait outside where we can also keep an eye on the room to which we will eventually be summoned. That’s it on the right behind all the glass:
Now here’s the amazing thing. Our appointments were for 10 a.m., and we were actually called in at 10:30. We have never, ever, had such a short wait at the Questura. Not only that, once one is called in there is frequently another long wait inside. Not this time. There were two people in front of us, each of whom took less than five minutes. The Captain walked up to the glass partition when his number was called, pushed his passport and old permesso through, and back came a paper for a signature, followed rapidly by an envelope containing his permesso card and a bunch of secret codes for things we don’t understand (yet). Then it was my turn, and everything was just as expeditious.
We walked out of the Questura at 10:45, both proud holders of Permessi di Soggiorno that are good until 2013 – that’s four years! It makes us feel almost indolent to have that much time before we must repeat the process. Now the trick will be to remember to apply for the new permessi in late 2012…
An Ex-Expatriate 