Of Tortellini, Giant Bubbles, and Magical Corridors - Bologna (Florence Week 7)

Monday, March 11th

Likely due to the exhaustion from the weekend prior, I woke up around 9:10 in the morning. Yup, that's right, I do in fact have a 9-AM class on Mondays, meaning I was officially late to class at a school with quite the strict attendance policy. Yikes. Besides the humiliation of showing up 30 minutes late, the rest of the class went fine. As we got more into our midterm projects, a feeling of dread began to knot itself up in my stomach at the increasing pressure and workload leading up to midterms next week. Most of my classes had projects and presentations instead of exams which were quite large and time-consuming, but at least I didn't have to study for hours wondering hopelessly if I was remotely prepared or not.

As always, statistics was a breeze which always lifts my spirits.

Tuesday, March 12th

Today I got to put my whole life on display for all of Instagram to see (AKA I took over the Office of Global Programs' Instagram for the day). Well, I guess that's kind of what I'm doing here, but it feels different and less mysterious when it's Instagram. Seeing as I work for the OGP, I felt pretty obligated to do the takeover since I spent 2 and a half years convincing other people to do it. Despite my dislike of Instagram, the fact that it wasn't my personal Instagram I would be posting helped me to dissociate.

I posted some videos of my walks to class, the grocery store, dinner, and other such routine activities. I also put up a poll and answered some questions about my experience abroad, so at least maybe some people will get glean some useful information from it.

Wednesday, March 13th

I love writing letters, postcards, and any old-fashioned sort of mail, so I decided to write some postcards to friends and family back home. With high hopes and spirits, I set off on my journey to find the post office and figure out the whole postcard-sending situation. Those hopes and spirits were soon moderately crushed as I soon found myself hopelessly confused in the imposing and overly fancy post office. There was some sort of ticket-taking system involving waiting for your number to be called and going up to one of the attendant people. All I wanted was to buy a stamp and drop off my postcards, and I didn't think it should be this complicated. Once I finally got up to the counter, I told the lady of my hopes and dreams, and she informed me that the postcard/stamp services were in a different room. Once in the correct room, I bought a stamp without too much difficulty, but the lady told me to drop some of them in the red box and some of them in the yellow box outside (cause some of them were going to the US and some were going elsewhere in Europe), but when I went outside to follow her instructions, I only found red boxes. Just my lucks. I decided just to dump them all in anyway and hope they made their way to the correct person.

Later in the afternoon, I met the rest of my fellow sketchbook classmates at La Specola (which I was told by the museum attendant guy that the name means tower and it was the first museum open to the common people - pretty cool!) to draw some statues, skeletons, and other such super fun things. We started our class in the skeleton hall, which as one might imagine, was full of skeletons of all sizes and shapes in glass cabinets. There were some pretty impressive ones like an elephant, a whale, and several terrifyingly giant skulls of which I have absolutely no desire to find out the animal they came from. I was a tad bit creeped out by the ominous feeling of death emanating from the skulls all around me, but I decided just to focus on the shapes and lines to draw. Our professor assigned us with the task of using white watercolor on brown paper, which ended up being much more of a challenge than I had initially expected. If I thought using regular watercolor was difficult, white watercolor was even more so, as it was the complete reverse process. Instead of placing pigments in shadows, you have to place the highlights, and the space you leave blank becomes the shadows. Needless to say, this technique likely won't be becoming my favorite any time soon, but to make myself feel better about the suffering I endured, I'm going to tell myself that it's developing my technical toolbelt as an artist.

The next room he led us to was full of disturbing wax models of naked people with their intestines spilling out, which I begrudgingly learned were made in the 1700s for scientific study purposes. I could barely stand to look at them. While there were some random organs for study, other wax figures were grotesque scenes resembling extremely overly gory battle fields. I escaped as fast as I could into a room that housed wax plants and flowers rather than creepy lifeless human figures.

We were informed that the museum was closing soon, so we moved through the next rooms quicker (which was unfortunate since they turned out to be my favorites). They were filled with all different kinds of insects (including some really pretty butterflies and beetles), taxidermized animals, and various shells and starfish. There was no time to sit and draw, so I snapped a boatload of pictures for later reference. When the museum staff finally pushed us out, we found some steps on which to sit and sketch. I quite enjoyed it now that I was away from the skeletons and creepy wax figures and was able to sketch some pretty butterflies and flowers in the sunlight.

Immediately at 6:40 (the supposed end of the class), I tried to run away to the LdM activity that was supposed to start at 6:45, but the professor grabbed me before I could get away. He gave me some useful tips for my drawings, which I really appreciated, but all I could think about was how fast I was going to have to walk to get there on time.

I arrived about 10 minutes late, trying (and likely failing) to hide how out of breath I was from speed-walking the whole way. In spite of my desperate attempt to arrive on time, the leader lady waited about 10 more minutes after I arrived before leading us to the cinema for our "Apericinema" experience. On the way over, I asked the rest of the crew what the movie was supposed to be, as the only thing I remembered about it was that it was something important to the history of Italy. Ginger replied that it was called Inglourious Basterds, which caused Kinley to begin freaking out, practically squealing, "NOOOO! Is that the movie my professor showed us a clip from where Brad Pitt was scalping the Nazis? Ginger, PLEASE tell me it's not that movie. No, no, no, I can't watch this. I'm not watching this. Why, of all things is this the movie they chose?!?". At this point, I started to get a little nervous. I have to say, the image of Brad Pitt scalping Nazis was the complete opposite of enticing to me.

