ministero finanze

Today, I had to go to the Ministero Finanze to get my "codice fiscale" (fiscal number). I went bright and early in the morning around 8:30 am, to get a good spot in line. I took my number and sat down and waited for it to be called. After waiting for about 2 hours (time I spent practicing my signature, and sketching the people sitting around me), I heard some people speaking english behind me. I decided to be outgoing and go meet them. It was Yang Yang and Ding Bei, a guy and a girl from China, here in Milan to study Industrial Design (woot woot) and fashion. We had quite a fun chat (Ding Bei, the girl had excellent english), I even showed them pics of my family from christmas on my laptop. Anyway, after about 3 and a half hours of waiting, my number was still not close to being called, Ding Bei convinced me to leave and go get lunch, and then come back in a few hours, so I wouldn't waste time waiting. So I decided to leave and left my two new friends waiting (who had lower numbers than I did). I went and got lunch and then walked around in a nice park nearby. At about 12:30 I decided to head back to the Ministero Finanze building, and to my suprise saw Ding Bei frantically running around outside looking for me! She said they were one number away from mine! I ran inside and got to the counter just as they called my number. I had my appointment and successfully got my "codice fiscale". Lucky day!

I exchanged email with Ding Bei and Yang Yang and I think we'll be going out to lunch one of these days. I'm glad I went out of my way to meet them.