Sono preparata per la pizza

I think right now I'm stuck in a strange middle place regarding the Italian language--on the one hand, I've been making my way (pretty successfully, I think) through college-level readings for my ECCO courses and taking detailed notes during lectures, but strangely, simple interactions tend to be more difficult for me.  I had to meet with a UniBo professor on Monday to find out if I would be able to take the final exam for her course before leaving Italy, and I left both of us so confused that one of my program advisers had to contact her to sort everything out for me.  Luckily, everything worked out fine, and next Tuesday I start Archeologia dell'Emilia-Romagna in medievo with real Italian university students!  I'm also taking History of Art with ECCO, which starts next Wednesday, and my Italian Cultural History course (anthro credit!), also with ECCO, has already met twice.

So, with everything finally worked out, I'm ready to celebrate the long weekend (no class on Monday for la festa di San Petronio, patron saint of Bologna).  Tonight, I have my first official Italian cooking class, and from there I'm heading straight to the stazione to catch an overnight train to Napoli.  I haven't yet had absolutely incredible pizza in Italy, but from everything I've heard, that's going to change this weekend!

Le Piccole Cose

My courses at ECCO started this week, and next week the UniBo courses begin.  Unfortunately, I still haven't found a course that a) fits into my schedule b) can count towards either my Anthropology or Italian Studies major or c) that I can take the exam for before returning to the states (exam schedules are really weird here--my roommates are all studying for exams from courses they took last semester!)

I'll post my schedule/fun facts about my courses once I work everything out, along with some fun anecdotes about the add/drop process (I'm assuming I'll be able to find the humor in the situation later on).


My silver lining of the day was going over to Liz's room to vent.  She wasn't able to solve my problems for me, but she was able to offer me some of the roasted apples and sweet potatoes that she was about to take out of the oven.  For some reason, sweet potatoes in Italy aren't orange--there's no real way of distinguishing them from regular potatoes until you taste them.  To me, they're the perfect fall food, but I don't think they're very popular here- Liz's roommate tried some and thought they were weird.  She seemed about as confused as our Italian professor was when we tried to explain why American kids love peanut butter and jelly.  I'm not saying I don't love pizza and pasta, but sometimes I think Italians are missing out on variety...

Shakespeare e Svizzera

Updated with better photos!

This Satuday, Liz, Sarah, Gina and I planned on spending the day in Florence.  I was looking forward to see the tons of great art that supposedly causes this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stendhal_syndrome and to celebrating the changing season with the purchase of a new leather jacket.  We decided it would be worth having to wake up early for, and so at 9:30 am made our way to the train station.

Turns out, trains here actually sell out, even if you're willing to stand.  As there wasn't another train to Florence until noon, we walked over to the bus station to find out if there was another way of getting there.  We took a number, deli-style, but by the time the one bus to Florence was about to leave, the window was still about ten numbers behind.  While we waited, we met an older woman from California who's spending the month taking courses in Italy, just like us.  Liz thinks that she might have been her third-grade teacher, but she was too embarrassed to ask.  Anyway, we decided to just buy our tickets on the bus, but for some reason the bus to Florence was the only one on the departures board without a gate number.  We found the capostazione, who informed us that we had been waiting at the wrong window.  The right window, which of course had no line, was where we found out that our bus was still en route from France, and that there was no telling when it would get here.  Knowing Italy as well as we do by now, we understood that we would not be taking a bus to Florence that day.

So, we returned to the train station, but by this point the noon train to Florence had also sold out.  But, there was a train to Verona that would be leaving in a few minutes!  Since we haven't been to many places in Italy and didn't want to return to Forni in defeat, we quickly bought the tickets, validated them, and sprinted to track #3.  Unfortunately, the track was leaving from #3 West, which was nowhere near regular #3, and we missed that train, too.  According to the posted schedule, there wouldn't be another train to Verona for hours.  We went over to customer service to try and exchange our tickets (we would have been able to save them for another day if we hadn't already validated them), where we were informed that there actually would be another train in an hour.  So, we picnicked at the station instead of in a Florence garden, as we had planned, and, two and a half hours later, made it to what was basically Shakespeare Disneyland.

Seriously, Verona owes Shakespeare for all the publicity; their entire tourist industry is based off of his fictional star-crossed lovers.

"Romeo and Juliet's Kisses" were the specialty at this cafè

For ten euros (which we'll get reimbursed for from our program, since Verona's sights count as "cultural activities") we each purchased a "Verona Pass," which granted us admission to almost all of the city's attractions--just like Disney!  There were the standard churches and stadiums, but the main attraction was La Casa di Giulietta, the house of Juliet Capulet.

