A difference of opinion

Having dealt with an as per usual late train, the lack of air conditioning in the hot and humid summer heat, the army of travellers crowding the carriage brandishing oversized luggage (seriously how much do you need to take on holiday?) I had come to realise that this evening was probably not going to change GMs mind.  There’s one place here whose fame and reputation looms large over all else and my chum hates it.  Yes Venice, in most other places cities like Verona and Padua would very rightly be the major attraction but when you have Venice down the road all else pales in comparison.  So much has been written about Venice that I don’t feel that I can productively add anything.  The idea of a beautiful city built on water is so crazy and dreamlike that if Venice didn’t exist someone would have to invent it.  It seems to me that no one has an indifferent view of Venice – you either love or hate it, me and GM are on opposite sides of the fence.  From my first moment on the lagoon I’ve been hooked.     

When I compare the glorious Venetian past to the Venice of today I can’t help but feel a little sad at the decline of the grand city.  From being “Lord of a quarter and a half a quarter of the Roman Empire” with a population of 180,000 at its height to the Venice of today its population down to 59,500 and shamelessly pimping its past glories out for the tourist dollar.  The city is a work of art and when not overrun by visitors it’s a joy to wonder and explore.  In an almost Faustian pact the tourist is both Venice’s survival and its death.  Without the money that visitors bring the city would have no hope of keeping financially afloat (bad pun I know) but their numbers make life almost impossible for Venetians to live.  Prices have risen so much that many can no longer afford to live in the city and chose to leave, with them goes the infrastructure such as schools and hospitals needed in a functioning city.  If the population decline continues at this pace in 20 years there will be no Venetians left and the city will have become the theme park many already think it is. 

While it would be lovely for Venice to return to being a living and working city I fear it may be too late.  Why would you spend the money and put in an infrastructure to support a living population when you have the guaranteed income from tourists.  The Venetian authorities themselves do this cause no favours.  When I arrived the cities’ residents were fighting proposals to extend the capacity to accommodate yet more mega cruise liners.  The proposed changes would have seen the closure of one of the last living pieces of Venetian heritage; the Rialto markets which have been trading in their current location since 1097.  How could Venice’s politicians possibly consider such action?  A big fat load of cashola that’s how.                       

GM and I first met in Venice in the autumn of 09, he was doing a favour for a mate offering to say a hello to me and show me around.  Well after a gap of a year and a half GM again made it to Venice. Food was our mission and Venice’s only Indian restaurant.   We were on public transport as parking near Venice is, like much else in the lagoon outrageously expensive.  Stepping out from the train station in high season is not the most pleasant of experiences.  You need to keep you elbows out and your wits about you to dodge the suitcases, backpacks and lost looking people.   The city drowns in tourists thus rendering any walking pace above snail like impossible.  A carefully chosen left and we had left the crowds for the relative quiet of the ghetto.  Over the course of the evening GM regaled the many reasons why he dislikes Venice – it’s expensive, crowded, dirty, a nightmare to get to and when there to get around and so on and on and on.  A lot of what he said cannot be argued with but much as I mentioned the beauty and peace of the place at night, the sheer glory of the grand canal he was not to be budged.  Sadly the restaurant only served to confirm GMs views and for once I was in agreement the food was bad and overpriced.  On the train home to Treviso and once safely off the lagoon GM noted that the best thing that could happen to Venice is for sea levels to rise before the completion of the flood barriers – Wow, he really doesn’t like Venice.      

Of patience and bureaucracy

Moving always entails a modicum of paperwork and setting up in another country certainly does.  My chosen country being Italy I knew I was in a trying time.  Having been here for a few months now I am surprised how quickly I have gotten used to Italian bureaucracy.  When I first arrived it seemed as if you couldn’t do anything without someone asking to see your i.d.  I wouldn’t have been surprised to be asked for “documento” when entering a public toilet.  Once I had been offered a job I had to get down to the encounters with officialdom that I usually try to avoid.  

The first thing was to get a codice fiscale.  A Google search brought up a page on how to fake the all important number and thus avoid the engagement with Italian bureaucracy.  As tempting as this was I thought it best to do things properly.  To get the number I had to go to the Agenzia delle Entrate, which in Treviso is housed in a large complex of civic buildings that look faintly ominous in a 1984 kind of way.  Finding the correct building amongst its identical siblings was surprisingly easy.  My first triumph was explaining my mission and actually having my Italian understood!  I was given a form and a number and told to wait.  Despite arriving first thing in the morning the offices were already packed with people clutching numbers in the vain hope that they would be out of here sometime soon.  I wondered if many of them had spent the night waiting for their number to be called.  Having had dealings with Italian officialdom in the past I had come prepared with a book and some snacks and happily settled down for the wait.  97 pages in and it was finally my turn.  I headed to my assigned desk to find a bureaucrat slumped in her chair looking like the will to live was ebbing away with each passing minute.  Once again I explained my purpose, handed over my form and after a few questions I found myself successfully codice fiscaled.

Seeing as that had only taken half a day I decided to open a bank account but expecting lighting to strike the same place twice was a bit ambitious.  In Italy you need a work contract to open an account and at that point I didn’t have one.  When you mention that you are going to open a bank account everyone relays horrific stories of the ineptitude and errors of the various Italian banks that I stopped asking for recommendations and just walked into one.  I was quickly ushered to a desk and a lovely lady who photocopied all my documents and filled in a surprisingly large number of online forms.  When she went to get the final forms for me to sign I was dismayed to see her return with a significant portion of Brazilian rainforest.  Looking at my face the bank clerk smiled “don’t worry these aren’t all for you.”  She then peeled two sheets of paper off the pile, handed them to a college and proceeded to get me signing.  At first I carefully read each document making sure that I wasn’t signing away the rights to my first born child or something more serious but then to get me out of there just signed away.  Bank account done!    

The Italian government requires all foreigners to register their stay if they intend to be in Italy for more than three months.  Dreading the next encounter I left it until my three month deadline was approaching before tackling this one.  Getting to the offices of the commune I pushed the button for a number P5, the screen said P1 – I’ll be out a here in no time I thought.  Forty five minutes later the screen still said P1.  I headed over to the P counter (which was empty) and informed the gentleman quietly reading that I was here to fulfil my bureaucratic obligation.  “That’s the H counter today”  I was going to suggest that perhaps a sign may have helped but seeing as I’d already interrupted his peace I feared he might stab me with his biro.  Over at the, also empty, H counter I came across the staring into space bureaucrat and said I wished to fill in the residency forms.  “Do you have a number?” 

“I have this number”

“That’s a P number this is the H counter I need an H number”

“But there’s no one here”

“I need an H number”

Making a mental note to double check if Franz Kafka was Italian, I headed over to get the required H number.  As soon as I had the all important H13 in hand my staring bureaucrat pressed his button H13 to the H counter.  There he had the by now familiar folder and relevant forms.  Once again photocopies were made of all my documentation – rental and work contracts, passport, codice fiscal and the forms filled out.  The next week I had to head out to another office outside of Treviso fill in yet more forms and have yet more copies made of my documents.  There is only a visit from the local police to check I live where I say I live and then my travels in the world of Italian bureaucracy will hopefully be over.

NB Kafka was definitely not Italian but did work for an Italian insurance company.