Before I moved to Italy, I had been warned about one thing by almost everyone I talked to, and it lurked behind even mundane conversations. Even when it seemed you had won, it would slow you down, confuse you or reappear in a way you simply couldn’t anticipate. What am I talking about? The Italian bureaucracy.
Like the most hopeful of heroines, I was intrigued by this potential foe—how difficult could it be? Perhaps, with enough logic and patience, I might emerge victorious — victorious in this case meaning simply having accomplished the particular task I had set out to achieve.
