Trip 2: Adventure in Milan

As we packed and prepared to leave our little house in Chateauroux, I discovered that my passport was not in my purse, nor was it in the pocket of my backpack where I'd normally stash it. The last time I could remember seeing it was when the woman at the bank in the Nice airport handed it back to me, which was about four days before. With a sinking feeling, I combed through the room where Ed and I had slept, but found nothing. Ed said it had probably ended up in my suitcase, or his, but I was pretty sure that it was gone. While Ed will toss things just about anywhere without thinking, I'm pretty meticulous, and if something is not where I expect to find it, chances are good that someone else has intervened, or else it is simply lost. We drove for hours and finally reached lovely Alleghe, Italy,  but I was more intent on finding my passport than exploring. I immediately emptied my suitcase and Ed emptied his. Sure enough, no passport. The apartment we'd rented had no internet, so I took Ed's laptop to a bar that had free wifi, ordered a beer, and started researching. There was an embassy in Venice, two hours away, but they didn't provide "emergency services." It seemed I'd have to go to Milan, a four-hour drive from Alleghe, to have my passport replaced. I found that there was a train which left from Belluno, less than an hour away, that could get me to Milan and that the station was only a few blocks from the embassy. I wrote down all of this information, and also took note of all the forms I needed to fill out. I also needed a passport photo which had to fit exact specifications, as well as copies of any identifying documents I had access to. I emailed my parents and asked to scan my birth certificate, and they sent it the next day along with copies of my two previous passports. 

This was a Friday, and the embassy didn't open until Monday. I resolved to go on Tuesday, figuring it might be crowded on Monday with people who'd had problems over the weekend. Emergency services were available from 8:30 to 12:00 only, so I was going to have to be on the 5:00 A.M. train. Feeling very glum, I returned to our apartment and told Ed everything I'd found out. He flatly refused to put me on the train, insisting that he was going to drive me there himself and refusing to take no for an answer. I felt terrible that he was going to have to waste a whole day chauffeuring me to Milan, but part of me was relieved that he'd be with  me for moral support. 

On Monday, I set about trying to get a hold of all the materials I needed. This proved to be easier said than done. Alleghe is a tiny, picturesque mountain village which has lovely views in abundance but is short on basic technological services. There was one computer shop in town, and the man there flatly refused to print my documents. I think maybe he was worried about people having corrupt flash drives or something, but at any rate he wouldn't do it for me. When I brought my tale of woe to the tourist office, the woman there was very sympathetic and offered to try to print my documents, but she could get only one page of the first document to print before she encountered technical problems. A message kept appearing on the screen every time she tried, but she seemed to be ignoring it and it was in Italian, so I couldn't read it and didn't want to seem pushy by pointing it out since she was being so nice. In the end, Ed did some research and found a FedEx near the embassy, so we decided to go there first thing in the morning. The photo was another problem. There was a shop in town that had a machine to print pictures, but they didn't take photos there and I wasn't sure what I was going to do. Eliot came to my rescue, however. He's a fantastic photographer and has all the right software on his computer, so we had a photo shoot and he made up a file for me containing a picture that met the exact specifications from the website. I got it printed out easily.

Ed and I set off at 4:00 A.M. on Tuesday. Navigation was simple, and we arrived earlier than expected in Milan. After parking, we found a lot near the FedEx office, which, we discovered, didn't open until 9:30 that morning. It wasn't the only place that was closed - everything seemed to be. We had arrived in Milan during the period that most Italians use for vacationing, and the city was a forest of locked, graffiti-adorned security gates. After wandering for a bit, we happened upon a hotel, and when we asked the concierge where we could have something printed, he gallantly offered to do it for us. I had the pages in hand in no time (lovely color copies, too), and then we were off to the embassy.

At the front gate, the guard asked me why I was there and checked my ID. He said I was not allowed to take my purse or Ed inside, so, bag in hand (men carrying purse-like bags are a common sight in Italy), he went off in search of coffee while I stood in line, frantically filling out application forms. After about 20 minutes, I was waved in. I went through a metal detector and my paperwork was scanned to ensure I hadn't cleverly hidden a bomb inside. After examining my drivers license, a guard handed me a badge and sent me up the elevator. On the sixth floor, another guard prompted me to take a number. I was called to the window almost immediately, and I handed over my paperwork, paid the fee at yet another window, and settled in to wait.

Galleria Vittorio Emanuele

I'm not sure how long I waited, but I estimate it was about an hour and a half. I saw lots of international couples there, and several American women who were all doing whatever it is you have to do at the embassy when you decide to marry a foreigner. I read and reread an English-language magazine that was really more of a classified section, and learned that I could have a promising future as an English teacher in Milan if I ever chose to move there. I took a post-it pad out of my pocket and wrote a long letter to my friend Ferran on lots of small pages. At one point, I was called up to raise my right hand and swear before God that all the information in my application was correct to the best of my knowledge. And then, at long last, a woman summoned me to the window by calling my first and last names the way my Italian grandfather used to pronounce them and handed me the precious little blue book. It felt flimsy and had only a few pages inside for stamps. It would expire in three months, and the woman told me that when I applied for a regular passport, I would not have to pay another fee for it, as the payment I'd made to the embassy would cover it.

I happily hurried outside, where Ed was sleepily taking pictures of pigeons bathing in a fountain. We walked back towards the car and stopped for lunch along the way in Galleria Vittorio Emanuele, a beautifully built shopping arcade sheltered by soaring glass ceilings. The food at the restaurant was good, but overpriced, and the cappuccino I ordered seemed watery in comparison to the heavenly brews I'd been gulping down in Alleghe. Ed and I enjoyed watching the tourists walking around, particularly two young boys with mullets and capris, and a German woman in her 60s who seemed to be more plastic than flesh.

We wandered into the Duomo after lunch and spent a few minutes admiring it, then headed back to the car. We were both anxious to get back to Alleghe before too late and I agreed with Ed when he said, "I'm not really falling in love with Milan." I remember liking it when I visited with my family years before, but it seemed different this time. Perhaps it was because most of the shops were shut and everything felt sort of shabby and abandoned. 

Have passport, can travel! In front of the Duomo.

 We listened to music and podcasts on the ride back, and pulled into Alleghe around 5:00 that evening. All told, it was a successful mission, though one I wished I hadn't needed to go on. I put my passport in a very safe place and set about to enjoying the rest of my trip with a huge burden lifted from my mind.

I hope that none of you will ever have the opportunity to see this message in a passport belonging to you or someone you care about.

To be continued.