Nightmare at the Questura

Alright, I suppose to term our experience at the Questura as a nightmare might be a little over the top but I'm telling you it was not fun! What is a Questura, you ask? Perhaps I should start from the beginning.
   Last October when we were still at home in Canada, Hermes and I made a trip to the Italian Consulate in Vancouver to arrange our Italian visa. We booked into a very stinky hotel in downtown Vancouver, dressed up in business attire and showed up at the consulate with our papers and money. A week later, we got our passports back with an Italian Visa imprinted into it saying it was good for one year. So we're high-fiving and singing "Lah-de-dah-de-dah we're good to go" thinking nothing more on all this would need to be done for a year. Ha! Again I say, ha!
  
When we arrived in Italy, we found out our one year visa was only good for eight days and the next step was to take paperwork that was prepared for us by the mission office and by the church office in Milan to the post office to file. Before we go to the post office, we must purchase a Marca di Bollo stamp from the Tobacco Shop to fix to our paperwork. Then we take it to the clerk at the post office who goes over everything to make sure it's in order and, after we pay the next fee, then she files the paperwork to the Questura and issues us an appointment to go get our fingerprints done.

So I suppose you're asking again, what is a Questura? It's the department of the State Police responsible for immigration and foreigners in the country. Our appointment was issued for January 14th at 12:30 PM.
          
So remember in my last posting how I was saying that the weather was unusually warm? Well Roman winter has arrived and it arrived on January 14th. I had just the day or two before removed the winter lining from my trench coat thinking I didn't need it. I went with bare legs and some little shoes figuring that even if we were waiting, because we had an appointment, we'd be waiting inside. Ha! Again I say ha!

We thought it would be helpful to arrive early at 11AM but they told us that they were only just starting to process the 9:30 appointments and we had to wait outside. We went back to sit in the car but we thought it best to go and wait outside the building about 12:30 so we did. They were just getting to the 10AM appointments then. There was a lot of people milling about waiting with their appointment sheets. So we sat in the tent (glad there was a tent because it was raining) and shivered and watched the military police manage the crowd. These were guys in full army fatigues with large machine guns strapped over their shoulders. Sometime in there I took this selfie of Hermes and I looking grumpy:  

We finally got in the building about 3PM feeling rather hypothermic, passed through the airport like security screening and then went upstairs to collect the papers we had originally filed and wait our turn to see the police officer. At least we were finally waiting inside. We ended up seeing an officer in the A section who took a few fingertip scans with this electronic gadget (I had envisioned putting my fingers on ink stamps and paper but I guess things have advanced in the fingerprinting world) and asked us why we were here. Then we went back out to wait our turn to see the officer in the B section who took full palm print scans and finished our papers. At last about 4PM we were able to take out frozen little selves out of the building and back to the car after which our Tom Tom got us messed up on our way back to the office. What a day! Now we must wait for them to tell us when our Permesso card is ready which may require an appointment to pick up. If we are lucky, our Permesso will cover our entire mission. If we are not so lucky, we may have to do this again in a year or so. 

You might be wondering why Hermes had to do this as well as I. When Hermes became a Canadian citizen, there was not an agreement between Italy and Canada to allow for dual citizenships. Now such an agreement exists but it's complicated for him to get his Italian citizenship back. So for the moment, he is only Canadian.

Now on the lighter side, Hermes and I at last went downtown to see the newly restored Trevi Fountain on Saturday. It was a cold day but at least it didn't rain on us. Here's a picture of me in front of it.

We had all kinds of mini adventures that day including eating the worst Chinese lunch I've ever had in my life but which we ate anyway because we were cold and hungry. Honestly, I didn't know Won Ton soup could be that bad. We explored several beautiful cathedrals. Downtown Rome has old Catholic cathedrals and churches everywhere you turn -- it reminded me of Provo with the LDS churches on every corner. At one, there as a sign outside for an art show and available washrooms so Hermes went in to use the "facilities" and I sat inside looking at the art and resting my feet. What was funny, though, is that Hermes, while waiting for the washroom got talking with a couple there who at first spoke to him in English but when he found out they were from Germany, he starting talking to them in German. The man was amazed and asked where he learned German. He answered, "When I was young, I went on a mission for my church to the German part of Switzerland.The man looked startled and said "Are you Mormon?" When Hermes answered yes, he said "so are we!" So fancy that! Four Mormons find each other inside a Catholic Church in Rome. We had a nice chat with them. They said they were from the east part of Germany down for a mini vacation for the weekend. 

Our last adventure for the day came as we were making our way towards the subway station. We started noticing that the streets were being blocked off and then there were police and carabinieri everywhere. We were wondering what was going on and then we saw that there was a big Peace March coming down the street towards us. There was a huge column of people waving flags and a man on a megaphone advocating the end of war in Iraq and Syria. I snapped a couple of pictures of the front of the March and then we decided it was probably best to clear out and get to our subway. I guess it was a peaceful demonstration (one would hope so if it's a peace march) but the amount of police there made us think that the potential for trouble could start. Anyway, here's the pictures. 

And on that note, I am going to start my own little peace march by marching off to bed with the hope of peaceful dreams. Buona notte!