So, I wake up the next morning - much earlier than originally intended because, rather than having to be at lab at 9 AM, I actually have to be over at the Questura, up the Gianicolo Hill.
My first stop after getting dressed is Cindy's room. Luckily, she's already up at 7:45. I knock on the door and explain, as best I can (since I don't really know what's going on), what the situation is. We talk about it for a little bit and think it best to call Paul, who teaches at the American University in Rome and has been living here for 20 years. Cindy would feel much better sending me with someone who actually knows Italian (and not just "baby Italian" as she calls her Italian).
So, of course, the call wakes Paul up and Cindy says something along these lines: "Hi Paul. It's Cindy. There's a bit of a situation here that we might need your help with. We had a visit from the carabinieri last night and she - Alicen - needs to be at the police station at 9 AM." Meanwhile, I'm in the background loudly saying "It's not as bad as it sounds!" I don't particularly want Paul thinking I was arrested the night before.
The end result of the phone call is that we should be just fine on our own, this type of thing happens, and someone at the Questura will know English. So Cindy and I finish getting ready (with me gathering various things that might prove I haven't been hiding out in Italy since the Centro program ended and/or things that prove I have an intention to leave the country soon). We meet in the lobby and head off to the Questura, which involves a short tram ride and a walk up a big hill.
I'll make this next part a bit shorter than it really was (2.5 hours approximately): We got there, got passed around to a few people - none of whom spoke English (thanks, Paul!) - then were finally taken up to the Immigration Office (the same one I and the rest of the Centristi went to when we got our permissos when we first got to Rome - five years ago!). The officer who brought us upstairs explains, I presume, what the situation is to the lady working immigration. She talks to a few other people who are also waiting (presumably to actually immigrate) and then tells me that "[I] must wait" as she walks out of the room with my Questura 'invitation' and my passport.
Yeah, because I'm going anywhere without that passport.
I comment to Cindy that the woman looks familiar, but there's no way it's the same woman who processed me when I was at the Centro. Once we were finally being helped by said woman, she pulled out my portfolio (how she found that thing is amazing when you consider the filing system seems to be large cabinets with shelves and portfolios simply stacked there). She looked at the copy of my photo with various stamps and a signature over it and says "That's my signature." Ah-ha! It was the same woman!
The entire situation really sucked overall, but that actually made it kind of nice. Crazy world.
Anyway, what ended up happening was that apparently some paperwork got misplaced or something but they had no record of me leaving Italy when my original permisso expired. Their way of solving this problem was simply to issue me a new permisso (even though I'm here for tourism this time and not study). So I had to go buy some passport sized photos - from a photo booth on the street - and fill out some paper work.
So rather than kicking me out of the country right away, they have given me until September 30th to leave. Awesome. That makes sense.
Oh well - everything should be fine. Though they did give me "papers" that I need to carry with me at all times - you know, just in case I get stopped again . . .
No comments:
Post a Comment