Easter: Week of Miracles

Not the least of which was the fact that I don't think I failed my accounting test. But I'll get to that part.

I left off last week's update in great anticipation of our little group dinner that was happening the next night, and I was not disappointed. We ended up being in a group of nine, basically all the students from our course that were left in town before Easter when everyone would be at home. Bologna is infamous for being a ghost town around holidays and during the summer, when the population drops by about 90,000 as all the students go back to their hometowns. So, the nine of us met up in Piazza Santo Stefano, where the 'Sette Chiese' (Seven Churches) are located. It's basically a group of seven churches (fancy that) which were all built in this relatively small plot of land so that they were actually joined with passages between them, and bits of one church overlapping bits of another. The restaurant we were heading to was, appropriately enough, 'Osteria Sette Chiese'. Restaurant would probably not be the best description for what it is - osteria translates better as 'tavern' in English, and it certainly looked the part. Dark inside, a little cramped, and long wooden benches and tables set the mood. At first I was a little disappointed because they did not offer the Bolognese staples I was looking forward to trying - tortellini, lasagna, and tagliatelle al ragu, all of which were born in Bologna. But here, the tortellini is never served in red sauce or with cream - only in brodo (broth); likewise, if you've ever had 'spaghetti bolognese', or spaghetti with meat sauce, the 'bolognese' part of the name refers to the al ragu style which was invented here - but it's usually served with tagliatelle, and no self-respecting Italian would be caught eating it with spaghetti! But none of those items were on the menu; instead, all of us opted for sharing huge platters of bresaola and prosciutto (cured, sliced meats - another Italian specialty). The bresaola arrived on top of a bed of arugula, and topped with shaved parmesan cheese. The prosciutto was served along side melted scamorza cheese (kinda like mozzarella). We also had heaping baskets of piadina (flatbread) and tigelle, a regional specialty of dense bread that's risen just a little. As an appetizer, they brought out some trays of crostini (similar to bruschetta) topped with lots of different things like sausage, brie and walnuts, tomatoes and garlic, pizza-style, and even liver-pate`. We also went through about five carafes of wine during the dinner, which always helps. For dessert there were a few different options, and I went with vin santo - a type of sweet dessert wine served with sweet little biscotti-type cookies which are used to soak up the wine. It's like oreos and milk for adults! After all that, they even brought out a couple bottles of Italian liquers and just plopped them down on the table for us to enjoy, which we of course proceeded to drain empty. Overall it was a rousing success, and we all went home sufficiently stuffed and contented. Here are some photos from the osteria's website so that you can all be thoroughly jealous:

The interior of the tavern:

Big baskets of piadine and tigelle:

The platters we got were considerably bigger than this. You can see the meat covered in grated parmesan cheese, and also some varieties of the crostini:

Little did I know this would just be the beginning of my culinary adventures for the holiday weekend.

Our communal dinner was on Thursday night, and Friday and Saturday came and went without much to note; our nine-strong group dwindled even further as others went home for Easter, and everyone was stuck with their nose in a book for our big accounting exam on the coming Wednesday. I didn't have any real plans for Easter, but as luck would have it I was graciously invited over for lunch at a friend's place with his family. I was really excited for it, because a) his grandmother was doing all of the cooking and b) he's Bolognese Bolognese, aka born and raised here in Bologna, which means his grandmother would be making tortellini! 

