Universita di Bologna

Today we had another little tour around Bologna, and this time was to get a history of the University of Bologna. Unfortunately, I forgot my camera again, but the university dates back to 1088 AD, and is actually the oldest university in Europe. It is also the oldest independent university in the world, even though it was taken over by the papacy sometime in the 1500's. Technically, I'm a student there, so I just got my ID card today. We took a tour of the original main building, which I believe was constructed originally in the 1400's- students and professors rented rooms for class throughout the city in the beginning. Today, it is actually a public library, and was the site of a bombing in World War II. We got taken into a really ornate wooden classroom with all kinds of wooden statues carved out honoring past professors and doctors in the past- then quickly figured out it was the human cadaver dissection theater. The building has two huge halls, and supported 3,000 students at the time of its construction. After that tour, we made our way to the museum of the University of Bologna, where we saw all kinds of nature collections, medical instruments and models, scientific equipment, and human skeletons that have all been used as teaching tools throughout the university's history. Overall it was a really interesting tour, and even though I'm not really taking classes at UniBo like I had originally wanted (I would basically have graduated from their business program already), it's still pretty cool to be connected to such a historic university. This is definitely a city centered around academics. I've also been told that a couple of my professors actually teach at the university too, and I'm going next Tuesday to join their exchange student program, so it really is a pretty strong connection. For dinner tonight I made myself a meal of chicken and accidentally bought smoked salmon. I threw it on the stove for about 10 seconds each side anyway and it turned it ridiculously well. Even when I mess up cooking here every meal is still pretty stinkin good. Tomorrow I'm going to buy a train ticket to Florence and then try to find a laundromat...its like they don't exist here.