Paper Maps, Patience, and Pinocchio: How I Navigated Florence’s Immigration Maze In the Busiest Two Week Stretch of My Life

A slow journey toward something real.

"Patience is not simply the ability to wait - it's how we behave while we're waiting.” - Joyce Meyer. Photo credit: Krizjohn Rosales

The queue for the Questura in Florence stretched the length of a city block. Hundreds of us were there for immigration services. Think DMV, but worse. You only go out of absolute necessity. You arrive with an appointment, take a number, and wait for hours. Makes no sense.

Inside and out, I witnessed the worst of human smartphone behavior. No one wore headphones. Nearly everyone was glued to an algorithm-driven video feed—on full blast. It sounded like I was trapped between a video game arcade and the heart of a casino’s slot machine floor.

In front of me, a man scrolled through Instagram Stories in Spanish—volume up.

To my left, a woman watched YouTube in her native Asian language—also loud.

To my right, a toddler in a stroller flicked through TikTok in Arabic—yes, on full volume.

Me? I tried to block out the noise and sink into Scattered Minds by Gabor Maté. I didn’t have a halo over my head—but I also didn’t have a smartphone. No algorithm, just a book.

Ironically, Italy’s archaic bureaucracy worked in my favor for getting a permesso di soggiorno (a residence permit). I didn’t need to scan QR codes, download apps, or navigate slick digital portals. What I needed was paper, patience, and persistence.

The real frustration came from the lack of connectedness between Italian offices. I visited about a dozen locations—Poste Italiane, a few tabaccherias, a Kodak Express, a couple of local banks, Polizia di Stato, Ufficio Stato Civile, Ufficio Anagrafe, Comune di Firenze, Azienda Sanitaria—and walked dozens of miles to get documents and information that often conflicted from one office to another. Booking appointments is a way of life in Italy, but the system feels designed to confuse rather than support.

I’d heard horror stories about Italian bureaucracy. But hearing is one thing. Living it is another. It was a rollercoaster:

At the Ufficio Anagrafe, I was told that my civil and family status document was useless to me because my name wasn’t on it.

On the phone with the Immigration Office hours later, I was told I needed that same document—even without my name.

That was a low point. The tantrum I threw back at our apartment was lower. I was furious at the system.

There I was, with fewer than 30 days on my U.S. passport to finalize my residence permit in Italy. I encountered a plot twist at almost every office. The obstacles ahead of me felt endless. The reason why I was down to the wire in the first place was I had incorrectly assumed that my wife’s residency needed to be completed, and that we would be notified by mail, before I could even pursue my permesso di soggiorno. I was so wrong, and it ended up costing me valuable time.

But through grit, luck, and a bit of old-school stubbornness—and armed with just a flip phone, beginner Italian, a pocket dictionary, a paper map and some written checklist from ChatGPT—I got it done.

I became a regular at the local print shop, where I was one of the few people without a smartphone to send documents directly to the printer. Finding buildings took longer than expected. Even the paper map was slightly off.

This had shaped up to become the most action-packed 10 days I might have ever experienced in my life. In that time, I had to collect and finalize all the documents for my permesso di soggiorno appointment. Attend end-of-year recitals for both of my older kids. Help the movers unload 121 boxes of our belongings in two hours. Sweat through a Steiner-Waldorf school ceremony. And wait four hours at the Questura for my permit appointment.

When I finally sat down at those recitals—one on St. Francis, another on Pinocchio—I felt deeply present. Sweaty. Exhausted. Accomplished. Frustrated. But present.

I wasn’t filming. I wasn’t distracted. I was simply watching. I quietly applauded my daughter’s teacher, who requested only one parent from the entire class to film the St. Francis performance, so that everyone else in attendance could give the kids their full attention.

In years past, I viewed my kids’ performances through the lens of my iPhone, half-focused on getting the best shot, rarely rewatching it anyway. This time, I saw their courage. Their effort. Their body language. As kids who were only 2 1/2 months into a new school in full Italian, they held their own and performed. And I was there. Physically, emotionally, mentally.

As Florence’s tourist season ramps up, I’m increasingly surrounded by people who are kind of here—but not really.

At lunch recently, four out of five 20-something women at the next table were hunched over their phones the entire time, barely a word spoken among them. The fifth was journaling. People walk through the city glued to screens, filming everything: street performers, the Duomo, themselves with Ponte Vecchio in the background.

Everything is content. Every moment must be filled, shared, or documented.

Back at the Questura, I waited four hours for my number—D-415. I’d guess 95% of people passed the time swiping, scrolling, tapping, or watching videos aloud.

But during that time, I had a realization: I was just one immigrant among many others—Africans, Middle Easterners, Asians, Spanish speakers. We all came from different places, but we had one thing in common: a desire to live in Italy, to do things the right way.

The dingy room began to feel less bleak, more vibrant. Real. (In that old, wooden-boy kind of way.)

And when I was finally called, printed, processed, and handed a sliver of paper that served as both my receipt and my temporary permesso di soggiorno, which may or may not arrive to my mailbox before it expires next year, I felt damn proud. I’d done it by the book. I hadn’t needed a lawyer or a translator or a smartphone. I’d figured it out—with patience, determination, luck and a lot of walking.

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I’ll be sharing more stories every Sunday — the highs, the screw-ups, the awkward new routines — as I adjust to life with a flip phone. If you’re wondering what it’s like to live slower, simpler, and maybe even saner, stick around.