Tomorrow I'm off again. This time to Torino and Biella for more research-related travel. Looking forward to seeing the Northwest region of Italy again, it's remarkably different from the cities in the south (i.e. cleaner). But before I leave for yet another excursion, I wanted to share a bit about my last excursion.
Bologna and Lago di Como
Ok, so last Tuesday morning I left Rome for Bologna to meet up with my friend Francis, a good buddy of mine who I met during the Florence study abroad thing I did a few years ago. Francis was in Bologna staying with his uncle, Dr. Hattar, for a few days and invited me to come stay with him at his uncle's place for a few days, and then for my birthday, we could take the train up to Lake Como to stay at his family's vacation house...not too bad, eh? So I got to Bologna Tuesday evening and Francis and his cousin Sara (Dr. Hattar's daughter) met me at the train station and we headed back to the apartment and chilled out for a while. This was my first time in Bologna (if you don't count all the times I stopped in Bologna when taking a train to somewhere else) and I gotta say, it's a really understated city. After Francis's cousin, Suleiman, got home from studying all day, the three of us bought some beer and went for stroll around the city center. It was a good night.
The next day Dr. Hattar asked me and Francis if we wanted to accompany him to Ferrara, which is about an hour away. I agreed, so off we went to Ferrara, Italy's bicycle capital. Like Bologna, Ferrara is super understated. It's just this awesome little city with lovely old buildings and more people riding their bikes than anywhere else I've ever seen. It was awesome seeing so many elderly folks whizzing around town on classic city bikes with baskets and bells. Elderly folks whizzing around is just pretty awesome in general.
So, when we got back to Bologna that afternoon, we packed our bags for Como and then hit the road with Suleiman, who decided to come with us at the last minute.
Francis' Lake Como house is in a little town called San Fermo which is about fifteen minutes south of the Swiss border, so a lot of the roads up there were these steep, narrow, labyrinth-like passages that seemed to defy all laws of gravity. But once we got there, boy was it worth it. His house was just so rad. Since we were literally the first people to step inside the house in at least two years, there were oodles of cobwebs and creepy crawlers in every nook and cranny, so every time I entered a new room, I would walk inside with my arms swinging around like a windmill. The coolest thing about the house was that not a single fixture, appliance or piece of furniture had been altered in about five decades. Seriously, it was like walking into a time portal to 1958. My mouth was agape the whole time Francis was showing me around. Every time he took me into another room, I just kept saying "Awwwww...cool!...whoa....cool!...what's that?....really!?...cool!" I guess I just really like old stuff.
After hanging out in the house for a bit, the three of us got back in the car and headed to Milan to meet one of Francis' childhood friends for dinner. Since I've been in Italy, I've gone out to dinner with Italians enough times to know the drill: everyone interacts while Meggie sits there nodding and smiling. I can follow most conversations, but I usually don't get the jokes and I can rarely, if ever, contribute anything clever to the discussion at hand. If I had a few minutes to think up something, I'm sure I would charm everyone, but when it comes to speaking Italian, I just can't summon up the words quickly enough. So it's been really frustrating for me in that respect. But dinner in Milan was fun, it was me, Francis, Suleiman, Francis's childhood friend Stefano and Stefano's friend Dada (great name, I know this). After dinner we headed into the center of town for some gelato and drinks, and then around two we headed back to the lake house.
The next day was mostly awesome and somewhat terrifying for Meggie. When we got up, we spent most of the morning lounging around, enjoying the luxury of not having anywhere to be or anything to do. All was wonderfully rad until I went into the kitchen and turned on the kitchen sink only to not be able to turn it off. Of course this happened. Why wouldn't I break the first appliance I try to use? I was mortified, as I'm sure you can imagine. Francis wasn't too happy about it either. I don't think he was mad at me, per se, but I could tell he was a little irked that I caused a minor plumbing issue in the house that his grandfather built fifty years ago. Oops. Thankfully, Francis is one of those people that just knows how stuff works, so figured out a way to fix it before the house entire flooded. After the incident, Suleiman appropriately deemed me "The Destroyer," and henceforth referred to me as such.
