As of today, I live in Sant’Angelo a Cupolo, Benevento, Italy.
This morning we went to the Agenzia delle Entrate to register the lease for my apartment. That’s the Agency of Revenue, which collects taxes, enforces financial laws, and registers all real estate ownership and transactions. All sales and rentals of homes are registered with the government. In the US a rental is just a contract between two individuals; there’s no central registration at all. Overall the process was like a large DMV transaction, with less bulletproof glass and more literal rubber stamps on the papers and forms.
In the afternoon we went to the Municipio (town hall) of Sant’Angelo and filed the form for transfer of residence. This is another thing that is centrally registered in Italy, and not really at all in the US. Whenever you move, whether across town or across the country, you have to file a form at the town hall.
Now that I’ve registered my residency with the Municipio, I officially live here! This is now truly my apartment. I lease it and I live in it. Home is here, for up to 90 days while my visa lasts. Strange. And exciting.
Now the cadence changes drastically: The flurry of the first tranche of paperwork is finished. Now I wait to have my residence confirmed. An officer of the town police (in plain clothes) will stop by and make sure I’m here. They’re checking that I told the truth on the form, that there’s actually an apartment here, that I actually live in it, et cetera. That’ll happen within a few weeks (within a statutory limit of 45 days). Until then it’s just a waiting game. Just living. Here.
Probably that means the blog will get more interesting. I know I have been posting too many words and too few pictures. I haven’t been running at full capacity between travel, jet lag, culture shock, and working in a language I hardly know. All my attention and energy has gone into arriving here, surviving, and getting the paperwork done. And as a result, all I’ve been talking about is arriving here, surviving, and getting the paperwork done. I promise, I’ll take more pictures, I’ll tell you about the food, I’ll say more about the little differences of life here, I’ll give you more of the vibe of Italy as best I can.
Let me start to make it up to you, dear reader.
Here is tonight’s sunset over Taburno, photographed from my house.
