Tuesday, November 23, 2010

American Invasion, Part Eleven

0 comments
The long, hot days were becoming exercises in finding things to keep myself occupied. I wandered the city, went for long walks, continued to do English conversation for money, and caught up on quite a few TV shows from back home which I had been missing. I also continued working on the infernal statistics project with my groupmates, which kept me busy but unfortunately was the opposite of fun. What was cool was the continued showing of films in the main piazza. During one week a bunch of Coen brothers films were shown, so one night I went to go see Fargo. It's a great movie, dark of course, but with lots of laughs - but not as much fun as trying to explain South Dakotan accents and rural small town life to my Ukrainian colleague I was watching the film with. The following night I was even more excited to go see one of my favorites, The Big Lebowski. A few of us went together, but it was so packed in the piazza we couldn't find space to sit, not even on the ground - a testament to the universal awesomeness of the film. So we ended up standing through the whole thing, which was a pain (literally - it's a long film), but totally worth it. 

Some days after that, I had a nice little adventure here in Bologna. A young cousin of Randy and her friends were travelling Europe after graduating from college, and they were spending a day here, so I met them upon their arrival to give them my patented tour around town. The three of them were super nice and I enjoyed spending even more time with Americans. Unfortunately they were staying at a hotel in a suburb of town where there isn't any late night transportation, so I couldn't show them any of Bologna's night life; but I did take them to the awesome greasy food place which sells what is basically a hot dog and french fries wrapped together in fry bread. Mmmm!

Another week passed by without much of anything to note; more English practice, wandering, and sweating like a pig inside my un-airconditioned apartment. A few students were in town because at the end of July there was a second attempt for a test going on, but I wasn't taking it so I didn't have to worry. But of course I would be willing to partake in any post-test shenanigans, so I told them to let me know when they were done. The call came promptly after the test, so I made my way towards the city center. When I met up with Luca and Saar, they were carrying a giant bucket of paint. This was unexpected, to say the least. It turns out Luca was having to leave his place and find another one for the coming school year, and most rental agreements in Italy stipulate the leaving lessee has to repaint the house before departing. So the post-exam party plans were getting a bunch of beers, paint, and cleaning supplies, and making the place spic and span before the expiration of the lease. We had a little crew of about four or five people, taking turns cleaning, scrubbing, moving furniture, and painting. It was actually pretty fun, especially as we dipped deeper into the beer supplies. We took a pause at the aperitivo hour to go get some food, then headed back to it with even more gusto for a late night surge of drinking and painting. The results were painfully obvious the next day when we gathered again for more painting and cleaning; there was a distinct difference in workmanship between the beer-only side of the room that got painted, and the side that was painted after the bottle of rum showed up to the party. But no matter! It was all fixable. We continued painting and cleaning the whole day, and Luca, the naturally talented chef, made some awesome dinner to thank us - some tortellini in cream sauce, and chicken and potatoes. I am pretty much a sucker for any kind of free food and I think Luca knows it, so I ended up coming back again for a third day of painting on the promise of more quality grub - and to help out a friend, of course! Among the many things Luca cooked up was one notable dish, which wasn't cooked at all, actually. Carpaccio is a kind of thinly sliced meat, kind of like a filet in 1/16" slices, and served raw with just a little olive oil, lemon juice, and salt. It sounds kind of weird, but believe me, it's good. Fittingly enough, we rounded off the evening's work by relaxing and watching a movie called Delicatessen - a French film set in an alternate apocalyptic future where some residents in an apartment building owned by an evil butcher are slowly culled to provide meat for the others. Think Luca was trying to tell me something?