After a nice lunch at a little trattoria in San Fermo, we headed into the city of Como to rent a little boat we could take out on the lake. As we drove past the boat rental place looking for parking, my face, lit up with joy, was pressed up against the car window looking out at all the little boats for rent. I was so excited! I even had my swimsuit on under my clothes so that I could go for a swim in the lake once we took the boat out. Since there was no parking in front, we circled the block looking for something else, and as we were passing the boat rental place for the second time Suleiman pulled the car over and stopped right in front. There was silence, then there was a man in a uniform. We had been pulled over for "control," which, I don't really understand but based on what Francis and Suleiman told me it's basically being pulled over just for the hell of it. When cops do this in the States is called "profiling," but I guess when they do it here it's called "control" and it's pretty common. So the policeman person walks up to the car and asks Suleiman for his license, which he has, except that it is destroyed. I guess he left it inside some kind of plastic laminated thingy and all the info printed on the card transferred to the plastic laminated thingy. Fantastic. As Suleiman is explaining this to the officer, he cranes his head in the car and asks both Francis and me for our IDs as well. ....STUPID! Why does this jerk need our IDs? We're just a couple of dumb passengers! Francis didn't have his passport on him, but I had mine, and I handed it over to the dumdum po po man. We sat there, in the car, waiting for about fifteen minutes for the cop to go check that all was A-ok with our documents. The whole time we are sitting there, parked right in front of the boat rental place. All those little boats, taunting me.
When the officer came back, he told us that we had to follow him to the police station so that he could issue Suleiman a temporary license. ...STUPID! Ugh. Now we REALLY weren't going to get to ride in any fun little paddle boats because it was already getting late. So we get to the station, all of pouting and scuffing our feet, and wait for dum dum po po face to enter all of Suleiman's info into the system. Then the dum dum pulls out MY passport and start typing in MY info. I turn to Francis and mutter "why the hell is he doing that?" and Francis just tells me to chill out, and that it's only for 'control' and that it's not a big deal. But this made me get even more jittery and I asked him if he was sure that it wasn't a big deal and that I'm not going to have any problems when I have to go through customs when I leave Europe. At this point, the officer notices us whispering and asks what the problem is. Francis says that there isn't a problem and then I pipe up and say that I want to make sure that there won't be any problems for me when I leave the country because of this. The officer looks at me, then picks up my passport and tells me that if I want, I can take my passport and leave right now, and he did it in such a classic dickhead officer way I felt like I was at home dealing with the LAPD. So of course, I told him that I wasn't going to go anywhere until my friend gets his new license issued. He puts my passport back on his desk. Sits for a second, then picks up my passport again and starts flipping through the pages. Asshole. He then proceeds to pick up the phone on his desk, dial a few numbers, mutter something into the phone, hang up the phone, look at my passport, look and me, and then say "wait here." At this point I'm both very angry and very scared. I'm angry because this guy is just being a total dick, and I'm scared because I'm sitting in a police station in another country and I have no idea what the hell is about to happen. I go through my mental check-list of any and all trouble I've ever gotten into...I'm clean. They have nothing on me. It's impossible. Unless I have ever been unknowingly arrested while I was sleeping or in a coma or something, I am not now, nor have I ever been, on the wrong side of the law. But still, as I'm sitting there, waiting for whatever the hell he told me to "wait here" for, I'm getting a little freaked, and then another officer comes in and gestures me to come with him. Francis and Suleiman protested, wanting to come with me they told the officers that I can't speak Italian and there's no point having me go alone. With this, the officer replied "they speak English up there." Up there? Up there? All I could think was "what the hell is going on? I should be on a paddle boat in the middle of Lake Como right now, not following a man in uniform through the stark, overly lit corridors of an Italian police station." A part of me wanted to just bolt through the nearest emergency exit, sprint through the parking lot, shimmy up and over the gate surrounding the station and then run, flying like a bat out of hell, until I reached the Swiss border. Yet by the time I nixed this idea and was concocting a Plan B of escape, I was being led into a small office filled with about five men, some standing, some leaning against a table, one sitting behind a desk, and all of them had their arms crossed. I don't remember any details of what they looked like, except, of course, that they were all very unfriendly looking. What follows is my best recollection of the conversation that took place inside the office:
(Lights up on a nondescript administrative office inside an Italian police station. Stage left, four officers standing, arms folded, one is in uniform. Behind a desk is another plain clothes officer, he is examining an American passport. Stage right, Meggie, an American girl in her late twenties, scruffy looking, sits slouched in a folding chair. Her leg is twitching.)
