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The plan for today was to meet another of my colleagues in the research group here (they've been taking turns helping me with all of the necessary errands and paperwork tasks and doing translating)first thing this morning to head to the post office to pick up the forms to transform the visa upon which I entered the country into the visa which will permit me to stay and work here for the full term of the contract, fill them out, and turn them in. Sounds simple, doesn't it?
The morning started very well--when I went out the door it was to discover a market being set up in the street outside of my building. (If I wore my hearing aids in the house, or were more attuned to sound I would have, no doubt, noticed it sooner.) So I hurried to the office, dropped off my computer and went right back out to purchase some fresh food for the week (my boss had mentioned last week that there is a market on Mondays). I got some fruit, veg, and cheese, took it home & put it in the fridge and returned to uni just on time to meet my colleague. She and I walked to the nearest post-office of the sort which carries the forms I needed and waited in line to pick them up. It was eventually our turn, she explained our errand, and the clerk fetched the packet and told us not to ask him how to fill them out! We returned to our office and looked at the forms, looked at the instruction packet they came with (written only in Italian), I found the web page with the English version of the instructions, and we managed to get as far as putting my name in the correct box and wondered what else to do. At this point my boss came in and explained that the woman over in the Uni administration department who took care of the paperwork on this end to get me my visa was willing to help us with the form. So he called her and she suggested that now would be a good time. So we took the two buses into the correct part of the city center to her office. She pulled out the template previously filled in form that she keeps, and proceeded to fill in all 13 pages (in neat block letters, one character per little red box) of form. Then she went and made a copy of the photo page of my passport and the visa page, which she somehow managed to get on a single piece of paper. She then explained to us how to get to the nearest post-office, and where the nearest shop is from which one can obtain the official stamps which must be affixed to all important documents in this country.
Off we went, the first store was out of the stamps, but told us were to find the next. That one had them (they sell for just over 14 euros--near as I can tell they are naught more than a fund-raiser, since the shopkeeper simply sold it to us, didn't look at the form for which we wanted it, and didn't ask us for an ID or anything--so it isn't like notarization), so I bought one and we went on to the post office, where we stood in line for a while. Once it was our turn the clerk looked at the papers we had and explained that the photocopy of my passport is not good enough--that we need to photocopy the entire passport, not just the photo pages. Yes, that includes the blank pages! So we took the buses back to our branch of the university and took a lunch break (it now being after 1pm, and we've been at this since 09:00). After eating I copied the entire passport and we walked back to the local post-office. Which closes at 2pm (it was almost 2:30 before we got there).
So we walked back to the uni and got on line to find another post office of the correct sort that was open later, and found one. We took the bus there, sat in line (they have a ticket machine which gives a number for your turn, and a waiting area), and when it was our turn were told (for the first time today) that we need to include a copy of my contract. I had with me my copy of the contract, but since it had original signatures, they wouldn't let me just give it up. However, we were now close enough to done that she was willing to take my money and put the official stamp upon the receipt, with the understanding that we will include those forms and send everything off as soon as possible. Back to Uni once again, copies made of the contract. Tomorrow morning we will take it all back to the first post office and hope that it is really good to go this time. (The paper they stapled to my passport says that this must be done within 8 days of entering the country.)
After all that I got to spend about 45 minutes watching one of the Master's students welding a capsule for an experiment she will be running soon. Details about what our lab does are available here. The capsule is very small--the inner one is 5 mm long (and much narrower), and the one she made today to encase it is 8mm. The inter one is made of gold-palladium, and the outer one of platinum. I haven't had the full lecture yet (her English was good enough to explain what she was doing, but not much about why), but presumably these metals are chosen to minimize their reactions with the powder inside. I think I will enjoy making these things when it is my turn--it is just the sort of attention to detail, tiny, fussy, project that amuses me.
I then went home and had a nap. When I woke up it was still early enough to venture out, so I thought I'd try the supermarkets I'd scouted the locations of on Sunday evening. Yes, indeed, they are both bigger than the closest supermarket to my flat. However, they still don't have what I'm looking for. I'm running low on muesli, which is what I eat for breakfast every day. They had none. Or, rather, in the boxed cereal section there was a box which claimed to be muesli, but the photo didn't look like what I eat, and squeezing the box reveals that the contents are likely to be Granola. I am so not interested in sweetened, toasted, crunchy breakfast cereal, I want my nice soft oats, and the only crunch from nuts and seeds, please. It may yet be possible to find such a thing locally, or, failing that, once I have an income to take a train over to Switzerland and buy it there. However, in the meantime something has to happen. So I sent a note to a friend in Norway, asking him for a care package, and offering to send back something from Italy that is hard to obtain in Norway. He agreed and said he'd go shopping tomorrow. Yay! (note: I couldn't find oats in the supermarkets at all, so mixing my own wouldn't be an option. Also, the packages of nuts in the supermarket are the little tiny ones they sell in the baking section at very high prices). The walk to both supermarkets and back again (includng looking time took another 1.5 hours!
