Author Archive
Conquering Italian Bureaucracy: Getting My Carta d’Identità
Ah, Italian bureaucracy. Didn’t take long to get me on this subject, did it? But it’s actually not a criticism! If you’ve got a pen handy, mark this down, as it’s probably the only time you’ll see me happy about something involving a comune and official stamps.
Yesterday I finally got my carta d’identità, the Italian ID card. This marks the end of a long journey to Italian citizenship — dual citizenship actually. So I’m allowed to have two citizenships because of a neat little thing Italian bureaucrats call “jure sanguinis,” or law of the blood.
No, there’s no organized crime involved. Geez, why you always gotta go there when blood and Italian are mentioned together? It just means that when the Italian bloodline is intact, i.e., no one has renounced his/her Italian citizenship before the next in line was born, Italian citizenship carries on down.
For me, it was from my great-grandfather, grandmother, and father–and yes, it required a lot of paperwork. Birth, marriage, death, and divorce certificates, and then a two and a half year wait. But now it’s done, and I’m legal here. Finally.
So, to celebrate, I’ll share my first photo. This is the view of the Ionian Sea from my house in a village of just 300 souls–most of whom remember American soldiers coming into the piazza and handing out chocolate to the children to close out World War II.
Welcome/Benvenuti!
Well, once again I’ve done it the hard way. Instead of easing myself into this whole thing, using a basic Blogger template, I’ve gone and found one on my own–only I have absolutely no idea about html thingies and whatnot. So this has been a fun past couple of hours!
But back to the basics.
I’ve been sitting on the sidelines for far too long on this blogging thing, but it wasn’t entirely my fault. I’ve been living in a medieval village with shoddy Internet access. We’ll call it “dial up.” I put off even getting it in the house for a while, but finally decided I needed to keep in better touch with all my English speaking friends, and so, I got my very own phone with my very own line. Well, it’s really more “ours,” as it is under P’s name.
And who’s P you Nosey Roseys are surely wondering? I’ll spare you the gag-me-with-a-cucchiaio cutesy nicknames and just leave it at this: he’s my beau. A year and a half and counting. He speaks no English so the chances of him happening upon this blog and discovering what I’ve written are none to none. Although pictures are fair game.
No matter, though, as I’m a good fidanzata, I think, and I’m not one for airing dirty laundry. In fact, I hate hanging out clean laundry–and apparently I don’t do it correctly anyway–but that’s a story for another entry.
Ooh! Material! I have some!
The only other thing I’ll mention now is that I’m a writer, and that was the main impetus to start up this bad boy. If you want to get right down to the pit o’ the peach (90210 fans, I know you caught that!), I’m just jealous that other aspiring authors get all kinds of valuable practice and feedback every day while I just talk to my computer. And he never answers. Stronzo.
Hey, does it annoy you when people throw foreign words into their conversations? Sorry about that. It’s kind of hard to only think in one language now, so I like to believe that I’ll be giving my readers incentive to learn some Italian. And you know, if you’re planning a trip here, “stronzo” ain’t a bad place to start.
So, folks, I’m in. A joiner at last.
Now let’s play nice.
Michelle Kaminsky is an American attorney-turned-freelance writer who lived in her family's ancestral village in Calabria, Italy for 15 years. This blog is now archived.
Calabria Guidebook
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