Phase 2 Complete

Having connections with someone on the inside of the Ministry of the Interior certainly has made our recent visits to the Questura here in Torino so much more tolerable. No longer do we have to rise before sunrise and wait outside in a "line" of immigrants for 2+ plus hours in order to obtain a reasonable ticketed number that hopefully would ensure you being seen before noon. We have done that several times with all three kids and believe me it is a horrendous experience trying to keep them happy for 6 or more hours at the immigration office.

But, like I said thankfully that was not the case this time around. We had an appointment arranged for us between 9 and 9:30 this morning. We bipassed the line of people still waiting outside and then began the name-dropping in order to get us moved immediately to the front of the lines to be waited upon. (I always seem to have this sense of guilt for not waiting like everyone else--but it sure beats the meltdown of kids and parents!) Another huge sigh of relief always comes when they finally find all your paperwork somewhere in their not so organized system. Everything was found to be in order with our papers and signatures and fingerprints were obtained before exiting the Questura one hour later. Now we wait for the final phase of the process--the printing of our permessi and then pick-up once again at the Questura, with the above procedure hopefully arranged for us once again.