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
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