Our Stuff Came!

Last week we finally checked off a major item from our long and intense moving to-do list: Receiving our air shipment!

The saga of our air shipment began a few weeks before our move. Our aim was to leave for Naples as soon as was feasible once we had our visas in hand, which meant that within less than two weeks we had to pack up two apartments; sort what we wanted to take in suitcases with us on the plane, what we wanted for our shipment that would arrive by air freight, what we wanted for the later shipment that would go by sea; move almost everything into storage; and shlep ourselves and six suitcases to New York to catch our flight to Italy.

After a few stressful and sleepless nights wondering if the moving crew were available for our preferred dates, we received word from the corporate relocation service that YES, the movers could come when we wanted, and would plan on packing everything up on the first day and moving everything out on the second day. Delighted, we started sorting through our things with absolutely no sense of how much it all weighed. Our air freight limit was 500 pounds, which sounded like a lot except that kitchen items alone could weigh several hundred pounds, we also needed room for clothing, and we knew that anything we sent via sea shipment would probably only arrive in Naples once we were getting ready to move back to the US, so if we wanted something sooner rather than later, it had to go by air. Late into the night the day before the crew were due to arrive we stayed up packing suitcases, painstakingly labeling items with different color Post-its denoting “AIR,” “SEA,” and “STORE,” and trying to quell the feeling of panic that we weren’t really ready.

This feeling of panic was compounded the next day when the crew arrived and told us that actually, this was a one-day move, not a two-day move as we had originally thought, LOL SURPRISE! Sleep deprived, fueled mainly by adrenaline and iced coffee, and running on fumes, we hovered around the apartment, anxiously watching as they wrapped everything in a billion sheets of paper and weighed everything planned for the air shipment. By some miracle they managed to pack 499 pounds of our 500 pound weight limit. Some hours later, the crew was done: about 15 boxes destined for the air shipment, a further few hundred pounds for the sea shipment, and many more boxes and furniture packed up for long-term storage. The relocation company told us we had 24 hours to unpack the boxes moved into storage to check if anything was broken. This was a ridiculous requirement (really a complete scam), because once everything was in the storage unit, there was no way that we could identify which boxes had fragile items or frankly even move around within the storage unit as the entire space was jammed wall to wall with boxes. So we hoped to hell that nothing had broken on the way to the storage unit because there was no way to file a claim if anything had.

Helpfully, the Italian company managing the customs processing and delivery of our stuff reached out to us via email shortly before we left to start on the customs paperwork. One of the items they asked for were copies of our “codice fiscale,” the Italian "fiscal code" which is an individual string of letters and numbers, kind of like a social security number that the Italians require for various transactions, including opening a bank account, signing a lease, and, as it turns out, receiving our air and sea shipments. When we asked how to get copies of the CF, the shipping company said the base's housing office would provide the CF card. Typically Americans in Italy with the military go through the base housing office to get their CF (since you need the CF to sign a lease), but since J is considered in their system as a contractor, we didn’t qualify for housing office assistance. You can look up your CF number on various websites, but the number alone wasn't sufficient for the shipping company, which required an official digital or physical copy of the CF card. We heard from other Americans that the “permesso di soggiorno” (a separate document giving us permission to reside in Italy) might have the CF number on it, but because of bureaucratic delays, we might not receive the permesso di soggiorno for several months, and we really wanted our air shipment. Plus we needed to be able to sign a lease. Gahhhhhh!!!

I did a lot of googling and found that you can request the CF card through the Agenzia della Entrate (basically the Ministry of Finance), but the form and instructions to request it were all in Italian, leaving too much room for error. Also, we would have to go in person to obtain the CF, and the chances of being able to communicate with whichever random desk clerk at the Agenzia della Entrate were low. More than low: Zero, or really less than zero, because something would surely go wrong and delay us further. Not to mention that Italian bureaucracies don’t always maintain regular hours. You can’t take a lot for granted here, like obeying traffic laws and poop scooping, but one thing you CAN take for granted is that the government agencies are often slow and unreliable. My working assumption was that the necessary agency was open for in-person services for a half hour every third Tuesday, which is only funny when you have no immediate need of their services.

Happily, the shipping company agreed to help us submit the CF request, and within less than two weeks we had the digital copies of our CF cards and the air shipment was on its way! After going through customs in Milan, being trucked down to Naples, and spending a few days in the shipping company warehouse, our shipment was finally delivered to us (with everything intact! Thank GOD) and now we can make pourover coffee! And wear our winter coats! And put away all the appliances with the wrong voltage that I foolishly packed!

We’re not completely done with our moving to-do list. We still need to receive our permesso di soggiorno documents, although we’ve completed all the paperwork, and our sea shipment probably won’t arrive until December. But by Naples standards, we’ve managed to get settled at warp speed — all the while navigating a new job (for him), a new language, a baffling city, and Other Ways of Doing Everything.