Bologna!

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Halloween- We spent the weekend in Torino, and met a lot of people's friends who were in town for the weekend. Brad from Santa Barbara's friend Derek is studying in Barcelona, so he is going to take me around when I am in Madrid for thanksgiving! Free tour guide! And he speaks spanish and the specific Madrid dialect as well as I speak Italian. Everything was closed on Saturday, since it was All Saints Day and is nationally observed. We stayed in and watched movies in our pajamas, while it rained all day! I love to do that!


November 7-November 8-- That weekend, Jess, Carolyn, Tricia, Inhye and I hopped a 3 hour train to Bologna on Friday. For those of you who don't know, Bologna is famous for tortellini, lasagna, and Ragù sauce. So of course, we ate ourselves silly. When we got in, we found our hotel, which doubles as a day spa. Somehow, it was supercheap and yet was clean and spacious. I threw my stuff in Inhye & my room, and the others roomed in a triple. We headed off to the city to explore and eat- maps in one hand, strawberry/kiwi gelato in the other. It's the only way to walk around Italy.

We headed to a bunch of churches like Santo Pietro, and saw Neptune's Fountain. We walked our butts off and found a cafeteria, which at first glance, you would think would be crappy mass production food. Not true. They made everything to order, and just walked around with a tray-very inexpensive and delicious. This is a common thing in Bologna because of the large student population. Carolyn was taking a later train because she had class friday morning. As we waited for her train, we had a shady experience with some students on the steps in a dark park, but everything turned out okay. No worries. She got in, and we bought 3 pizzas and some coke and brought it back to our hotel. We ate it and watched csi in italian with subtitles. For those of you who watch, it was the one where Nick is buried alive and gets bitten by fireants! Very intense.

The next day we had a wonnnnderful breakfast buffet. It was so great, that the placemats even said "Breakfast of Champions" in Italian of course. With our bellies full, we grabbed our bags and headed out to explore once more before our train at 4pm. We looked in search of a sweatshirt for Jess' boyfriend whose fraternity was started in Bologna or something. No such luck. We stumbled through the university district. We then ate at a famous trattoria that had tortellini lasagna. 2 of the girls went up to a big tower and the rest of us went to an erboresteria(herbal store) to look at vitamins for one of them. It had really crazy, interesting things. We headed back to the train station, and Inhye and I enjoyed peanut butter on crackers and iced tea(este the!) on the ride back! We got in around 7pm and Carolyn, Jess, and I headed to Carolyn's house to watch Mission Impossible in English on her tv. It was good, and I haven't seen it in a while. Back when Tom Cruise was normal, or more normal than now atleast.

Sunday was once again laundry and homework day! I love lazy sundays so much here. Everything is closed except for the grocery stores, where the lines are ridiculous. I don't mean like how American lines are long. I am talking 30 people in ONE LINE for the checkout, and there are 5 other lanes open just as crowded. I am slowly learning patience.

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Comments

[Jojo]

Keep on traveling
So happy that you are going everywhre. When you are very old and rocking on the p[orch, you will be able to remember all the wonderfu advemntures you had. I do it all the time but I am not rocking, I'M rolling! Much love, Jojo