Went to the police station in town today. This was just another step in the immigration process (my boss: we have an immigrant!!!). We all had to line up outside (meaning me, some other american, a Mexican, a russian, and an arab (?) family). Nobody was very happy about the whole process (cept me who didn’t really care). The line was outside and they would buzz people in one (or one group) at a time. I had the HR guy and an immigration consultant with me. Everytime the door opened people tried to push in and be territorial about their spot in line…I thought the germans couldn’t queue, but this was ridiculous…I actually have a newfound respect for the Oregon DMV after today. The whole “take a number” thing is absolutely groundbreaking.

Anyways we get in and our helper guy is a cop (I think) with a shaved head a beard and a German cross necklace (the old iron cross or whatever it’s called. the WWI era thing)….Is a shaved head with an iron cross the right person to be helping foreigners???

Actually he was pretty cool to us. The process was a bit slow (maybe 30 minutes in a tiny room). He went through paperwork etc and I saw that he had the US state dept. website on his browser. He scanned in a picture of me…took my fingerprints and then takes us through a backdoor into the police station, where they took my fingerprints again as well as palm prints. They actually had a guy in gloves who was pushing my fingers down onto the scanner.
Luckily I’ve never been arrested so I assume everything will be fine. I’m going to get an italian I.D. card in a few weeks. Apparently the second set of fingerprinting is normally done at a later date than the paperwork part of our morning (this is why I said the guy was cool-he squeezed us in right away). He was extra helpful and spoke a little english. Shook our hands at the end and we were off.
On the drive back I ask our HR guy if every italian citizen has their fingerprints on file. They do…

And your snapple fun fact for the day is:
Italy is about the size of Arizona.