Getting my Codice Fiscale! (The tale of the phantom bureaucracy)

You may remember at school when it was time to get your BCG injection, and you heard all those horror stories about needles the size of chopsticks, people fainting and the pain...oh the pain! Yet, when you actually went to get the injection it was a walk in the park? Well, that's what it was like for me getting my Codice Fiscale.

A little background info of those outside of Italy, the Codice Fiscale is basically the Italian equivalent of your National Insurance number. Here, you can't work or rent an apartment without one.

Most things in Italy seem to get bad press due to their inefficiency...the post office (I have no complaints so far!), obtaining any legal paper work and banks that all seem to write their own opening hours...on a day to day basis! But, from personal experience, I'm yet to encounter this inefficiency...

Prior to my visit to the office last week, I had heard and read horror stories of this process...people waiting hours and hours, not getting served at all and having o come back a second day, being told that you have to go down the street to photocopy your passport because the office didn't have a copier, only to fall to the end of the long queue again...the stories were enough to make me almost talk myself out of it! But, I needed it for the rental agreement on the apartment and I am job hunting so will need it for that!

I drove to my nearest Agenzia delle Entrate, which was just 15 minutes away and somehow located the right office from what felt like hundreds all with the same address!

The guy on reception spoke little English, so I told him in my best Italian I was after my Codice Ficale, I filled out some simple information on a form, was given a ticket and sat and waited for about 40 minutes until my number was called.

The next lady I spoke to (who completed my application - simple, details into a computer!) knew even less English but somehow, we understood one another and voila, I was given my Codice Fiscale! In a couple of weeks, the official card arrives in the post! In total, I was there and back within and hour!

So, if you want my advice; don't be scared of these things, it's all part of the experience of moving to a new culture!

Ciao for now,

Nina x

Smiling at the simple things

When you make a big life change like relocating to a new country/city/way of life, it can be so easy to get lost and swallowed up in the chaos of the 'big picture', that the small, simple things that make life beautiful can get easily lost.

I made this mistake last week; I felt homesick and frustrated - nothing was working, everything felt complicated and I was in social situations where I couldn't say anything because my knowledge of Italian is pretty basic. There were a few occasions I just wanted a flight back home.

I'd always been an advocate of the 'simple things' in life when I was in the UK, so why not here? I decided to take a step back from the big picture, and focus on the small, simple things that I love about living in Italy and more precisely, Rome.

• I can be at the Coliseum in 20 minutes - walking past it always gives me a great sense of comfort and awe
• I love the sunburnt colour of the buildings in Rome; whenever I come back from time in the country with the boy, its seeing these umber buildings that tell me I'm home in my city
• The smell of the flowers in the garden of my apartment, specifically the orange blossom on the tree next to my living room windows...it's become one of my most favourite scents
• Spending yesterday eating and drinking with friends under a vine-covered pagoda in the Roman countryside
• The huge, marble steps that lead to my equally huge front door of my little palace here in the city
• Seeing how happy Harry and Boo are here

So, at times when it feels like the big picture is going to chew you up and spit you out, look around at the small, simple things that make life so beautiful.

Ciao for now,

Nina x

Life in Rome...my thoughts on the first 48 hours!

So, I could start my story with the tale of the phenomenally long car journey it took to get here, but that will follow. To start with, I thought I'd run through my feelings on my first 48 hours living in Rome.

I live in a neighbourhood called Nomentana (named so as the main street that runs through it is Via Nomentana). It's to the north-east of the city and reminds me a little of north London - big, period houses and tree-lined quiet streets. Before I came here I read a few articles online about it being too far out of the hustle of the main city, but today it took me 20 minutes from my from door to the Coliseum. I am happy with that and couldn't ask for a better location. Nearby I have a great supermarket, a bank and a pharmacy.

The apartment itself is in a Regency-style building and there are only three apartments in total. I have more space here than I could have dreamt of!

I'll be honest and admit that I had a small teary moment on my first night, but it was late and we had travelled for nearly 11 hours...I think tiredness got the better of me as I felt OK the next day.

There are soooo many expat blogs and forums you read that tell you so many contradicting things about feeling homesick and it can be a bit like trying to self-diagnose an illness online; you end up scaring yourself silly! Today I met with an old work colleague who was in Rome for a conference, and she left the UK for Australia and told me that she still does not have that heart-aching, stomach churning homesickness that I have heard of, and she's been there 6 months! I think with all things, it's mind over matter and whilst I stroll the tree-lined streets of the Eternal City in the sun, taking long, leisurely lunches and chomping on the odd gelato, it's hard to miss the UK. Of course, there are people I miss terribly, and I am always thinking of them, but true relationships stand any distance.

Time is a great story teller, and it is only time that will tell me how I feel about life in Rome. For now, I am very happy.

Ciao per ora,

Nina x