The next day, with our work mostly done, we decided to celebrate by going to the beach resort town Rimini. Birgit, one of our classmates, was working there over the summer as a bartender in a hostel, which is of course a good hookup to have. Rimini isn't far from Bologna, and the train service is pretty frequent, so Luca and I set off without much of a plan. We met up with Birgit at her hostel, and hung out there even though we weren't renting any beds. It was the last Saturday in July so the place was pretty busy, and we met a lot of interesting folks while sitting around at the hostel bar. Birgit was being pretty generous to us, so the memories of the night come back a bit few and far between. We managed to meet some girls from Mexico and followed them to a crazy three or four story club, which was probably fun but I'd be lying if I said I could remember all of it. My next clear memory clocks in at about 4am, when Luca and I wandered towards the beach to sleep for free in the warm summer air. We stopped in a public park right next to the beach, and since we were both struggling we decided we needed something to eat. I managed to find a place that was open all night and made pizzas, so I bought one and headed back to the park only to find Luca already passed out. So me being a good friend, I ate the whole damn pizza myself and passed out under a nearby tree. We awoke bright and early the next day to the magical sight of two local police officers who were not particularly amused at us spending the evening on park benches. They weren't too concerned though, and just wanted us to shuffle off, so we headed back towards the hostel and met with Birgit for a bit of breakfast, and post-breakfast gelato (of course). The gelato was great, mostly because I woke up with the worst pizza-mouth ever - go figure! We spent the major part of the day lounging around at the beach. I think Luca and Birgit managed to go in the water, but I spent the entire day in the sand sleeping off the previous night. Afterwards we went back to Birgit's hostel for a bit and played some pool, but by the late afternoon we had to get going back to Bologna.


August began, and then the city became REALLY dead. August is the traditional vacation month for Italy, and even some major corporations shut down for the entire month so people can go off to the beach or the mountains with their families. Populations in beach towns and Alpine villages swell as Italians empty out of the cities, while the main tourist destinations like Rome and Venice become overrun with foreigners. Bologna, however... Bologna empties out. Completely. The city was dead, the shops were closed, and the streets resembled a ghost town. Everywhere I went, shops had signs in their windows that said 'Closed August 7-21' or 'Closed until September 3' - that kind of thing. Almost all the students from our program had taken off for home, but a handful still remained. We ended up having to import people to hang out with. Our Russian colleague had three friends from Moscow visiting her, so we all went out one night for an aperitivo and something to drink. It was nice to hang out in the piazza with a bottle of wine or a beer - though the days were sweltering and the heat was inescapable, the nights were actually pretty nice, as long as they were spent outdoors where there was a merciful breeze. We played a really fun little game where we each wrote down the name of a historical figure on a piece of paper and passed it to the person next to us, who then stuck the paper on their forehead so the others could see but didn't know themselves what was written. They then had to ask a series of questions to guess the name. As you can imagine, it got pretty rowdy, especially with so many different cultures and nationalities represented amongst our little group - Russians, American, Dutch, Argentinian, Italian. My favorite moment was when we told Diego, the Argentinian, that Alexander the Great was the person on his paper. "Who??" "Alexander the Great! The Greek guy!" "Ohhhh - ALEJANDRO EL MAGNIFICO!" That's kind of how it went all night.

The next evening was the very last night we spent at Luca's place. A small group of us decided to send it off with a bang, so we met there in the afternoon to finish the last of the cleaning and then went to a grocery store to get some food and drinks for the night. Saar brought over her Guitar Hero setup, so we passed the whole night battling both the game and sobriety. The drink of the night was an interesting Italian favorite - rum and pear juice. I think it's a bit of an acquired taste, but it's not bad.

A few nights later, I met up with Saar, who was one of the very few people I know in this hemisphere that was still in Bologna. She had some friends from back home in Holland visiting her, so I went over to hang out and eat some homemade pasta and ragu. Her friends were really nice, and we played quite a bit of Guitar Hero that night too. After plenty of rocking out and even more wine, we walked to Villa Serena (the big party palazzo with the outdoor setup for the summer), which was nearby her house, but even it had closed for the summer so we ended up going back home and playing more video games til the wee hours of the morning.

There are a few more adventures from the summer left to tell, plus the big updates I already wrote months ago from my travels in Europe - we're almost there! Thanks for your patience gentle readers, and stay tuned for more updates between my crazy school schedule!

Friday, November 12, 2010

American Invasion, Part Ten

0 comments
The weather in July was pretty hit and miss. Some days, it was unbearably hot and muggy; other days, we were granted a blissful reprieve by summer rainstorms. With not so much school stuff going on, I filled the days watching World Cup matches, walking around the city, reading, and doing English practice with my small base of clients. A lot of my colleagues had already gone back to their hometowns for the summer, but there were still a few of us left. As mid-July rolled around, the remaining students were about to take off for the summer, so we decided to have one last get together to put the exclamation point on the first year of our masters program.

