Alex Visits Bologna

Ahh...Monday night and time to update the ole' blog. The past four days felt like a week for whatever reason, but it was good. Quick update by the way...I got the internship with the FDIC this summer, pending a security check which I'm sure I'll pass...I just hope its not a problem that I'm living in Italy at the moment. After spending a paid week in DC, I'll be living near Charleston, WV for 8 months, and I couldn't be more excited (I was probably the only kid in the whole program who was thrilled to get WV). At the end of the summer I'll return back to DC for a week. I've felt a connection to the state with so many relatives living there, so I'm pretty excited to get the chance to try out living there for a couple of months. Charleston is about 2 hours southwest of Bridgeport, so hopefully I'll be able to squeeze some family time in if I'm not too busy. Getting this really feels good, and to be honest I was a little surprised I even got the interview. It's going to be one heck of a transition going from Italy to WV, but I basically feel like I was born to do it. Anyway, that's the big news over here for now, and even though I'm hoping that everything works out logistically, it feels like a giant weight has been lifted off my shoulders after almost four months of waiting for this. That news was just the icing on the cake to a great weekend, though. I got to see Alex again for the second weekend in a row, and I was pretty excited to show her Bologna. I haven't been to Rome yet, but I already know that the culture and food, and basically everything else in Bologna outside of the language is very different. Thursday, Alex got in at about 5 at the train station, so I went to pick her up. After a long week of class, I was pretty exhausted and to be honest I didn't feel like doing much. We didn't even go out to dinner because a couple of my roommates were making quesadillas with mozarella cheese or something like that. The weather was awful outside, so I decided to just tour around the city with Alex on Friday. This weekend was one of the worst weekends I've ever had in terms of sleeping in my life. I swear I was waking up every hour on the hour until Sunday night rolled along. Let's just say my roommates got a little "over-enthused," and we got our second noise complaint from the neighbors since I've been here. Usually, I would have tried to strangle somebody, but the fact that Alex was there (mostly the fact that she brought Mike n' Ikes sent from Tam with her to be honest) kept me in a very zen-like state. We woke up on Friday at about 10, grabbed some coffee, and went off to tour around the city. I took Alex to the archaeological museum and the Piazza, but mostly we just got lost wandering around. We also went up to the Communale building (basically city council), which is about 800 years old I believe. It still amazes me that these old buildings from medieval times are completely wireless...I guess they still have to be functional and technologically up to date. We did end up going to the museum part of the building, which originally served as the apartment for the governor or duke or whatever they called the head of the city here in Bologna up through the 1800's. There were a lot of cool artworks and artifacts. After the museums I basically tried to get us lost in the city. It's impossible to get completely lost here, though, because everything in the center of the city is arranged in a big circle, so as long as you have a general sense of direction you can always find your way back. I won't go through the specifics of everything that we saw, since I've probably already blogged about Bologna sites more than a few times on here. I will say, though, that every time I have to show someone the city, it breaks me free of the mindset of going through the motions of routine all semester, and I get a chance to really appreciate where I'm living through the eyes of a tourist again. Bologna is slowing becoming "home," as much as I can call it that with the language barrier. We ended up going to a little cafe for lunch, where I got a prosciutto sandwich, and Alex the Vegetarian got some grilled vegetables. I was still hungry so I went to my favorite sandwich spot in Bologna and got...a prosciutto sandwich. We went back for a little bit, then out to a little restaurant called the Osteria something or other, which was pretty cheap, but they specialize in traditional Bolognese food, so I figured it would be a good place to take Alex. John ended up coming too, which was good. I took a look at the menu and ended up getting crescentine for my first course, which are fried pieces of dough covered in...drumroll please...prosciutto. Friday will go down in infamy as the day I ate prosciutto for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, literally. I also got a pasta dish for the main course, and a Paulaner Weiss beer, which might be my favorite beer of all time. I say that about every wheat beer from Munich that I drink, though...and I pretty much exclusively drink German wheat beers here when I do drink. As usual, I was absolutely stuffed leaving the restaurant. We had to hurry back to the apartment to get ready for the costume party that I'm pretty sure I blogged about before. Alex just brought some ears from Rome, and I bought a stupid looking kimono vest at the market for 50 cents. Throw on a pair of sunglasses and BAM! I'm an American who mastered the martial arts...AKA every '80s action movie star...Kilmer, Segal, Van Damme, C-No, Kilmer, Kilmer, Kilmer, We took a bus out to the mansion, and it was packed. It was pretty cool though, and it felt just like a Halloween party. The open bar was a gift and a curse...it must have took at least 40 minutes to push up to the front to get 2 drinks. I did manage to pick out about 15 other guys in the place wearing my stupid kimono though. Overall it was a good party, not great. We ended up leaving around 3 and getting back to the apartment by 4, and the bus let us right off in front of my apartment basically. The next morning we woke up, grabbed some coffee, and went through the city again. I showed Alex San Petronio's Basilica, and we walked through this ridiculously high class mall with every Italian designer you could name...even I recognized some of the stores. Gucci, Prada, Mercedes Benz even...stuff I'll probably never be able to afford. I don't know where the Italians get all their money. We got some fresh pasta and cheese down in the market district, and I was really tempted to get some meat but I didn't want to veer Alex off her path of vegetarianism, so I settled for eggplant and mushrooms instead. We had a great time cooking, and it turned out pretty well. I'm lucky Alex knows how to cook because I would have been screwed. I didn't feel like going out much after the night before, so I found a Blockbuster (they still exist...I was shocked too), and rented a couple of movies. PS, if you ever go overseas, your Blockbuster card will work anywhere...as opposed to Netflix. That's right, I can use my American driver's license and movie card where I can't even pull up movies on the internet. Netflix not working here was a big time loss, and it continues to hurt. Regardless, I was so happy to find movies in English that I was temporarily blinded to all reason and rented a Nicholas Cage movie. Tim if you're somewhere out there, please forgive me. Saturday was another lonnnng night, and I got a nice little wakeup call from my roomies at 6 AM. Once again, refined sugar, unbeknownst to them, came to their rescue. Sunday we got up and got coffee again, and headed back down to the market. I got these roasted nuts that were covered in sugar, and almost bought a bunch of stupid crap at the market. Luckily, after a long weekend my funds were running pretty dry so I couldn't make any bad decisions. We took a walk around the park, and before I knew it, it was time for Alex to go. It was a great weekend, and it was great to see Alex. For some reason I'd been pretty America-sick all week, and seeing her definitely helped. This weekend, it's off to see Petey in Vienna...a nice easy 9 hour train ride. I'll update before then, hopefully, but I'm sure there won't be too much news from now until I leave.