Cinformi -- 1st Visit

All non-EU citizens intending to stay in Italy for longer than a week must let the local government know within 8 business days. For Miss G and I, this meant filing a Dichiarazione di Presenza (declaration of presence) at Cinformi. Cinformi is the province of Trento’s immigration services office. They are located at Via Zambia 11. Like many things in Trento, Cinformi took some finding. The best landmarks for the obscure office are that the building is directly behind Via Brennero’s “Top Center” mall and door 11 is in the center of the building, adjacent to a “Loro” baby store.

Cinformi is on the third floor, and some frustrated immigrant has helpfully scratched the word “Cinformi” on the elevator controls next to the #3 button. When you enter the office, take a number. We arrived about 30 minutes after opening and didn’t have to wait to speak to the front desk people. At the front desk, state your reason for being at Cinformi, or better yet have it written--only Italian and German spoken here. Based on your reason for being there, reception will hand you any necessary forms to fill out and another number. These numbers are more specific because they’re linked to what kind of services you need that day. I was waiting to present myself so my number said “Presentazione 119.” Other numbers might be for visas, and I saw one category simply called “Informazione.” A monitor above the front desk lists seven or eight categories and numbers currently being served.

Soon after I started filling out my form (which thankfully had instructions in Italian, Spanish, English, French and German), I noticed that “Presentazione 120” was being served. At the California DMV--the office upon which I base all bureaucratic comparisons--missing your number being called means you’re pretty well screwed because you’ll have to get a new number and wait your turn again. I hurried to the front desk, pointed to my number, then the monitor, and managed to say something like “but e cento-venti,” which is atrocious non-Italian, but the lady understood. She asked if I had filled out “tutti le forme” and I shook my head. I only had my name and birthday down. She then said something in Italian that sounded reassuring, so I sat down and continued with the forms.

As I filled in the forms, the receptionist took both passports from me and came back a few minutes later with photocopies of all pages. As soon as I was done, I looked up and the receptionist was smiling and pointing to the monitor... my number!! She showed me a spot where I could park Greta’s stroller, and Miss G and I proceeded to the numbered desk that coincided with the monitor. Here, I handed over the passports, photocopies and forms to another Cinformi employee. She compared the info on the forms to the passports themselves, then signed and stamped the forms and gave them back to me. She wrote a date at the bottom of the forms and made it clear that we have until 30.03.10 to leave the country or apply for a more permanent visa.

Everyone around here rolls their eyes and complains about Italian bureaucracy, but this part was easy. The entire Declaration of Presence event took thirty or forty minutes. It might have taken only twenty-five, but Italians love babies and the receptionist, the woman who notarized our forms, and another man in the office who answered some questions for me in English -- all three Cinformi workers stopped at some point to smile and chat with G and say how beautiful and happy she is. In fact, the woman who received our Declarations came from behind her desk, picked G up and had a long chat with her, in Italian, about who knows what. You don’t see that at the DMV.

Perhaps having a cute baby makes Italians happy and friendly and a bit more helpful than they might otherwise be, but it was also important that we were there early. The office opens at 9:00, and when I arrived at 9:30 there was one man ahead of me at the front desk and one or two people waiting for their official numbers to be called. When I left, more than a dozen people sat in the waiting room chairs, looking a bit uncomfortable and resigned (the DMV effect). The office gave me the impression that waits are more the norm. For instance, there are a lot of chairs. Also, for parents, Cinformi anticipates that you may have to sit and wait with children: there’s a small play area in the corner with a toddler-sized plastic play house, and there’s a changing table with diaper pail in the women’s restroom. It’s great that they have these, but it’s also an indication you’ll need them.

I have other suspicions about why this first contact was so painless. Whereas visas are involved and iffy and require a lot of complicated documentation, the Dichiarazione di Presenza is no big deal. Italy wants you to come and stay and declare yourselves--and then to leave in 90 days or less. But G and I have no intention of leaving by 30.03.10, so we’ll see how the rest of the process goes.

