Friday, April 10, 2009

Apartment Hunting Continues

So, we have been talking with a real estate about one particular apartment in Verona for about a week now. They have sent us a layout of the apartment so we can better see how the rooms fit together.

They sent us a sketched version of layout. After I figured out which building it was on Google Maps, I overlaid the apartment layout sketch on top of the building in Google Maps. Google Maps has a scale on it, so once I scaled down the size of the layout to fit the building, I had the scale to determine the lengths and widths. The measurements may not be exact, but I think they are pretty close.

One of the things that we were asked to send to the rental agency was a "permesso di soggiorno". This is living permit for foreignors. We will not get one until we arrive in Verona and go apply at the Police Station, or Questura. Even then we will just get a receipt for one, sometimes you can wait up to six months for a permesso di soggiorno. However, a receipt should work. Since we are trying to take care of as much of this on this side of the ocean, I asked if there was another document we could use instead of a permesso. For example, could we use our visa, once we get that from the Italian consulate? You have to get a visa to get a permesso, so I thought it might be comparable. He said I should ask the Italian consulate, that they would know better than he. I called the Italian consulate. A man gave me the woman's email address that I needed to write for the information. She wrote back that she didn't know, I would need to check with the rental agency!!! Not sure what we'll do on this one.

I did call to see if they were waiting on that to show the landlord. Giulia is who answered and she said she would need to talk with Elio (the boss) to find out. I asked if they were still showing the same apartment to anyone. She said no, when someone makes out a proposal, like we have, they cancel all showings of that apartment. That means we are the only ones in the hunt for it at this time. We offered a little less than the requested monthly rent, which is common in Italy.

Tomorrow around noon, they are supposed to call and tell me where things stand with showing the proposal to the landlord. It may be a little hard to go to sleep tonight, with all the anticipation! Here's hoping and thanks for praying as you read this. Mainly, we just want to be where God wants us to be in Verona. We believe it is He who called us there and we are just excited to get there and see what God has in store for us!


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