We made reservations at a (relatively) fancy outdoor nightclub located on one of the hills just outside the city, but first we would meet up at Riccardo's place for some grub. I invited Jessica, my new American friend, to come along with us, so we met up beforehand. Along the way to Riccardo's, I just had to show her the amazingness of the flaming shot bar, so we got a few fun-filled shots there and proceeded to dinner. We made a huge collective pizza order, and all dined together in the giant banquet-hall-like room at Ric's place.




The club we were going to that night was pretty far away, and since we all planned on drinking we of course had to call some taxis. We opened up some bottles of wine while waiting for our chariots to arrive, and finally they showed up. It was a veritable fleet of taxi cabs, maybe five or six in total, there to carry us away. After a lengthy ride, we arrived at the place and more or less proceeded to party the night away.


It was a bittersweet send off for the end of the year; not only would we not be seeing many of our colleagues for another few months, but quite a few of them would be spending six months to a year studying at other universities all around the globe. We definitely made the most of the night. Though we were pretty well  organized for getting to the club (all those management classes, ya know), we unfortunately were significantly less organized for getting back home. It turns out you couldn't just go out and get a taxi since we were so far from the center, and there were quite a few adventures had by all in trying to return to the city. On the way out, Jessica and I were lucky enough to run into Saar and her boyfriend who had come to pick her up, and they graciously gave us a lift home. Some others weren't so lucky, and ended up walking all the way back to the city - probably a good 45 minute walk when sober, and they definitely were not. Tales of blisters, rolling down hills and falling into bushes circulated the following day, and the next time we all met up the battle scars were exhibited for all to see.

Clearly the day after was spent recuperating, but the day after that I took a little trip with Jessica. She wanted to see a nearby town, and I ended up going with her to Ravenna to show her around a bit and give her a very unprofessional tour. We went through all the cool old churches there and she got herself lots of nice pictures of the beautiful mosaics. I wanted to take her to the place where I ate the best piadina (a kind of sandwich) in the history of the world, but it was unfortunately closed that afternoon, so she would just have to lead the rest of her life deprived of such awesomeness. We spent the afternoon there, but she had to be back by the evening for something with her internship. She was leaving in a few days and we probably wouldn't have a chance to hang out again, so once we got back to Bologna we said goodbye, or rather 'arrivaderci'.

That same evening I went to Saar's place with some others from our class to watch the Netherlands play Spain in the World Cup final. There was homemade tagliatelle and ragu, and plenty of beer. We were all pulling for the Netherlands since Saar is Dutch, but unfortunately it was the Spaniards that came out victorious that evening. On the walk home through the city center, there were massive gatherings of all the Spaniards resident in Bologna, mostly students, roaming the streets, waving flags, making noise and celebrating. Even though our team lost, it was still fun to watch the goings-on. There are an awful lot of Spanish students here in Italy (and Italians in Spain, for that matter), and they definitely know how to party. We didn't join in the celebrations though; we just watched from afar.

I had a test coming up in a few days, so in the meantime I hit the books pretty hard. While there is no class activity at the University over the summer, there are usually (as in this case) additional rounds of tests for students who did not take them the first time around, or want to retake a test. That is one of the big differences between the US university system and the Italian one: students usually get three to five tries to take any given exam, during different parts of the year. Heck, you can even take an exam several years after the course it is associated with has ended. In my case, I didn't take this particular exam the first time around because it was when Alee and Ryan were here with me. I studied hard, did well, and afterwards we celebrated with a nice aperitivo, as is our usual tradition.

After that, things continued to wind down for the summer. The following weekend was really the last hurrah for any kind of big group activity for the summer. One of our classmates, Marika, was leaving to study in India for ten months so her friends put together a going-away party. We gathered up a bunch of food and drinks and headed outside the city to spend the evening in the fresher, cooler air of the hills. It was nice, but like the outing the week before, it was bittersweet to be saying longterm goodbyes to classmates which we had come to know over the last year.

Still to come gentle readers - more belated updates from the summer! Current classes have kept me super busy, but I'm ever so slowly getting there and hope to be caught up soon! Stay tuned.