You're probably thinking: "Wait.  Juliet is a fictional character.  Why would anyone pay a 6 euros admission fee to see what, in that case, is just a house?" Well, admission was included on our Verona Cards, and it did seem like a very nice house.  Plus, a helpful sign informed us that, "While no documentation exists proving that Juliet Capulet actually existed and lived in this house, no documentation exists to disprove it, either." There's also no existing proof that rubbing the right breast of the Juliet statue in the courtyard won't bring you good fortune in love, but you'd better believe we decided to go along with that as well.

Firm!

Juliet's a bit like Santa Claus, in that people like to write her letters

Juliet's balcony

We didn't make it to Juliet's tomb (also fake, of course) before it closed, but we did find the time to experience some actual history.  My favorite part of the day was climbing the bell tower in the middle of the city.

The view from the top was incredible.

Being directly under the bells at the strike of the hour was not so incredible.

There were some really amazing churches

Throughout the day, we started to suspect more and more that something unusual was happening in Verona.

The Swiss flags were our first clue.

This, too, aroused our suspicions.

Turns out, the Swiss had invaded, and were holding some sort of expo.

The costumed participants wandering around made the similarities to Disney even stronger, and they certainly added a fun element to all of the tourist sites.

Sarah had gone back early because she had plans with her roommate, but Liz, Gina and I stayed long enough to grab dinner in town.  We sat down to eat two hours before our train back to Bologna was supposed to leave, and figured that we'd have plenty of time.  Turns out, we'd become more accustomed to the Italian lifestyle than we'd thought, and as we finally left the restaurant to make our way over to the train station, we realized that it was 8:45...and our train was leaving at 9:06.  We sprinted, tried in vain to hail a cab, sprinted some more, hopped on a bus, validated our tickets, and sprinted to our train (which was leaving, of course, from the furthest track), and missed it.  The next one didn't leave until 11:35.  We considered ordering martinis at the station's McDonald's, decided that would be too pathetic, and instead headed back into town to try and kill two hours.  By this time, Verona no longer held any charm for us.  Liz elegantly summed up our feelings as thus: "It's no wonder Romeo and Juliet killed themselves."

We were extra-careful to arrive very early for the next train, since that was our last chance to get home for the night.  We were exhausted, but afraid to fall asleep, since the train's final destination was Lecce, and the last thing we wanted to do was end up back there.  We ended up chatting the entire time with the other people in our compartment: a married couple that had just dropped their 20-year-old son off at college and an older woman who told us all about how, instead of going to college, she had worked in a factory.  She taught us a new hand gesture (hand gestures are an integral part of the Italian language) in which you indicate the different sizes of your fingers to signify that not everyone is equal, and reminded us to thank our parents for paying for us to be in Italy (thanks, guys!).  She also pointed out that, despite having spent three weeks at the beach, we were all bianca come una mozzarella (as white as mozzarella)- a very typical Italian expression that I'd heard of, but was excited to hear actually used in conversation.

Long story short: We made it back safe and sound, slept very late Sunday morning, and are going to spend a lot more time planning the next time we try for Florence.

Alcune fotografie

Me with Berina, la mia compagna di stanza (roommate)

 

New friends

Tower at the center of the city

This is how we work off the gelato

The view from the top

La nostra bella città

Doppiato

Sore throat's gone, coffee maker's been replaced, and last night Liz, Lizzie and I took a break from the constant war movies we watch in class to go see a comedy at the local cinema.  So yeah, things are going well.

"Leaves of Grass" originally- not a direct translation

The movie itself was decent, and although it was dubbed in Italian, the voices weren't as annoying as they are on Italian television (where everyone sounds like a cartoon character).  I was surprised by how much I was able to understand, since in class we usually watch films with Italian subtitles to help us keep up with rapid conversation.  There were times where I definitely missed the joke, but often I found myself laughing along with everyone else in the theater.  Hopefully, soon some actual Italian movies will open there, and people's lips will actually match up with what they're saying...but at least this was good practice for situations like the one I found myself in the other night, when my suite-mate tried to talk to me while eating.

It's nice to know that my understanding of Italian has progressed further that I'd thought, but I think I'm going to catch a plane to London when this opens:

Gelato

Do I talk too much about gelato?  Maybe, but the only other things I can think to post about right now are 1) how I accidentally melted my suite-mate's coffee maker, 2) the sore throat that almost everyone on the program is suffering from, 3) the trip we took Saturday to Monte Sole, site of a horrific WWII massacre of women and children, where we were shown around by one of the few survivors, 4) the film we watched this morning that dramatized said massacre.

So gelato it is!