Officer Plainclothes: Non parli Italiano?
Meggie: Nope.
OP: Ok. Do you know why we brought you in here?
M: I have no idea. Maybe you could explain to me why I'm here. I have not done anything wrong so I really don't understand.
OP: How long have you been in Italy?
M: Since May 16.
OP: And where are you living?
M: Well, I'm mainly staying in Rome but I've been traveling around the country a lot. I'm a tourist.
OP: Did you register here?
M: What? No. I don't live here permanently, I'M A TOURIST.
OP: But when did you come to Italy?
M: May sixteenth. SEDICI DI MAGGIO.
OP: But where are you staying?
M: I told you, I'm staying mostly in Rome but I'm traveling through the country a lot, every other week I go to another city for a few days. I don't understand why you are asking me this. I'm a US citizen, I'm allowed to be in the EU for three months, I haven't even been here for two months, why is there a problem?
OP: The problem is when you got here.
M: What? I got here less than two months ago. I don't understand this.
OP: There is no stamp in your passport.
M: That's because they didn't stamp it when I got here. I don't know what to tell you. I came from Los Angeles to Heathrow to Rome, I don't know why they didn't stamp it, that happens sometimes.
OP: But when did you get here?
M: May 16.
OP: And where are you staying in Italy?
M: I told you, mostly Rome.
OP: And are you registered?
M: I'm a tourist, tourists don't need to register.
OP: But if you do not register after your first eight days in Italy, you can be expelled from the EU.
M: What! I have never heard that before. I'm sorry, I don't understand. This is the second time I have been in Italy, and I didn't know I needed to register myself.
OP: Yes. (Picks up Meggie's passport) We have many problems with this.
M: What?! Ok, well, then, can you register me here, now? I swear to god I had no idea I had to register, I thought that because I'm a tourist I can stay in the EU for less than 90 days without any problem.
OP: If you are not registered, you can be expelled from the EU, and if you are expelled, you cannot return for ten years.
M: Ok, ok, so let's just get me registered right now then. I really don't want there to be any problems with me staying here.
OP: We won't register you here, you need to do that in Rome.
M: Ok, so as soon as I get to Rome I'll register. I just don't want any problems.
OP: You cannot stay here without registering, or you will have problems.
M: Yes. Ok, I understand. I'm sorry. I didn't know, I'm sorry.
(Officer Plainclothes looks up and nods at the uniformed officer, who then gestures for Meggie to follow him out. They exit stage right.)
So that's pretty much how it went down. The whole interrogation ordeal lasted about twelve minutes. And each minute sucked more than the last one. I don't know why there had to be five guys in the room when only one of them was asking me questions. As the uniformed officer was taking me back to the office where Francis and Suleiman were waiting for me, I just lost it a little bit and started crying. I couldn't help it, the whole experience was really unpleasant. I think they just took me in there to scare me and give me a hard time. Cops, because they're dickheads, get off on bullying people, and boy did those guys bully me. I mean, really, if it was such a big problem that I'm not registered in Italy (which it's not, because I don't actually live here in any permanent sense, I'm just sort of city-hopping for a couple of months) then they would have gotten off their lazy asses and filled out the necessary paperwork to get me registered, but instead, they just scared the shit out of me by threatening expulsion and then didn't even attempt to rectify the situation. They just told me that I needed to go somewhere else. Bull shit. I hate cops. They're all such stupid bullies.
After we were "released," from the police station, we headed back to the house, feeling somewhat defeated because we didn't get to rent a paddle boat. But all was ok, because later on we had an awesome time doing all kinds of cool stuff I'll tell you about in my next entry. I still want to fill you all in on my birthday adventures and my trip to the Venice.
xoxo,
Meggie
Oh, if you are curious to see some of my photos from the trip, check out my flickr account:
