Wow. I can’t believe I just picked up my sixth Permesso. It took more than 7 months to be ready and when my appointment was scheduled for pickup I was in the hospital.

So today, I went to the Questura to fight my way through…just kidding. We have the nicest Questura here. There is rarely a crowd. It is in the town north of us and the police there are very nice. I know many of them, but today there were two men new to me.

As of the 31st of December we will have been legal residents of Italy for five years. This is “supposed” to allow us to apply for the “EU permanent permit to stay”. We plan to start working on this next year. This will be another great adventure! So hold onto your seats! I’m saying that because I know not one person in Umbria who has managed to obtain this permit. For some reason Umbria says it is not legal. Although it is an EU regulation, and I DO know of people in other regions who have gotten this, proving it is NOT illegal. Our plan is to go through the list of requirements (on the official Stato di Polizia website) and make sure we’ve got it all in order. Then apply. We will wait for an answer. If it is no, we will hire a lawyer to help us with this. No one knows what will happen then! So, we will embark on this new adventure and let you know how it goes.