#6: Beach Club Politics and Tony the Fixer
Ciao!
I hope all is well in Melbourne.
The major news of this week is that Leo has (finally) taken his first steps! Eight months after he started crawling... The little man could not be more pleased with himself and is now constantly toddling around the apartment with the biggest smile on his face. It's our first major milestone in Italy. Now more than ever he is breaking the hearts of the nonnas all over town, as he wanders around - shouting happily - with a mop of blonde hair. Bellissimi and biondi are the two words we hear the most when out and about.
Last weekend we caught our first Italian train. I can't believe it actually took us this long, considering one of the reasons we specifically chose Lucca because of its rail connections. We packed up a beach bag and headed off for a morning excursion to explore Viareggio. The town is quite big and very different to Lucca - it felt a lot more like Barceloneta (the beachside suburb in Barcelona) in terms of its architecture.
We wandered from the station down to the shoreline, and thought we would try our luck in one of the beach clubs even though we didn't have a reservation. We chose a club with a pool, as the actual seawater in Viareggio is murky slop. The lovely woman at the front desk upsold us to a cabana and a change room (for a "special price", of course!) and it turned out to be one of our best days yet. We stayed until dinner time! I am a complete convert to the beach club life.
While I was there, I read a few articles in The Economist. One of which was about Italian beach clubs and how they are in the firing line of the Eurocrats in Brussels. It was the perfect setting for such a piece. The crux of the frustration is that beach clubs are highly anti-competitive - they are run by families who hold the leases to the land on which they operate in all but perpetuity. It is impossible for newcomers to compete.
The Italian counter-argument is that opening the leases up to competition would see them taken over by major international groups and hotel chains. Having spent an incredible day at a very charming club which was undoubtedly family-run (nonna on the front desk and her nephew showed us to our umbrella) I tend to agree that it would be a shame if they lost the particular feeling that comes from being a decades-long family affair.
Here is the link if you're interested:
Finally, the wheels of progress grind slowly on in our quest for Italian passports. I had another successful appointment yesterday with the comune, at which they told me I can now move to the next step of applying for residency and then after 48 hours I can officially lodge the application for recognition of citizenship. The timing was very specific! And as it turns out, it is fast-tracked from the usual process of needing residency to be confirmed by a police visit to your house within 45 days of you applying before you can then lodge the citizenship application. 45 days in which you pretty much have to be home at all times as they specifically don't tell you when the check will happen!
My 'fixer' here in Lucca (his name is Tony - what else?!) has been invaluable in this process. He attends all my appointments and translates on my behalf, but really his value is in the fact that he just knows everyone and seems to be on very good terms with them all. He really has smoothed out a lot of bumps that might have otherwise become insurmountable peaks! We are not at the end of the journey yet, but hopefully that warm glow I can start to perceive growing ever so slowly brighter is the light at the end of this very long tunnel. Not a train...
Lots of love to you and everyone!
Kate
