In terms of functioning, you know, as a society, they still have some work to do, which is odd, because they have more practice than almost anyone except the Greeks, Egyptians, and the Mesopotamians. Come to think of it, none of those places are doing so well at the country level either, so maybe practice doesn't make perfect in this case. By the way, since my topic for most of this post is not so photogenic, I'll be interspersing some photos of our lovely weekend in Signa and Prato with Jeremy's new internet-based friends. Consider them your calm blue ocean within a sea of bureaucracy.
(The view from Artimino)
I am here in Italy legally. My status is the result of an enormous amount of time and effort by a surprisingly large number of people who are highly paid by the hour. The process started back in the summer with me having to get my official BA transcript and my CV translated into Italian. I had to take a last minute trip to San Francisco to visit the shockingly rude consulate office that handles visas. They were open 1-3, Mondays and Thursdays. Fortunately there were two people who work there: the largely silent man who handled the work visas, and the shouty woman who shouted at the students. Mainly things like "I already told you to sign on page four. Go to the back of the line" and "until you put your documents in order, go to the back of the line" and "Why do you have so many photocopies of things. Do you have a photocopy of this other thing? Then I can't help you. Please leave" and, many many times "How many time do the words have to come out of my mouth?" Believe me, I understand how annoying american students can be, but in my experience, yelling at them rarely makes them less annoying. But, at the end of all this, much to everyone's surprise, I received my passport with visa before I had to board a plane. Huzzah!
(A Medici Villa, known for its chimneys. Chimneys, it turns out, is a very difficult word to get to when no one knows the translation. The breakthrough came when Matteo pantomimed Dick Van Dyck's dance number in Mary Poppins.)
But, that was not the end of the story. Once here, I had to present myself to the prefattura's office. I have no idea what a prefattura is, but it seems to be surprisingly similar to a refugee camp. It was housed in a large, modern, concrete building with no obvious front door. Instead, one had to sidle around a wall and slip in what seemed to be a side door. Once inside, one is confronted by a large line of people trying to get past the security gate. I should mention that most of those people are clearly and recently African. They don't seem to be having much luck. I should also mention that Gonzaga paid for a lawyer, a full lawyer with full lawyer-like billable hours, to escort me through this process, so we bypassed the line and walked around the security gate, up some stairs, through another holding pen waiting area filled with Africans, most of whose eyes had that hopeless, thousand mile stare of someone who had been waiting in the same place for the same thing for many, many days. My fancy, Italian-speaking lawyer, however, whisked me past these people and directly into an office, and then embarked on an hour long negotiation with a nice seeming woman that involved a lot of passing back and forth of photocopied things, much me signing things in Italian, a good deal of negotiation, and the occasional compliment about my shoes.
(Jeremy, Matteo, and Matteo's girlfriend. Whose name begins with a G. We are bad, bad people.)
After an hour, I was sent away without the form I needed. Why? Because the silent man in the San Francisco consulate had forgotten to click a button. He issued a visa to me, but he did not then tell the computer system that he had done so. Of course, it was 2:00 am in San Francisco at the time, so, what could one do? I had to return, with my very expensive baby sitter, the next day, received my form after only twenty minutes of negotiation and document shuffling and then . . . was sent off to wait two hours to present myself at the post office, with more forms and with the lawyer's presumably lower-priced associate.So, now I'm legal. That is, until the end of February, when I must present myself at the Police station to be finger and/or hand printed. The lawyer's associate assured me that on that day, I will need to have patience.
And now, both Jeremy and I are sick. After watching Contagion on the airplane ride over, we both immediately thought that perhaps I had picked up some exotic, African bug from the huddling masses at the prefattura's office, but after listening to the amount of sniveling, sneezing, coughing, hacking and groaning in the halls of school today, I'm pretty sure the source of my illness is far more mundane. Indeed, it seems to be unfolding exactly like a run of the mill, American-style cold. My throat hurt so badly last night that I plunged into a tiny "Erborista Farmicia," hoping to find some throat soothing tea. The wonderfully tiny, ancient woman working there (who spoke no English, by the way), discussed my symptoms with me, and then puttered into the back room where she made up a concoction -- there were bags, glass bottles, an old-fashioned balance scale involved -- of 1 part echinacea, 1 part eucalyptus, 1 part pine, and 1 part something in Italian that isn't in my dictionary. I am to infuse it in water for 15 minutes, and then gargle and drink it, twice a day. It tastes like an unfinished furniture store, and I'm not sure it is any way more helpful than chamomile, but I am following instructions (Jeremy is keeping a close eye on my head, to make sure it doesn't turn purple, a la George Costanza after his trip to the naturopath).
Don't worry -- I also have ibuprofen, Sudaphed, all sorts of good, modern chemicals. I'll be fine tomorrow.
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