Deep breaths

Last week, our house sold. No joke, we’re moving to Italy after the holidays and arrive in Trento December 31st. My first thought upon signing the papers to put escrow in motion was that I wouldn’t be cleaning my house again. Awesome. No more open house days. No ready at a moment’s notice for potential buyers to drop in and inspect. No more toilets. But then I looked at the toilet this morning and thought, ugh, must clean. So while we no longer fold the couch blankets neatly over the arm rest before heading out the door in the morning, and I conspicuously left the toaster on the counter after breakfast, I vacuumed the carpet of bread crumbs last night and I’ll sweep the floor before Greta wakes from her nap. There’s nothing like a crawler in the house to put your plans of slovenly bliss to rest.

Admittedly, not having to clean was not my absolute first thought upon the sale of 2312 5th Street. My first thought was oh crap I hope we really want to do this because it is happening and I had made plans for next semester and I was going to start writing again and now I need to learn Italian and I should probably get my degrees and transcripts notarized and translated in case that’s required for finding a job and how much will that cost and do we have enough passport photos to give to the questura when we arrive?

The Stand-Upright Waiver

J sent the following update email to our family and friends this morning. Today had been our scheduled flight to Europe:

Yes, the Ridgeway family is still here. We hit an interesting catch-22 with the Italian government that must play out before we can move (oh, and the house hasn't sold). First, let me say that our new plans are to move to Italy after Christmas. The University has granted me a one-time extension until January 1.

We were recently notified by the Italian government that our visa applications could not be processed because "the youngest in your party is not yet crawling. Please resubmit at the time s/he is able to stand upright." We took this news badly. Already, the immigration laws are such that moving to Italy from outside the European Union is very difficult. We face income and living requirements that must be validated and certified by the local police and health and human services within a tight time window. Now, they are requiring us to be able to stand upright!?

Of course, with every bureaucratic rule there seems to be an exception, assuming you file the right forms. We found ours through Italy's disabled persons act, "no one may be discriminated against due to a physical disablement whether permanent or temporary." Clearly, they are discriminating against G's temporary unable-to-walk-ed-ness, and that, we claim, is illegal. Working through our local Honorary Vice-Consulate, we were able to secure the proper forms for a Stand-Upright Waiver. We had the forms translated into English, notarized, and affixed with an apostille stamp from California Secretary of State. This stamp certifies that the document is true and legal as recognized by countries who signed, or by countries who recognize, the 1961 Hague Convention Abolishing the Requirement of Legalisation for Foreign Public Documents. We filled-in our English translation stating:

"Due to our daughter's young age, she is temporarily unable to crawl, stand-upright, or walk. We expect, in due course, and through physical rehabilitation under the supervision of a pediatrician, she will soon be an upright member of society."

We then translated the forms back to Italian, had them notarized and, again, affixed with an apostille stamp. Our local Honorary Vice-Consulate accepted the forms and sent them on to the Italian government. Unfortunately, the government replied with (English translation):

"We validate the temporary disablement of your daughter/son, but, unfortunately, we cannot issue a waiver at this time because your daughter/son is too young to apply without sufficient evidence of her/his character. Please resubmit this form with her/his transcripts from her/his local legal daycare."

After further clarification, we found that a "legal daycare" is one that has the necessary local, county, and state licenses to operate as a daycare. This is not necessary for a private daycare with one child, that's babysitting. So, in addition to taking G to Folsom Mondays and Fridays for her regular daycare, we have enrolled Greta in a regular daycare on Wednesdays. Two months of daily logs, translated into Italian, notarized, and affixed with an apostille stamp by the California Secretary of State, is sufficient to fulfill the request for "evidence of her character."

Now, the point is moot because G is standing! She started crawling on two weeks ago and now she's using anything she can get her hands on to pull herself upright. It's pretty darn cool, albeit a little nerve racking since she always looks like she's going to fall. I've attached photos of her crawling and standing.

Of course, since we've already started down this path with Italy, we now must wait until after the Holidays to move with or without the temporary Stand-Upright waiver. Oh, and if we sell the house by December 1.

