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!
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!
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