Quest for Permesso di Soggiorno
By law, after you arrived Italy you must apply for Permesso di Soggiorno (Resident Permit) within 8 days. The course secretariat will arrange photographer to take your photo and print it so you do not really need to bring passport size photo from home but their photographic skill is totally suck. Fortunately the permit will only valid until the course end (5 months) so I decided to give it a go. The application form is prepared by ITCILO, it is a huge thanks because I really don’t want to fill any Italian form by myself and avoid the hassle at the post office. The fee is included in tuition fee, just wow.
We were moving on the bus to Questura or police station in town. To me this place is sad, tired looking and there were so many immigrants waiting to have their papers processed. It was a chaos. Fortunately, ITCILO staffs know what to do. I think she pre-arrange the immigration staff to process our paper. After about an hour I was called to have all my fingerprint scanned including palm! The policewoman who did the job for me was quite rude and look like she hates her job or just sick of the foreigner like me. Once completed she said bye bye bye bye bye and wave hand to chase me out of the room. I got a thin paper slip that acknowledge my residence permit application. This slip enable you to travel within Schengen too, but I really want to refrain without the real plastic card though.
After 2 moths I checked the status online and it was ready, I notified ITCILO staff and about 2-3 weeks later we got the shuttle bus to Questura. At the counter, there was no one, the frustrated staff ask us to wait and try to negotiate the staff who look idle behind the desk. After a while the staff show and start calling the name, I got the first queue. When pick up the permit, you need to scan and record fingerprint to the card again (it has RFID chip). I wonder about the fingerprint and palm print collected earlier, ahh whatever. The police found something wrong with my card and start discussing her colleague. After trying at another terminal, it came the conclusion that my card is defected and need to be replace! So I won’t get my permit today and I ask when the replacement card will be ready. She simply says she doesn’t know. Damn! give back my 2 hours…
I finally got the card on my 4th month and only 3 weeks left until course completion. Well at least I got it before leaving Italy. The processing time is above average comparing to what I have heard from other websites. Some even took 6-8 months to process the permit. Now I understand why everybody hate Italian bureaucracy.