Today’s task was going to be a tedious one. As a US citizen, I am required to file a permesso di soggiorno, or a residency permit, with the local Bologna police station. I had already gone through the elaborate document scavenger hunt to produce a stack of different-sized, colored and stamped pages to prove I was financially solvent, doubly health-insured and photographed poorly in passport offices. This packet was delivered to the police station, and I awaited the call to complete the process by having my fingerprints taken. I dreaded the necessary interaction with the infamous web of Italian red tape, but looked forward to walking around afterwards with inked fingers, causing people to wonder what I had been booked for.  I like to keep people guessing.

Told to arrive promptly at 8am, I was finally admitted to the imposing questura after an hour and a half of waiting. Two men, neither in much of a uniform, peered smugly over my carefully collected documents and asked me questions about where I was from and what I was studying. I stumbled over my Italian, nervously feeling like I was being interviewed for a dating reality show rather than submitting my papers for a residency permit. One of the police officers grabbed my hand and rolled it around on a scanner- technology robbing me of my opportunity to look like a criminal. My inkless prints appeared on a computer screen, and the officer asked me on a date in between questions about my citizenship. This felt wildly inappropriate for someone holding a page with my social security number, civil status and financial information. I guess my passport photo wasn’t as bad as I thought.

Later, as I walked out to get a much needed espresso, I had to smile while I ticked off all the Italian stereotypes that had been reinforced in only a few hours time. Inefficient bureaucracy, an exuberance for stamped documents, a love of high tech gadgets, and underlying it all, the unabashed amorous nature that has a place even in the fingerprinting room at the police station. Though it can be jarring, and sometimes frustrating, these passions are what turn a tedious errand into a study in the national character. I wouldn’t have it any other way.