How to get a Permesso di Soggiorno in Trento
- Get told at 12pm that you need to pick up papers and go to the office in North Trento before it closes at 3pm.
- Panic.
- Grab said papers and figure out how to get there. Look up bus route. Decide to take bus.
- Get talked out of bus decision by two friends who say that it’s faster if we bike.
- Agree to take said bike even though you haven’t ridden one in 10 years. Convince yourself that it will be a piece of cake.
- Get on bike. Panic.
- Wobble a lot and get scared of cars.
- After 10 minutes, acknowledge this was a terrible idea and you’ll never bike again.
- Follow one friend the wrong way onto a big ass hill. Say “Are you serious, we have to go up that thing?” Get laughed at.
- Get off bike and walk it up hill.
- Start to go down one way street as mercedes benzes start flying up the other way. Run into a few buildings. Straighten up. Finish down the hill.
- You start to feel a little sunburnt. Take your hand off the handlebars to check. Almost fall. Grab onto handle bars like your life depends on it… because it does.
- After 35 minutes of hell in 95 degree heat, end up on street somewhere near the office. Check google maps for address. Have google maps tell you it doesn’t exist.
- Ask a stranger for directions in Italian. Feel proud of yourself for not screwing up that many words. Find out the street has 2 names. Wonder who the fuck named the streets in Italy.
- Arrive at office. Get into elevator that more closely resembles a death trap.
- End up at front desk at 1:45pm. Find no one there. Go ask someone if they can help you. They say no and that everyone else is at lunch. Wonder if they are going to come back before 3pm.
- Someone finally shows up in office. Get a piece of paper and told you need to wait for the person to get back from lunch. Wander over to the vending machine. Admire all the flavors of croissants it carries.
- Get called into get your papers. Have lady look at your papers once and then not talk to you again. Sign your life away. Get your papers and realize they put your first name as your last name. Have her draw a diagram and tell you in Italian “well we’ll see if they accept it or not…”
- Bang head against wall.
- Figure out you need to mail these things somewhere else. Get confused because you were told this was a final document. Curse all of bureaucracy.
- Wait for friends.
- Get back on bike and take different route.
- Route is completely flat and you get home in 15 minutes, quick enough to get a kebab and admire your sunburn. Figure you might give this bike thing a shot another time.
I promise to write things more relevant soon. I could have also title this “Why Melissa should not bike ever”
