Sean in Bozen
21 July 2006

The next day, I finally did get to the Quästur.

What a bureaucratic nightmare. I got there at the right time, and the guard at the gate found me on the list of appointments. He told me to go to the second floor (what we'd call the third floor).

I got up there and it was chaos. I had no idea what door to wait at. There were vaguely formed lines, but also people sitting down, and stuff. I couldn't find anybody to ask, so I had no idea which line to wait in or what the procedure was.

Most of the dozens of waiting people were probably laborers in lower-paying jobs, probably guest workers from poorer countries. The whole thing had a very depressing institutional feel to it.

The guy who finally processed my papers spoke essentially no German (even tho all public officials are supposed to know both languages). Then I had to have a full set of fingerprints and handprints with yucky black ink. It took over an hour and a half to get out of there.

Well, I'm legal, anyway.