I’ve been to the Italian consulate four times in the past month. Every time I go, I get different information from whoever I see. I know the guy at the front desk by first name (Andrea) and he knows I am the one with three kids moving to Italy and keeps asking why? Why not I say…
A few weeks ago when I went to the Italian Consulate and was called to window #8, the lovely lady smiled at me and said it’s unlikely we’d get in through immigration on the one way airline tickets we’ve booked from Sydney to Pisa and also with only one EU passport amongst the five of us, she wished me luck and said it would be better to get the girls Austrian citizenship and passports too. She also said we’d all need ‘codice fiscale’ tax file numbers before we land and also all our birth certificates and marriage licence translated into Italian, which they do at the consulate.
Hhhmmm…this was all news to me and the previous visits over the last few months, all the other staff said we were fine and as long as Ben was an EU citizen we’d be able to get into and stay in Italy for as long as we wanted.
So I thanked her, then walked away to call Ben and update him on the situation. Now I had to phone the Austrian consulate to try and organise citizenship and passports for the girls and at this stage we are leaving in 4 weeks.
I called and when I told the lady at the Austrian consulate the situation, she judged me 100% and would not give me an appointment at all, just kept asking ‘why I have left this so late’, ‘what sort of parent was I’, ‘Even a miracle could not help me’ etc. She was no help at all and said I’d just need to deal with it once in Italy and go to the consulate over there…in Milan…4 hours from Siena…so helpful once again.
The next week I visited the Italian consulate to get the translations done and the codice fiscale for us all. At first my friend Andrea said I did not need them unless I was to work there. Well I might so then he said Ben and I would need them. I had the originals as stated on the form but they needed copies so I went off to Officeworks 15 min walk away and came back with my copies, although Andrea suggested I could mail it all in and not need to come back face to face…starting to think he does not like me as much as I like him.
Got back there, got another ticket and waited in line and was then told the kids need them too, so back off to Officeworks to do the kids copies and back to Andrea, which by this stage was 1145am and they close 12 noon SHARP, sometimes before. Got back in time to put in the forms successfully but be told they do not and have never done translations at the consulate so I’d need to hire one of the lawyers on the list they give out to do these for me.
Am getting more patient and know I’ll need to work through all these appointments once we land as well. I still do not speak or understand basic Italian, so looking forward to grasping the language!
