Viva la dfferenza!

I guess part of the life experiences one gains from travelling is dealing with the differences between how one's own country mnages a situation and how others do.

These past few days I've been head butting the Italian banking system.  I needed to place a 400 euro deposit in an Italian lady's bank account as deposit for a house I've rented for the World   Masters Games in Turin next year (the games are in Turin, my house is in the country outside of the city).

Anyhoooo firstly I  tried to send the money to her via the internet but there wasn't the option for an international transfer on the system I'm working with (tablet/android)...I'm not sure if this woud be different if were on a laptop using windows.  Whatever...it was not possible.

OKAY...so I'm here in the same country as her, I'll go into a bank  with the 400 euros in my hand and deposit in her acoount..can't be hard............famous last words.......

First of all I had to physically get into the bank and thank god I'm not obese...not sure how they ever manage it as this is what one has to do:

• Push green button
• small door opens
• step inside very small cubicle
• door behind you shuts
• everything pauses while you are scanned for weapons
• door in front of you opens
• you are free to walk into the bank

leaving the bank is the same in reverse.

ok so I'm in the bank where there is one teller only and I have to wait while the three people in front of me have extremely long and complicated transactions with animated conversations.  I suspect they are discussing their friends, gossiping etc but eventually with steam coming out of my ears I get to the counter and tell the teller (tee hee) what I want.

BUT non e' possibile signora.

  So at this point despite having my passport at the ready and the request for the deposit, the correct numbers AND the money in my hand, I discover I can't do it because of at least 2 reasons...one is that I don't have a permenant address in  Italy and the second is that I can't prove how I came to have 400 euros ready to pay the account. Well that's not entirely correct but if I really wanted to do it I'd have to go to magistrate and swear an oath to ..blah blah blah

Eventually the problem is solved via my sister in England, but the lesson is learned and this is a situation where one poor innocent foreigner gets wound up in the bureacracy that has had to be developed to prevent less scrupulous people moving money around for nefarious reasons.

I wanted to take a photo of the bank doors...but decided not to risk it....maybe on a Sunday arvo when no one is around.