I have a larger update at my laptop back in my apartment, but I was here in the photography lab editing my pictures for our next assignment and, since I am extremely behind on updating my blog, I thought I would post about my experience at the questura yesterday. The questura is the Italian police station, don't worry, everyone has to go to get their fingerprints taken. This was the second time I had to go to the questura. The first time, which only took an hour and a half, for other people it took much longer, I waited in line for most of that time to simply get my fingerprints scanned into a computer. However, once that was done I was told that I would need to return to have my fringerprints taken again. Apparently the Italian police department isn't able to share my fingerprints between the two different departments. So I arrived at the questura at 9:00AM, which is when I was told to arrive. There was a pretty large group of people waiting there to also get their fingerprints taken and we waited for 25 minutes for a police officer to finally arrive. When he did, he came around and collected everyone's appointment papers and then told us to wait. He didn't return again for another 45 minutes and, when he did, he called me and two older ladies with him and took us into the police station. Once there, he had us sit in the hallway and disappeared into his empty office for another 25 minutes. He finally came out again and called the first and then second lady in with him to take their fingerprints and pictures. After they were finished, about an hour later, he called me into the office. When I handed him my passport he exclaimed "Ahhh, Stati Uniti!!! (United States)" and while taking my picture kept laughing and saying to himself "Americani, americani." Since I am used to Italians not particularly liking people from the United States, I wasn't too surprised at his reaction, but thought it was getting to be a bit much when he took me over to his desk and, looking at my passport exclaimed, "Stati Uniti, numero uno!" At first I just laughed along with him a little, but soon realized that he was being completely serious. He was enamoured with the United States. He proceeded to open up my passport and go through each page, pointing at the pictures of various American scenes and saying how beautiful they were. He also read several of the quotes from different presidents at the tops of the pages. He finally took my fingerprints and told me where to go next. As I was leaving, his partner walked and he called my back, asking if he could show my passport to his friend. He showed his friend all the pages and again said how beautiful all the pictures and quotes were. Unfortunately his friend didn't seem to share the same love of the U.S and simply grunted and walked away. I then walked back to one of the windows I was originally directed to and, after waiting another 40 minutes, found out that I would have to return, again, to the questura to actually pick up my permit of stay.

One of the pictures from my photography projects.