Today Speranza came into class with that by now unmistakable look of someone who has just had some amazing gelato.  She was really excited about the fact that she had finally had the experience of finding the best gelato in Italy (similar to the experience I had at Gelatauro).  Of course, we were all really eager to find out where she had been, and when she was finally able to pull herself together, she told us: Grom. 

I've passed Grom; it's a bit far from Forni, but definitely within walking distance. 

But you know where else Grom is?  Practically across the street from the NYU dorm I lived in this summer.

(note the sign for Bleecker street)

I felt kind of bad for having to break the news that the best gelato in Italy is also in New York.  But then again, maybe it's not.  Grandma Sandy's always telling me that she has all the food I blog about right in Boca, but is it really the same?  Speranza took solace in the fact the ingredients here are different, that this is the original, and I say that a huge part of eating gelato is the experience- when it's what would be considered dinner time in the US and everyone around you on the street is instead enjoying gelato with you, it just tastes better. 

I don't know if it's the same thing, but I've had a lot of Greek salads back home, and I don't think the tomatoes there were even the same species as the ones I had in Corfu.  I'll have to try Grom back in NY to compare gelati, but the other day, we met a couple from California that's currently on the last leg of a trip around the world that began last January (they saved up for ten years then quit their jobs).  Out of the 95 places where they'd stayed so far, we asked them where the best food had been.  They had the same answer I had come up with after covering only a tiny fraction of the globe.  Anyone still not convinced that they need to go to Greece?

Domenica Pomeriggio

A room with a view

Un'esplorazione della città

I've been in Bologna for a week now--time to get acquainted with the city!

Many of the wide sidewalks here are covered by portici, which really come in handy with the amount of rain we get (although you still need an umbrella for crossing the street).  They're great for strolling, and since Bologna isn't a very touristy city the window shopping is incredible--I've seen more handmade leather shoe stores than souvenir shops here.

There are also open piazzas with statues and fountains and stuff.  Pretty.

Neptune

The other day, I found out that there are also canals here!  I'm taking an art history course where we spend a few hours each day walking around the city, and our professor pointed out some brass rings attached to buildings and asked us what we thought they were for.  We all assumed they were probably for horses, but it turns out they were for boats--the street we were on was paved over a canal about 50 years ago.  So now most of the water is underground, but there are some places where you can still see it- my personal favorite is a window-sized hole cut into a wall through which you can see one of these alleys:

Saturday, we had a tour of the city's main attractions, including the Basilica di San Patronio.  Aside from being gorgeous, it had some really cool science-y features, including a pendulum and a meridian line that functions as a sundial.  I was surprised to learn that one of the murals, which depicts Dante's Inferno, includes an image of the Prophet Mohammad--it's too precious to censor, but the area is tightly controlled (even more so since we were there on 9/11).

Basilica di San Patrono

There's no subway system here (although I feel like if they tried, they could do something really cool involving little underground boats), but the buses are manageable if don't mind being really late to wherever you're going.  You buy tickets for 1 euro either at a tabaccheria or on the bus, and then validate it once you board the bus.  It's really easy to just not validate your ticket and ride for free, but if you do happen to get caught there's a 50 euro fine.  If the bus is really crowded (which it tends to be) your odds are pretty good, and some people just ride with the attitude that it's better to get fined occasionally than to bother with tickets.  Since I'm not here for too long, though, I've decided to cough up my share (at least most of the time). 

And, as requested, there's the food.  The other day, I finally found what I can safely claim is the best gelato in Italy, and it's right around the corner from my dorm! Now, every time I walk to and from class, I have to pass it and wish that I was eating zucca e cannella (pumpkin and cinnamon) with caffè (made with real espresso).  

Seriously incredible gelato here.

My favorite pasticceria is called Antica Bologna, and it's also on my way to class. After a particularly tough day of school, I can look forward to a bite-sized pastry for less than a euro to get me through the afternoon, and their selection is so big that I'll probably never try the same thing twice. 

Even though Starbucks named all of its drinks in Italian, it hasn't caught on here.  Italian's don't take their coffee to go because they mostly drink espresso, which takes, at most, three sips to finish.  So, when you need a quick caffeine fix, you order at a bar and drink your caffè standing up.  At home, we make our espresso on the stove in little percolators.  I don't think I even have to say that the coffee here is incredible, but in case you're not sure: it is.

Ours aren't quite as clean and shiny.

Contrary to popular belief, you can get slices of pizza to go here (usually they're Sicilian style), but the best place to get a cheap eat is at Pizza Casa, right around the corner from class.  For 2.50 euros you can get a margherita pie (enough to feed two) made fresh to order, and there are tons of different toppings and combinations, which don't get much more expensive.  The other night, three of us ate dinner for a total of 10 euros.  And we had leftovers.  And we got free tote bags. 

