Today was another day of adventure in Rome. The kids woke up for seminary at 6 a.m., but then everyone fell back asleep till almost 11 except for Hailey. I guess we're still getting used to the time change.
Brian and I went to the post office to ask about where we needed to go for our visa applications. We got a number and waited for a turn. The post office is a place that serves many different functions like paying bills, insurance, financial matters, retirement, as well as the mail. In the meantime, an old lady came in and was very upset about something that had happened. She was speaking so fast that Brian didn't understand everything, but it had something to do with €12,000 being lost or a €12,000 bill that had been delivered. She went straight up to the window while the worker was helping someone else and started yelling at her about her troubles. The worker started yelling back at her and finally left the window. The old lady started yelling at the worker at the next window. Other customers try to help the lady calm down and get her out of the way of the window as there were lots of other people waiting. It didn't work; she was very persistent. It was an interesting experience to observe the workers as well as other people in dealing with this. It's true Italians can get very loud with each other. She eventually sat down but continued to explain her distresses to the people around her.
We found out we needed to go to the CAF office that was "just around the corner." We left the post office and started walking just around the corner but didn't see it. We even stopped at another business and asked them; they also said "just around the corner." We realized that "just around the corner" means something different in Italy than it does in the US. We continued walking and went to a different post office and took another number to get some help. We decided we might as well buy postcard stamps while we were there. The worker helped us with the stamps and then we asked about what we needed to do for our visas. We asked if we needed to go to the CAF. She explained that we needed to go to an official office. She wrote down the name of it but it was hard to read, and we weren't sure where it was or what kind of office it was. There was a man at a cell phone desk, so we asked him about it, and he said also to go to the CAF office that was just across the street. He spoke some English, so I made certain it was just across the street. Gratefully, it ended up being just across the street, but it was closed for the middle of the day, so Brian and I went and bought some pizza and brought it back to the kids for lunch. We then went back to the CAF office and took a seat and waited for about an hour with some other people. When it was our turn the worker told us that we actually needed to go to a different office downtown: the immigration office. We did learn that the kids 14 and older need to get their own visa, so we're thinking we need to take them with us to the office.
We decided to walk back to the church and look for apartments in the area. When we got to the church, we met a couple and their two children, the Salerno Family. They are Italians, but they can also speak English. They were going to the family history center. We had a nice chat with them, and found out that Sister Salerno's father is in charge of helping the Missionaries with their visas and with the apartments, so they may be a useful resource.
We then sat down by the chapel to use the Wi-Fi to figure out our WhatsApp on our phones. We met three other sister missionaries from the Rome 5 ward who were there to teach the evening English class. They explained that there might be some apartments up where they live and told us about a little visitor center that's open for a few more days at the Rome Temple.
We had a nice visit with them. We walked to the grocery store and got some food for dinner and then came home. We had dinner with the kids and searched more on the internet for information about apartments to rent.
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