Fingerprints and cobwebs

In part of the never-ending buerocratic process of getting permission to live for the year in Italy (the visa is only the beginning!), I was fingerprinted yesterday by government officials.

As a bunch of in-shape students had to trot to keep up with the short, bald nearly elderly man who works at SAIS who was leading the way (he's all business!), we wondered if we would get to do impressions of Iraqi's voting and be covered with ink for the rest of the day. These thoughts were reinforced when we entered the big old building in which the office sits. The waiting area had been inhabited by spiders, who had left their evidence high above on the ceiling and a hole was in the stone outer wall, large enough for a pigeon to enter through.

Here comes the dichotomy of this city- infared machines read our fingerprints while the building crumbled around us. Ah fair Bologna, will you ever let us unravel your mystery?

Oh the plus side, there still is no real international fingerprint database, so I can still commit crimes in most of the world! Hooray!