I went over to his grandmother's place around 1pm, a nice little apartment in a quiet part of town not far from the university quarter. I was worried I'd be an imposition on their holiday, but I think his family genuinely enjoyed hosting an Americano for a traditional Easter meal. His grandmother was certainly excited to be dishing me up my first real taste of true tortellini, Bolognese style. I was nervous myself at first too, not wanting to be an imposition, but I really had fun chatting with them in Italian, and they were curious to ask about life in the States. First thing's first of course, so out came a Martini bottle for a little aperitif before the meal. We also had some homemade wine from the dad's cousin to go along with the meal. And what a meal it was! First came the tortellini in brodo. Not only did the grandma make the tortellini by hand (traditional with meat, cheese, and a little nutmeg), but also the broth was homemade too - stewed with meats and veggies for who knows how long, like only an Italian grandma can. Next came two big platters of meat: lamb, lightly breaded and fried, and stewed beef cooked to that perfect melt-in-your-mouth goodness. Some salad was there too, but that was just a minor delay on the path to desert. The traditional Easter cake is a sweet bread in the shape of a dove, called colomba, filled with candied fruit bits and lightly topped with icing and almonds. There was also a big chocolate Easter egg, which was summarily broken and devoured, and some sweet Sicilian-style marzipan cookies with various toppings - chocolate, cherries, pistachio, etc. It was all followed up by some lambrusco, a mildly-sweet and bubbly red wine, and another sweet dessert wine.  I don't think I've eaten that much food since the day I stepped off the plane here in Bologna! It was immensely enjoyable, and I'm really glad my friend extended the invite to me. After that, I felt like having a walk to center to see if there was anything going on, and of course to settle the contents my now bursting stomach. My friend came with, and we just walked around the city center area for a bit. We ended up passing the city archeological museum, which had free entrance for the day, so we decided to give it a look. There was a nice exhibit of Egyptian artifacts going on, complete with mummified cats, alligators, and people. There was a little interior courtyard of the museum that was completely empty except for some benches here and there, and a few little jars in Egyptian style, just sitting in a corner. We pondered about the curious presence of the jars, as they didn't seem to be part of any display, and certainly they couldn't be actual artifacts sitting out on the ground, unsupervised in the vacant courtyard, and exposed to the now gently raining atmosphere. We figured them to be reproductions, and joked about how easy it would be to swipe them if they were real. As we browsed the rest of the collection, we passed an attendant and my buddy asked about the jars, as we were still curious about what they were for. Well, it turns out, they were in fact actual 3000 year old Egyptian artifacts, and they  are used in the courtyard for demonstrations during visits by school groups. We were both astounded, and half-tempted to carry out a little larceny, but now the museum attendants knew that we knew their secret, so we decided to leave well-enough alone. And to think I had almost picked up one of the jars earlier because it was inconceivable someone would leave something like that out, unattended! Well, if anyone wants to come visit me soon, at least I know where we can go manhandle some artifacts that were already ancient when Caesar was still walking the planet (Al, I'm looking in your direction). After the museum, we walked around a bit more, but the rain really started coming down so we headed back to our respective homes. I spent the rest  of the night studying and watching Eurotrip, one of my favorite movies, which is all the more funny after having lived in Europe.

Monday and Tuesday where basically just a blur of current assets, bonds payable, accrued interest, and amortization schedules. I was really nervous going into the test Wednesday because even with all the hours I put into studying, I still didn't have a firm grasp of what the hell we were doing in that class. Luckily, out of all the potential questions he put on the test from the study guide, he picked the few for which I was halfway confident in my knowledge. But of course I managed to screw up the easiest part of the test. The whole thing was five pages of questions and data sheets, some of which were fill-in-the-blank places for balance sheets, income statements, etc, and we only had an hour and ten minutes to do the test. Of course the test proctor had to be a bastard and started calling out the time left every five minutes after we were down to the twenty minute mark, which had the effect of exponentially increasing my anxiety every, oh, five minutes or so. Well, up to that point I had been concentrating on the main problem, which was journalizing transactions and filling in the blanks for the financial statements. I was almost done so when he called out the twenty minute mark, I decided to focus on the other problems which would take some time, and finish off the rest of the main question after. Well it took a little more time to do the other questions than I expected, and when I finished with about 30 seconds left for the exam, I breathed a sigh of relief. So the proctor called time, and we all put our pens down and turned over the exams... only for me to realize I hadn't looked at the back of the last page of the exam, where the Cash Flow statement was hiding, forgotten about, and was now staring back at me empty and incomplete.

DOH.

It probably would have taken, oh, *30 SECONDS* to finish that last part - hopefully that factors into its weight for the test points, but I think the rest of the exam went well enough that I won't have to worry about it.  At least that is what I'm telling myself to be able to fall asleep at night. Of course after the exam we all ran outside towards the freedom of a sunny day in the park accompanied by cheap beers, discussing the test the whole way, and my answers seemed to be in line with the general consensus so I was happy. We spent the entire rest of the afternoon in the Giardini Margheriti, the big public park to the south of the city. You may remember it from a post way-back-when, after I had just barely arrived. Yeah, it's been that long since there was a decent enough day in Bologna that we could all get together and enjoy the sunshine. Sitting, talking, enjoying some beers and the spring sun - this is why I came to Italy! People were out in full force, and the place was pretty packed. We had enough room on our little grassy claim to play schiacciasette, a ball game that could be translated as "seven smash", wherein you hit a volleyball (or something similar) around a circle, trying to get six consecutive hits, and then on the seventh you try to smash the ball towards your friends and get them out. Sounds pretty simple, but add some beers and a bunch of brain-fried accounting students and you'd be surprised. Anyways, it ended up being a pretty good day and a nice way to blow off some steam after the test, but now it's back to the old grindstone already. Today we spent the afternoon working on a group project that is due for the accounting class at the end of the week, and classes will start up again on Monday. It'll probably be another studious weekend, but at least with everyone back in town there is a slightly increased chance of something crazy happening. Until then, addio!