This post is a little late, but, well, things have a way of distracting me.
On Saturday, we continued our exploration of Abruzzo by joining another of Anna Swan’s tours. We met in a little town in the foothills of the Maiella mountain range. It has always been known as a center of artists and craftsmen. Beautiful pottery, great bakeries, and inventive tool makers. A now-retired blacksmith demonstrated his craft/skill (see the photos), we tasted amazing cakes, had a delicious peasant's lunch and cooking demonstration, and learned a bit of Italian history and culture in the museum. It was amazing.
To see photos, click here
On Monday our neighbor Giuseppe meet Maria and us in Casalanguida (CG). Giuseppe recently retired as a City official (something like City Manager). He took us in to the Comune offices and introduced us to the woman who processes requests for residency. She only comes to the CG on Mondays and Thursdays. I handed her a copy of the judgment of my citizenship, Giuseppe explained to her what we needed, and she and her assistant went to work. Maria translated for us. No waiting for the Questura to complete our applications for Permesso di Sogiorno. Since I’m an Italian citizen now, I can skip that. Mike gets residency simply because he’s married to me. He still needs a permesso, but no worries now. We left about an hour later, relieved to have this done!
The next thing we wanted to do was open an Italian bank account. Now that we have residency, we can do that. Actually, we could have done that before, but the prices are much higher for non-residents. So Mike and I took off for Vasto on a mission. Which failed. Miserably.
The clerk at first bank we went to looked at us like we were trying to rob him. He was amazed that we wanted to open an account. I showed him my documents, but he refused to acknowledge them. He needed the little plastic identity cards that say we are residents. So we went to another bank. Same thing. Grrr. Hopefully we will get our cards next week and can open a bank account.
The main reason we needed the bank account was to be able to send a final payment to my citizenship lawyer in Bologna. For some reason, Wise refused to transfer the money to any of his accounts. So he asked that I use PayPal. Well, PayPal has an enormous fee schedule that would have cost me almost $300. So we decided to make lemonade out of lemons and go to Bologna to hand deliver the payment and have a short holiday. Haven't you always wanted to go to Bologna? Robert and Maria drove us to the train station. Next blog is about our time in Bologna.
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