Touring the City

Today we took a tour of the most important parts of the city of Bologna. We started at noon (about a half hour after I woke up, I couldn't fall asleep until about 5 with the jet-lag), and walked down to a cafe for my first pizza in Italy. If I had to rate them I'd say American pizza holds its own, everyone was saying how much better it was than American pizza but I'd call it a wash. I accidentally ordered a pepperoni one, but on the menu it was translated literally as "spicy salami," and I think we all know how I feel about the salami here. We went down to the University district and Piazza Maggiore which I saw last night, but it was even better in the day. The streets are really narrow and people fly by in their vespas and cars, and since my first priority is not dying, its important to pay attention to where you're walking. I was having doubts when we first got into the city, I'm not going to lie, but after only two days I've gotten a small taste of the architecture, culture, and food (which is insane by the way), and its definitely piqued my interest. I don't think I'll have enough time here to fully appreciate all the aspects of Bolognese life,  but its good to get a little perspective at least We walk everywhere, and I don't think I'll even bother to ride the bus with everything that we need located in the central district which would be within the old walls constructed around the city in the medieval age. We did our first food shopping today, which was great. We'll be eating pasta all week, but we were able to get some nice sausages and deli meats, as well as breakfast food and the staples of bread, cheese, and milk, all for 55 euro. Even the store brand bread and deli meats were what we'd consider high quality in America. It was like going to Wegman's and buying only specialty foods, except the specialty foods were not only the norm, but they were the cheapest option available. We also bought a huge bottle of wine for 4 euro, which believe it or not was actually in the middle of the road in terms of price (wine is dirt cheap). To put it in perspective we were given 100 euro each for food this week alone. We'll be getting more than that this Tuesday, so I'm planning on learning how to cook and saving my money for traveling. Tonight will be my first night going out in Bologna. We'll probably end up at the Irish pub right by the Piazza Maggiore, a 10 minute walk from the apartment, which has been pretty popular with students in the past. For now I have some sausages to cook on the pan and some vino to attend to, however.

Ciao!
Mike