"Per una fame di lupi..."

Tomorrow morning, I have to deal with Italian bureaucracy for my third and final time, and then I'll finally be set to stay here til the end of December.  I think it's going to be a very good three months.

Festeggiamo!

Just as I expected, Bologna, being a big city, is a lot more happening than Lecce.  Tonight I was stuck in my room eating nutella and studying for an exam (after only 3 days of classes!), but this weekend I got to experience a few different sides of Italian night and social life (that's a nice way of saying there were a lot of parties).

I have to give a lot of credit to the girls of Forni for really taking us under their wings and inviting us to tag along with them when they go out.  I feel a bit useless socially--it's the opposite of working at Time Out and always knowing what cool things were happening, and I haven't quite acquired enough Italian to be a witty conversationalist.  Also, there's no way I would have been able to navigate the bus system alone; that too is going to take some getting used to. 

Friday night, Liz's suite mate invited her, Sarah, and I to attend a concert along with a group of her friends.  It was part of a festival taking place in the periferia of the city, and was free aside from a suggested donation to Unicef.  Fiorella Mannoia is apparently a very famous Italian cantautrice (singer/songwriter), but her music wasn't quite my style.  I will, however, give her credit for being a very good enunciator, and I was actually able to understand a lot of her lyrics.  I've had this song stuck in my head for days now:



Saturday night, a bunch of us went to a party for Erasmus students (the main exchange program at UniBo).  It was at a discoteca and was basically just like home--sorry Zack, but it looks like kids from all over the world like dancing to the Black Eyed Peas.  I'm beginning to understand why, back at Wes, there were so many groups and activities aimed specifically at international students; in some ways, it's easier to bond with people from other countries than with the Italians, if only because we're all in the same place here, trying to learn the language and fit in.  It's nice having a mix of both in my dorm--Italians who can show me the ropes and other exchange students who can sympathize when things get frustrating. 

Sunday, Sarah's roommate, who's from Cameroon, invited Sarah, Liz and I to a surprise birthday party for one of her friends (I guess the surprise was that she didn't know some of her guests?) in another dorm.  Most of the people at the party were from Cameroon as well, and we learned some African dance moves while enjoying homemade fried plantains, kebabs, beignets, and other really delicious foods (since we were in Italy, there was a gelato cake for dessert).  Here, I became one step further removed from having any idea what was going on, since everyone primarily spoke French.  It was pretty embarrassing to have to ask people to repeat themselves in Italian, and then still not be completely able to understand them, but it definitely put things in perspective; when I got back I was relieved to only hear Italian in my dorm.  Liz and Sarah have both taken some French (Liz is majoring in French as well as Italian) but I don't know if that made things more or less confusing. We sang "Happy Birthday" in all three languages and returned to Forni exhausted, just in time to get some rest before class the next day.

Tutto è Greco a me

On a much lighter note, last week I was in Greece!!

I'm going to borrow a lot of Liz's photos (she decided "Eli," although more Italian, wasn't for her) since they're much better than mine.

We arrived at the island of Corfu via ferry.  We met a big Italian family on the boat who were from Lecce and on their way to a wedding.  One of them was a UniBo alumnus and was really excited that we were attending his old school.  Apparently, he's also a master of traditional Greek dance, and he gave us a small demonstration.  He invited us to one of the pre-wedding parties, where we could all learn the dance too, but then he never called :(.  While we talked, other members of the family kept taking pictures of us, so we took some of them.  We all pretended it wasn't awkward.  It was probably easier for them, since there's no direct translation in Italian for "awkward."

I believe that's Albania.

When we arrived, we were greeted by our travel agent, Anna, who's lived in Corfu for her entire life, except for one year when--small world--she lived with a host family about 5 minutes away from Buffalo, where Sarah lives.  She gave us lots of helpful advice (for example: if you see forest fires, go in the other direction) and then dropped us off at our first hotel.  Feeling a bit anxious, we calmed our nerves with a delicious Greek dinner.  We all shared tzatziki (yogurt sauce, although with normal restaurant bread instead of pita) and I had a plate of roasted vegetables.  Our waiter brought us all red wine "from the house" and we weren't sure if he meant house wine or free wine until we saw the check (it was free).  He also brought us ouzo, the traditional after-dinner spirit, to "help with digestion."  It tasted like black licorice, and I can't say it was the best thing I've ever tasted, but it also was from the house, so no complaints here.

