Is he calling me crazy? What did I do to make him think that?
"Is that your husband?" were the next words as he pointed to my director who I'm pretty sure has a daughter about my age. When I smiled and said "no" (rather quickly) he was reassured and began to ink my hands for printing.
And this my friends is my first (and I hope only) encounter with the Italian police.
No, I didn't do anything. It's part of our paperwork process, our green card equivalent if you will. (US Immigrations green card, not NPS green card!) The plain clothes officer was telling me that my hair was really curly and then swore I was Greek. Hey, if I can fool police officers I think I can pretty much pull off any nationality I want. I love the fact that when they see my last name on paper they always look a second time, even when they have copies of my passport, ID, and another set of pictures. (I guess another thing that won't change until my last name does?)
Today was our last day of Area Orientation and it was boring. We started on the base that I work on. After having all our forms processed in one place, we headed over to get our prints done. A re-occurring theme of this week is "hurry up and wait." By this point of the orientation we were teasing that it's our forced exposure to the Italian culture and that schedules are flexible. I actually used some of these waiting times to go deal with other HR paperwork. I am officially in the system and able to get my new ID card but decided to wait until Monday. Why? I don't think I can deal with another bad ID picture that even more people will see than my old one for the next 3+ years. (Those of you who saw my last one totally know what I'm talking about- right? I want to look like the picture on my ID.) Yep, I caught some flack from my director and the other guy that was privy to this conversation but I'm standing by my decision.
The rest of the day was eh. Got out to the 3rd base where NATO (Never At The Office) is located did a quick walk around but not much out there. Also headed up to Carney Park which is beautiful. The entire park: rec fields, pool, play grounds, golf course, cabins, trails are all within an extinct volcano. It's very green up that way and I'm sure before too long I'll be spending time up there...if only for the fitness yurt! Yes. I did say yurt.
Tomorrow is the final day of orientation, but it's Intercultural Relations Pt II. We're going to spend the day in Naples and I'm really looking forward to it. I'm not so thrilled that it's supposed to be 80 degrees and we're going to be walking around everywhere but it's all part of living in Naples so it's time to get adjusted!
What? Mud pie again.
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