Via Saragozza, our street
So we’re one week down in our new home and going well. Greg and I are really enjoying exploring beautiful Bologna. Our little apartment here is brilliant. It was the home of our hosts’ son and his wife for many years so it’s really well set up and just perfect for us. We’re very comfortable and it’s proving to be a great place to begin our adventure.
We have a good little grocery store not far away, the ‘best gelato in Bologna’ a few steps from our front door, and a terrific deli around the corner. The people at the Deli Rosa – an older man and two women – wear white uniforms and, of course, everything is sliced to order. The ham and cheese is presented in twists of paper and paper bags of tomatoes, grapes and crusty fresh breadrolls are individually weighed for pricing. It’s a nice thing to buy just what we need fresh each day.
The weather this week has been warm and it’s ferie – holiday time – at the moment so many of the local trattorias and bars are closed. Having said that, there are still lots of options and Greg has found a little local bar where he gets his coffee and pastry in the mornings. Certainly the pace of life here is slow; everyone just takes it easy. We’re not sure if that will still be the case after the holidays finish at the end of August, but we suspect and hope so. In the meantime we already find ourselves kicking back to match the pace of the locals.
I’m thanking goodness – and Benedetta! – that I have some basic Italian. So far we haven’t encountered a single person who speaks English (or is willing to perhaps 🙂) so it’s been challenging but – mostly – fun managing things such as setting up local mobile phone plans and having the motherboard replaced on our new computer (yes, and thank you Dell for outstanding service). Greg is really getting into the swing of the language too; his vocabulary is expanding and his pronunciation improving daily…he certainly has a flair for the flamboyance la lingua italiana!
This week we achieved an important milestone; we were finally able to complete and submit all our documents at the Post Office and receive our temporary residency. The lovely lady there, Marie Rose, was so delighted with our plan to stay in Italy for a couple of years she introduced us to her colleagues (and a couple of friends who’d popped in). ‘They’ve come from Australia’, she said, ‘to spend two years getting to know our culture, our history, our food and our people.’ It was ‘complimenti’ all round. And now, whenever we go to the Poste, Marie Rose calls out a happy greeting and wants to hear what we’ve been up to.
The next step in the process for residency is our appointment at the police station, the Questura, scheduled for 13 September; that’s when we’ll present our documents for examination, have our fingerprints taken and, hopefully, be cleared to receive our official Permesso di Soggiorno.