I had hoped to make some progress on writing papers today, but it so didn't happen. There is a half an hour left to my day, but I think I'd be better to spend it doing yoga and trying to get to bed before midnight, as there is more bureaucracy to deal with tomorrow.
The morning started very well--when I went out the door it was to discover a market being set up in the street outside of my building. (If I wore my hearing aids in the house, or were more attuned to sound I would have, no doubt, noticed it sooner.) So I hurried to the office, dropped off my computer and went right back out to purchase some fresh food for the week (my boss had mentioned last week that there is a market on Mondays). I got some fruit, veg, and cheese, took it home & put it in the fridge and returned to uni just on time to meet my colleague. She and I walked to the nearest post-office of the sort which carries the forms I needed and waited in line to pick them up. It was eventually our turn, she explained our errand, and the clerk fetched the packet and told us not to ask him how to fill them out! We returned to our office and looked at the forms, looked at the instruction packet they came with (written only in Italian), I found the web page with the English version of the instructions, and we managed to get as far as putting my name in the correct box and wondered what else to do. At this point my boss came in and explained that the woman over in the Uni administration department who took care of the paperwork on this end to get me my visa was willing to help us with the form. So he called her and she suggested that now would be a good time. So we took the two buses into the correct part of the city center to her office. She pulled out the template previously filled in form that she keeps, and proceeded to fill in all 13 pages (in neat block letters, one character per little red box) of form. Then she went and made a copy of the photo page of my passport and the visa page, which she somehow managed to get on a single piece of paper. She then explained to us how to get to the nearest post-office, and where the nearest shop is from which one can obtain the official stamps which must be affixed to all important documents in this country.
Off we went, the first store was out of the stamps, but told us were to find the next. That one had them (they sell for just over 14 euros--near as I can tell they are naught more than a fund-raiser, since the shopkeeper simply sold it to us, didn't look at the form for which we wanted it, and didn't ask us for an ID or anything--so it isn't like notarization), so I bought one and we went on to the post office, where we stood in line for a while. Once it was our turn the clerk looked at the papers we had and explained that the photocopy of my passport is not good enough--that we need to photocopy the entire passport, not just the photo pages. Yes, that includes the blank pages! So we took the buses back to our branch of the university and took a lunch break (it now being after 1pm, and we've been at this since 09:00). After eating I copied the entire passport and we walked back to the local post-office. Which closes at 2pm (it was almost 2:30 before we got there).
So we walked back to the uni and got on line to find another post office of the correct sort that was open later, and found one. We took the bus there, sat in line (they have a ticket machine which gives a number for your turn, and a waiting area), and when it was our turn were told (for the first time today) that we need to include a copy of my contract. I had with me my copy of the contract, but since it had original signatures, they wouldn't let me just give it up. However, we were now close enough to done that she was willing to take my money and put the official stamp upon the receipt, with the understanding that we will include those forms and send everything off as soon as possible. Back to Uni once again, copies made of the contract. Tomorrow morning we will take it all back to the first post office and hope that it is really good to go this time. (The paper they stapled to my passport says that this must be done within 8 days of entering the country.)
After all that I got to spend about 45 minutes watching one of the Master's students welding a capsule for an experiment she will be running soon. Details about what our lab does are available here. The capsule is very small--the inner one is 5 mm long (and much narrower), and the one she made today to encase it is 8mm. The inter one is made of gold-palladium, and the outer one of platinum. I haven't had the full lecture yet (her English was good enough to explain what she was doing, but not much about why), but presumably these metals are chosen to minimize their reactions with the powder inside. I think I will enjoy making these things when it is my turn--it is just the sort of attention to detail, tiny, fussy, project that amuses me.
I then went home and had a nap. When I woke up it was still early enough to venture out, so I thought I'd try the supermarkets I'd scouted the locations of on Sunday evening. Yes, indeed, they are both bigger than the closest supermarket to my flat. However, they still don't have what I'm looking for. I'm running low on muesli, which is what I eat for breakfast every day. They had none. Or, rather, in the boxed cereal section there was a box which claimed to be muesli, but the photo didn't look like what I eat, and squeezing the box reveals that the contents are likely to be Granola. I am so not interested in sweetened, toasted, crunchy breakfast cereal, I want my nice soft oats, and the only crunch from nuts and seeds, please. It may yet be possible to find such a thing locally, or, failing that, once I have an income to take a train over to Switzerland and buy it there. However, in the meantime something has to happen. So I sent a note to a friend in Norway, asking him for a care package, and offering to send back something from Italy that is hard to obtain in Norway. He agreed and said he'd go shopping tomorrow. Yay! (note: I couldn't find oats in the supermarkets at all, so mixing my own wouldn't be an option. Also, the packages of nuts in the supermarket are the little tiny ones they sell in the baking section at very high prices). The walk to both supermarkets and back again (includng looking time took another 1.5 hours!
I had hoped to make some progress on writing papers today, but it so didn't happen. There is a half an hour left to my day, but I think I'd be better to spend it doing yoga and trying to get to bed before midnight, as there is more bureaucracy to deal with tomorrow.
