Questura di Milano

For anyone staying in Italy for more than 1 week, you are supposed to get the residence permit from Questura (means immigration/police).

For Singaporeans, you need the following documents:

1. Passport + 1 photocopy of the information page & the page where you immigration stamp when you enter European Union is on
2. Original + 1 photocopy of your air ticket
3. 2 copies of the application forms. The application form is 100% in Italian. I couldn't figure out a thing what it is all about. Luckily there was a consultant engaged by the company to help out.

Questura di Milano is located at 26, Montebello. Take Metro and alight at Turati Station. There are many exits, just make sure when you come out of the Metro station, you see Oltre Caffe. The Questura is just 50m away. Follow the crowd, you will see many foreign looking people moving towards a certain direction.

Once you are there, you need to first queue up to get a queue number, or a ticket as it is called. Wait for your number to be called, submit your documents, and in 5 minutes, you will get a stamp on your application form. Voila, done. Simple as that.

Sounds very simple, isn't it? But the actual fact is it is a waiting game. We arrived at 11am to meet our consultant. Then we got into the Questura at around 11.30am. The number being served was #256. At 3.00pm, the number being served was #267!!! Then all of a sudden, from 3pm to 4pm, the number went from #268 all the way to #280! From 4pm to 4.22pm, the number went from #281 to #290! Finally, we got our documents done at 5pm!

We were just sitting there waiting and waiting. From time to time, you would see people being escorted by police officer to come in and go upstairs. We even saw a black guy come in with hands being handcuffed behind his back, and being escorted by two policemen.

There is a vending machine here selling bottled water. The price is reasonable, 35 euro cents per bottle, but the machine does not give out changes. I only had a 1 euro coin, so I ended up buying 3 bottles of water!

This is really an interesting experience.