Here we (don't) go...

I’m listening to Jeremy argue with Orbitz about getting our flights to Italy changed. The “customer service” rep he’s speaking with says that the fine print does not allow the change we are requesting. Jeremy read him the part of that fine print that says “changes are allowed within country of origin up until departure date.” Now he’s on hold again. Now they accidentally hung up on him.

We are not moving to Italy next week. Despite dropping the asking price on our house by $25K, we have had no offers to buy. We’ve spoken with realtors, accountants, property managers and it all comes down to this: if we sell the house by December 1st, we can move to Italy on January 1st. If not, we cannot go at all.

Documents I.

At some point during our stay in Italy, we are likely to need to our birth certificates and marriage license. In fact, as soon as we arrive in Trento, an authorized copy of our marriage license is required to apply for the family stay or family cohesion visa. That is, J will be allowed to live in Italy and travel in the Schengen states on a student visa, while G and I will be allowed to stay with him as family members. J read somewhere that the signatures on authorized documents should be no more than five years old. Apparently the more recent the date, the less hesitant the Italian authorities will be to accept a document's validity.

We were married six years ago, and the only birth certificate copy I have is dated 1983. It's small and gray and has a slight signature in purple ink that looks like a kindergarten teacher made the authorization. Therefore, last week we drove to the Bay Area to get more recent and official-looking copies.

As long-time residents of California, we have learned to expect lines, bureaucracy, vacant information desks, and getting snapped at several times in the course of any official business with the state. We've also learned that arriving as close to opening as possible at the Department of Motor Vehicles, for instance, will lead to more friendly service and fewer waits, presumably because everyone has just had coffee or is too drowsy to snap. On Thursday, we were already running a few minutes late, so J dropped Miss G and I off at the Santa Clara County Clerk Recorder's Office (SCCCRO?) to wait in line while he searched for parking. Ten minutes later, I met him at the building entrance, birth certificates and marriage license in hand.

We had a morning's worth of bottles and extra clothes with us for G, and J had even brought Harry Potter 7 along to pass the time. Instead, it took longer to find the automatic pay machine in the parking garage than it had taken for me to speak to information, stand in line, write a check and wait for my documents to be processed. Three cheers to the SCCCRO.

With a free morning in front of us, we were able to meet my mother in Los Gatos for coffee and almond croissants before J went off to work. It was G's seven month birthday.

Lists I

Moving forward involves lists. For a long time, we avoided the "moving to Italy" lists because it felt so daunting. If we wrote down everything we needed to do to make this happen by November, we might realize that it can't be done.

Finally, last week, I wrote the following list:

To Research

• car export & insurance
• shipping costs (mail vs other)
• language classes
• online teaching/editing opportunities
• health insurance options
• vaccinations
• infant formula
• arrival to-do list

To Do

• international driving permit
• translations (transcripts, degrees, marriage license, birth certs)
• call honorary consulate (re: translations, visas, codice fiscale)
• email contacts re: job options/suggestions
• process visa

Obviously not a complete list. On accomplishments-in-progress, though, we met with our realtor and spent the weekend rearranging furniture and purging. Lots went to Goodwill. A few items got sold on Craigslist. We need to have the house on the market by next weekend.

If the house doesn't sell, we can't go.

Flight

J just returned from two weeks in Trento, where he met the group he'll be working with for the next three to four years. He feels good about the people, the place, the project. Finally, now, I find I'm able to be excited. I just hung up with a friend in Virginia, who told me I sound more relaxed and happy than I have in a long time. And it's true: this feels good. Late October, the three of us will fly San Francisco to Dublin to Munich, where we will board a train to Trento.

Since my brain is set, it seems, to dwell on the small picture, as I fell into sleep last night I realized October means Halloween. G will spend her first Halloween in Italy. I don't think they have Halloween there. Not American Halloween with babies dressed like strawberries. Maybe I'll dress her like a strawberry anyway, and we can trick or treat door to door in our apartment, like when I was six and had a fever, and my sisters stood behind their bedroom doors and gave me candy when I knocked.