Skipping Class!

I skipped class today! ;-)

It's for a good reason and it was an emergency. But, I'd rather go for class than to skip it, which was to attend to some passport matters with regards the soggornio application which the College is doing up for uswho are studying in Rome.

I had to go to the Consulate of Singapore (we don't have an embassy here) to get them to certify my name as having a given name and a surname so that the police here who will issue or clear the soggiorno will know that it is me... I know this is stupid but that's the story! :-P

My passport only shows my name in full with no indication or separation of which is my first name and which is my surname, etc. Hence this declaration/certification from the consulate to inform the police of this. I had to go all the way to Rome to get this done. So, I skip class, left with the other two Malaysian priests who were in the same boat as I was, right after morning Mass, and took the train for an hour's ride or so to get to our respective embassies/consulate. :-P We managed to settle the matter with our consulate and embassy by late afternoon. But we had to wait for a later train which left at 4.15pm because we missed the earlier one at around 2+ pm. The return trip had us on a train whose aircon went bust and it was scorching hot inside and outside as we had the evening sun following us all the way. The train was also famously delayed for 22 minutes! I now know how any food feels in a microwave!... :-P

Anyway, while there frantically running all over the place to get our documents done up, I managed to grab some shots of how hot Rome is at this time of the year! ;-) There are people getting drenched and playing in the fountain. The fountain is at the Piazza Repubblica, about 5 minutes walk from the train station.

It was a great relief to be back at the Villa and cleared all that nonsense! I never had problems of this kind with the main immigration and customs. It is the local police department that seems particularly anal about it. *shake head*