Buon Giorno Dominica! I’m taking it easy today in my flat, and trying to recover after a crazy week! I finally started my Italian class, which meets Wednesday and Friday from 4 to 6. I’m the only American in the class, but most everyone still knows English, so if we can’t figure out the word in Italian, we have a fall back. And our teacher is crazy. She is a real Bolognese, and is very proud of the fact. (Apparently, Bologna is filled with “other Italians” and the real Bolognese live outside of the city.)

Wednesday morning I decided to have people over for dinner, and it very quickly grew from a small affair of 3 or so people to a crowd of 10. And I actually bought too much food! I made Pasta Fagoli, the way my Grandparents taught me, and it was a hit. Afterwards, about half of us headed to Giardini Margherita for a party, where we danced the night away. Both getting there and getting back was quite an adventure in itself. Ben (my fellow UNC-er) had his bike, but the rest of us wanted to take the bus. So, he decides to follow the bus downtown, which turned into quite a comical event. The disco was just that, a disco. I’ve become quite found of the music over here, where the DJ’s tend to take a popular song and add a techno beat to it. No rap or r+b, just pop music with techno flair. And it’s not all recent music either; I’ve found that they tend to like a lot of the songs that were big in the states ten years ago. Except for the Italian dance songs they play, which are recent. Our feet finally gave out on us around 3am or so, and we wandered over to the night bus stop, where we waited for ages for the bus to come. And after that ride I can say that all the stereotypes about Italian drivers are true. The bus ride was like a rollercoaster, with sharp turns, quick accelerations, and sudden stops, all along the very narrow and windy ancient roads that make up the center of Bologna.


I hope I started a tradition with big group meals, because the following night Ben had us over to his flat for Lasagna. I had a wonderful time chatting with his Italian flat mates, and even picked up some of the southern dialect that they spoke. Such as, in Italian, you say mi piacce for when you like something, which is pronounced something like mi pee-ac-che, where as the southern Italians say mi pee-ach. Interesting, to say the least.
Friday I had to get my registration documents, and I finally got a packet on what student life is like in Bologna! I still don’t know anything about what classes I will take, or how to go about taking them. Beh! Hopefully I will find out more Monday, when I meet with my advisor.

For dinner Friday evening, I got to go outside of the city with a friend of a friend of Tammy’s. Tammy, Maria (german) and myself went to dinner with Francesco, a local Bolognese who knows the land well. He drove us about 40 minutes outside of Bologna, to a tiny restaurant where the cook was also the waitress. Francesco ordered for us, and the first thing that came out was a big, fragile, crepe like thing, filled with cheese and meat. It was a mess to eat, but very tasty. Then came the spread. And what a spread it was. We had three types of cured ham, a soft cheese, olives, two types of onions, mushrooms, garlic, artichoke hearts, and pesto di carne, all of which we put into little rolls. After, we had a wonderful dessert, a white mousse with berries. What a meal!

And there was Rimini. Yesterday we embarked on a journey to Rimini, a seaside resort down about an hour away from Bologna. I went with Tammy, Maarten, Chris and Hanna, and it was a blast! We took a 10:20 train and got into Rimini just in time to find a grocery store for a picnic lunch. After eating, we wandered the town and found the old roman victory arch that welcomes you to the ancient walled part of the city. We tried to find our way to the museo di citta (museum of the city) but it was closed until 4, and in the process we found an amazing gelatoria! I must say that might have been the best gelato I’ve had in Italy yet! It was absolutely amazing. After our fill of the gelato, we headed to the beach, where we baked in the sun, napped and swam in the Adriatic Sea.


When we were done with the beach, we walked back into town to see the museum. We weren’t expecting much from it, we thought it was only going to be one floor, but no! It was a three story museum filled with mosaics, statues, pottery, and religious paintings. My favorite had to have been the mosaics and other artifacts from the city’s Roman glory. Unfortunately, we were rushed, and didn’t get to see everything in the museum because we wanted to see the excavation site, where many of the mosaics were still in the ground. During the 1980’s, when attempting to build a park, the Italians stumbled across these wonderful mosaics, and after excavation, they discovered that this was a large house that belonged to the surgeon of the day. Due to a fire that hit the home 60 or so years after it was built, the ruins remain in perfect condition because they went forgotten for many years.
After a short dinner (short in the sense of Italian time) we ran to the station to catch the 8:50 train back to Bologna. What a day.


Today has been a very chill day, as I think I’ve come down with a bit of a cold (hopefully not the SWINE!) and I’m just trying to rest and get better before my Mom comes on Friday. I did manage to do a load of wash, but I used the wrong setting so it took 2 hours for my clothes to get washed. And who knows how long it will take them to dry, since the only method of drying things around here is to hang your wash out of you balcony. But that one of the many things I am learning to love about this country. The pace of life is so different from the states, and wash really does take all day to do!

(And as promised, Craig and Mark are the best!)