The next morning, after a hotel breakfast, Anna's husband Kristos picked us up and brought us to the start of where we'd be hiking.  He also took a lot of our stuff to hold onto for us, since we had realized how hard it would be to carry everything around all day.  Days later, we would realize how hard it would be to wear the same smelly sweater all day, but at the time it seemed like a good idea.  Anyway, he drove us to a road that seemed to be in the middle of nowhere, pointed out the yellow marks that we'd be following, along with a more detailed description of the trail that we'd printed out, and left us there.  We were off!

Every once in a while, there'd be a helpful sign

But they weren't always easy to spot...

After about five minutes, we were already lost.  Then we figured out where we'd gone wrong, backtracked, made some more progress and...got lost again.  This is pretty much how it went for the next three days.  Hilary, who wrote the guide, didn't quite see things the same way we did.  Also, those helpful yellow marks had a tendency to disappear just when we needed them the most.  Since we had nothing but time, however, the situation was never too desperate. 

We would always be ridiculously excited to find out we were going the right way.

Here are some of the things that we saw our first day on the road, in no particular order:

A donkey!

Scenic views!

Olive groves!

The Folkloric Museum!

That fun-looking stool to the left was used for giving birth.

A bridge!

Charming villages!

We stopped for lunch in a small village where we shared more tzatziki and each had our own Greek salad.  They were so fresh and delicious, and also huge, and none of us were able to finish.

By the end of the day, it had started to rain a bit, but we were hot and sweaty so we didn't mind it much.  When we finally got to the night's lodging, a small tavern with rooms upstairs, we were greeted warmly by the proprietor and shown to our room, where we changed into clean, dry clothes. This was the first and last time we'd be able to do this, but at the time we didn't know to savor the moment.  Later, we'd look back on it fondly.  For dinner, we shared red wine and fried zucchini, and I had vegetarian Moussaka.  No ouzo on the house this time, but we were brought a free plate of fresh watermelon.  It was raining pretty hard by this point, so we found a bar with some good music playing and camped out there for a bit before bed. 

The next morning, we woke up to a huge rainstorm.  Reluctantly, we dressed warmly and headed downstairs for breakfast.  This was definitely the best of the four that we had at our different hotels--the waitress brought us coffee, juice, omelettes, toast with jam, croissants, and slices of meat and cheese. Things got even better when Kristos showed up to inform us that the weather was too dangerous for hiking, and that instead he'd be driving us to our next hotel.  Since we didn't want to sit around there all day, we asked him to bring us to the main town, Kerkyra, and he was happy to do so.  He even stopped at the bus station to show us how to get back at the end of the day.  We were really happy to have him helping us.

Kerkyra was very touristy, but a good place to spend a rainy day.  We walked around, visited a fortress, and did some light shopping.  Apparently, Corfu is a hot destination for Germans.

The view from the fortress.

Unfortunately, the Germans were also here during World War II.

Around 4, we took a bus to the town we were staying in, and it took us about an hour to walk from the bus stop to our hotel, so all in all we still had a pretty active day.  Dinner feature spinach pies, wine, and more tzatziki, with more after-dinner drinks on the house.  Greek hospitality is truly something to be admired. 

The next morning, we woke up to a Corfu miracle!  The sun was shining and it was a perfect day to get back on the trail.  This time, there was a lot more off-roading-we climbed a mountain, fought our way through thick undergrowth, and more!  Lunch (more tzatziki and Greek salad) was particularly rewarding, as the nice Greek lady who served us kept telling us how proud she was of us. We also got to stop and see Bella Vista, "The Best View in Europe."  It almost made up for the fact that we didn't end up hiking the day before, meaning that we didn't get to pass "The Most Beautiful Beach in Europe (now taken over by nudists)."

Blue skies!

Belle Viste!

Old Buildings!

We were actually going the wrong way here, but it was a nice detour.

Don't worry, this didn't happen!

Our hike ended with a footpath that lead down a cliff to a beach resort.

Our last dinner wasn't our favorite, even with more ouzo on the house--I ordered baked feta and then spent the rest of the meal trying to recover from how spicy it was. Afterwards, we met some Albanians who were dancing to traditional Greek music.  We joined in, and things got even more like how we'd imagined them to be when the music switched over to Abba.  It was a pretty great day. 

Kristos picked us up the next morning and brought us to the ferry port.  We took a short ferry to the mainland, and then a 16-hour, overnight boat back to Italy.  We thought it would be fun and romantic to buy deck seats, which were also the cheapest.  We ended up sleeping in a stairwell so....next time we'll at least spring for seats. 

We docked in Ancona, rushed to the train station, and two hours later arrived in Bologna.  Long story short, Greece is amazing, and everyone should go.