Saturday 25 July 2009

Visa extension joys

Today I had to get my visa extended which ended up being quite a protracted affair - of course. Fortunately I have experienced getting a permesso di soggiorno in Italia before so I am familiar in the way of the orderless queues and lack of structure. My Syrian friend has come down from the desert so I was able to employ his native tongue to great effect. By the end of the process he had a whole team of gringoes he was working to help. From what I can tell getting the visa involved going to one man and filling out a very unintelligible form. Then taking the form to another man who looked at it, nodded and grunted. Then taking it back to the first man who looked, nodded, grunted and wrote something. Then we had to go to the big cheese's room ( with the only air-conditioner) where he looked at it and grunted. Then we went back to the first man again who gave it another stamp. Then we took it back to the big cheese again who did another stamp and a sort of a 'you-are-finished' grunt.

To celebrate my visa extension I promptly passed out on my bed for a nap. I really should call this blog ' from where I am sleeping'. Actually I don't feel so bad for sleeping in the day because it is far too hot for everything else and it is only at night that the streets wake up anyway.

Tonight I am going to enjoy Nargileh ( and perhaps a glass of wine) in Bab Tooma. Ah these wild wild days.

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