Bologna, Day 2

I’m setting in my very tiny single hotel room watching The Notebook in Italian. I can understand a bit, which is probably because I know the story. The past two days have been interesting, to say the least. I arrived in Bologna around 10am on September 1^st, but my entire luggage didn’t. The biggest piece decided to take its time getting here, and didn’t arrive until yesterday evening. I took a taxi from the airport to my hotel, and had my first experience speaking Italian in Italy. With the taxi drivers little English, and my attempt at Italian, we were able to make a decent conversation. I checked into the hotel and hit the shower, before heading out to try and register at the univerita’. After wandering the streets, I stumbled across the office of international relations, but they were closed, and would only be open from 14:30-15:30. So, I grabbed lunch and went back to the hotel for a nap. Later in the afternoon I went back to the office of international relations and stood in line with other exchange students for over an hour. I meet two kids from Turkey, two from England, and one from Belgium. Most all of them didn’t speak much Italian, so the common language was English.

Last night, I meet up with Ben, the other kid from UNC, for dinner, and together we drank a liter of wine. I had trouble sleeping later, because of the traffic (which consisted of a noisy moped every 10 or so minutes until 2am) and the people walking to and from the center, but mainly because I was missing home.

Today was a bit better. I had my oral placement test for my Italian class, which was a group thing. Chris, one of the kids from England, and Ben were both in my group. The rest were in a program from Denver. I finally stumbled across the landmarks that Bologna is famous for, the huge basilica di San Petronio, and le due torri (the 2 towers). I also stumbled across the departmento di scienza di terra, otherwise known as the geology department, and hopefully my daytime home.

My apartment hunt began as well, one which was a double room in a flat with 4 other people, all but one from other European countries. The other place was a single room in a flat with one other guy, who is studying brain surgery for his specialization, it was very nice, but might be a bit out of my price range.

I got two more appointments for tomorrow, and hopefully I’ll be able to decide on a place by tomorrow night, and move in Saturday, when my stay at the hotel is up.

That’s it for now…

Buona notte.