"When in Bologna"

When in Bologna..do as the Bolognese do...

I have LOTS to tell you about. Where to begin? I just got back from a weekend in Bologna, and it was a really nice time. The trip began with a relatively short train ride, but towards the middle of it, we were in for a big surprise. From the sunny hills of Tuscany, we went through a magical portal and resurfaced in Narnia!!!! Snow covered everything and we all couldn't believe our eyes. How was it possible???? From sun to snow in a matter of 20 minutes. I thought I'd never have to see snow until next winter in Madison.
We finally arrived in Bologna and walked around the town for a bit. We ate, found the university, went to the market, and then found our respective bus stop by me timidly asking this young Italian woman where the bus stop for #25 was. (achieved this bypracticing the lingo we were tested on in class this past week) She was so nice that she walked us all to it and i must have said "Grazie" about 20 times. We got to the hotel, which was really nice, napped and got ready for our first Bolognese meal and night out. The night:

1. wine w/ dinner..i got eggplant parmesean. unreal
2. more wine at a wine bar. had deep conversations about philosophies, relationships, social situations, and lady gaga. yes, lady gaga was a topic of conversation..she's fascinating
3. 3 rounds of shots (all different ones..check out pics on facebook) by the coolest bartender in Bologna. this bar was called Bar College History. How classy
4. went to an Irish pub and had a narcoleptic zombie moment. i am hoping those pics don't make it to facebook.
5. stopped at a Kebob stand (the Italian version of going for a Wendy's or Taco Bell run) and got a delicious falafel pita
6. danced in the cab ride home

Day # 2 in Bologna: We did a ton of walking and exploring, which is my favorite thing to do. My favorite part of the entire day was when we got to La Piazza Maggiore, there was an art competition going on, and I asked one of the artists what it was for. She said they were from the art association of Milan and had constructed the world's biggest white sheet (that covered the whole piazza) and wanted the public to paint on it. Because I asked her, she handed me the first brush. It was a memory I won't forget. Soon all of us and italians alike grabbed brushes and painted anything we wanted on this massive white canvas. A news crew came by where we were painting and videotaped my work and took pictures of it as well as some of the other things we made! After a long, exciting day we headed back to the hotel to get ready for night number 2.
Night number 2: stages 1, 3, 4, and 6 all occurred again
When in Bologna, right?

After a great and successful weekend, it did feel wonderful to say by to Narnia (the snow) and come back home to the Villa where the sun is shining.

Traveling across Italy is amazing but is also quite the adventure. I am really pushing myself to use my knowledge of the Italian language whenever I can, and there were many times this weekend that I was able to contribute a lot because I was able to ask for directions and semi-understood the responses I got back to get us where we needed to go.

Stemming off from using my language skills, I have two more exciting things to fill you in on. I finally met my conversation partner! Her name is Laura, she's 22 years old, I have a female crush on her because she is absolutely beautiful, she plays for a local volleyball team, graduated from school and is now working, and is SO NICE. I am very lucky. We met this past Wednesday and hung out for an hour. I felt so embarrassed after meeting her though because I literally am semi-retarded. I talked so slow because I suck at speaking in Italian and I must have said "sono lenta. mi dispiace" which means "I am slow. I'm sorry" about 8 times because I felt like such an idiot. So then, we switched into English, me hoping she was challenged with it, but of course not!!! She spoke perfect English and the only word that I said that she didn't understand was the word "except." Regardless of my stupidity, we are meeting in 2 weeks and getting gelato :D. I told her i want to meet her boyfriend, her friends, and go to one of her volleyball games and she got super excited!

The last thing concerns my internship. This past Monday a group of 8 of us went to the community service center and heard about (via translations by our student advisor Rosita) what the different jobs were. Some had to deal with spending time alone with the elderly, one had to do with walking children to school, another had to do with cleaning a park, and there were a few others. After the meeting I felt a little uneasy with these tasks because you'd be alone with minimal language skills, so I came up with an original idea and posed it to all the 8 that went. My idea was to go every week, once a week for 2 hours, to the community center and a group of us organizes group activities to do with the elderly. This way we could foster friendships amongst each other (americans..by getting together each weekend and planning out what activity we'll be doing), friendships amongst the elderly, and between us and them. The men at the community center expressed how lonely many of these people were, so I though building a social network through communal activities would be a great way to help them and allivate pressure off of us! Rosita loved my idea and called the association. They loved it too..so now we are going to get a schedule arranged and hopefully start within the next week or so.

I know this blog was long. Mi dispiace. Sono lenta. Grazie. Grazie. Mi dispiace. Grazie.

Ti amo.

You can figure that one out on your own :-D

Keepin' it real