We followed the activity leader through narrow streets for several minutes, until she finally turned into where we assumed the cinema was. As we all turned the corner after her, we all promptly stopped in our tracks at the giant sign hanging in the corridor which read "Welcome to Hell" in a script resembling blood. Well that took a dark turn. This activity was beginning to look worse and worse by the minute. I sucked in a breath and began hysterically laughing at the sheer unexpectedness of it, while the dread began to set in. 

Before I had time to truly start panicking, the LdM lady quickly turned around and began walking the other direction, mumbling something about taking a wrong turn. Phew, that was a close one.

When we arrived at the real cinema, I was awestruck by the unique atmosphere created by a combination of neon lights, gilded furniture, and a slightly overwhelming amount of greenery. This was a good sign; things were starting to look up. Maybe the movie wouldn't be so bad after all. That better be true, because that's what I told Kinley to get her to stay for at least the beginning. As we made our way through the labyrinth of corridors, someone in the crew started up a conversation with one of the LdM students nearby, which we soon learned was a Turkish film student named John. It was quite an interesting conversation; we learned all about his personal backstory in Turkey and how he came to be a film student. He assured us that while a little gory, it was a great movie, but I took it with a grain of salt, as my taste in movies doesn't always align with the fancy film guys.

Following the crowd, I found myself in an unconventional cinema room, which had a projector and rows of assorted couches, chairs, and end tables.

As we picked our seats, the LdM lady passed out boxes of buttery popcorn, decorated with the traditional red and white stripes. Not long after, a cinema staff member came to take our drink orders. As has become the tradition, I asked if they had milk, and was pleasantly surprised when he later showed up with a glorious glass of creamy goodness. This just keeps getting better.

We apparently arrived like 30 minutes early, so there was a bit of time to kill before the movie which I spent chatting with the other students and teaching Kinley to salsa to the festive song that kept playing over and over.

The lights turned off and we turned to the screen to see someone fiddling around on a computer screen. We watched in awe as the mysterious mouse clicked around, eventually opening Amazon Prime and renting the movie there. Well, that's a first, haha.

As the movie began, I was immediately skeptical of how this would go, as the characters were speaking in French. Minutes passed by, and I got excited when I finally saw subtitles appear, but my hope was soon dashed when I realized that the subtitles were in Italian. This was going to be interesting for sure. If I don't really understand what's happening, at least I'd get some good practice at reading Italian, right?

After what seemed like an eternity (the movie was nearly 3 hours long!) of watching the screen with an interesting mix of concentration, confusion, entertainment, and revulsion, I finally had a chance to reflect on what had just occurred. Throughout the movie, practically every 10 or so minutes, the characters switched languages. There were a few scenes that they spoke English (Pretty much only the scenes that included Brad Pitt. I've always liked Brad Pitt, but I developed a special affinity for him today, as I knew that whenever I saw him appear on screen, I would be able to actually understand what was happening.) but most of it was in French or German with Italian subtitles, which meant that I was frantically trying to speed-read Italian (since it was my best of the 3 languages thanks to Duolingo), while desperately attempting to pick up some context clues from the characters at the same time.

The movie was probably the most horrifying thing I've ever seen, but it was entertaining at times, and I'm quite proud of myself for understanding as much as I did. I was able to pick up the main plot on my own, with the help of a few whispered questions to Kinley when I got really confused (which usually went something like, "Wait why did that guy kill those people?"... "Ummm, I think because he is in league with that other guy who wants to get back at those other people?").

My favorite part was hick Brad Pitt trying and utterly failing to speak Italian for his disguise. I would say you should watch it just for the one scene, but honestly, it's not quite good enough to make up for the rest of the movie. Maybe just look up that clip on Youtube or something if you are thinking that you will just die if you don't witness this side of Brad Pitt with your own eyes.

Afterward, as we walked out of the theater and the shock began to wear off, we talked to the Turkish guy again who gave us some inside knowledge on the director. There was a strange scene that had an unusual amount of attention on this one lady's feet, which John explained was due to the fact that the director has a foot fetish. I'm not too sure about the accuracy of this lore (as Ginger would say), but it is definitely interesting to say the least.

For those of you thinking hmmm this sounds like an interesting movie, maybe I should watch it, I would strongly advise you to consider it thoroughly beforehand as it does indeed include several scenes of scalping Nazis, along with many other varieties of gore and things of a similarly disturbing nature. I would imagine that watching it in the US with the English subtitles would help a lot with understanding what's going on, and it's definitely got some historical significance and entertaining aspects, but it is not for the faint of heart. Consider yourself warned.

Thursday, March 14th

Max is gone again! He's been to 2 out of the 6 classes we've had, so I sincerely doubt that he is going to pass this class. I think he's just taking a gap year, which means his grades don't really count for anything, but I still can't imagine ever skipping that many classes in my life. Yikes.

We had a substitute professor today who turned out to be quite good. I was a little caught off guard by his cursing, but he did it in such a funny way that I couldn't help but laugh. I think I learned more finance in this one class than I have in all of the previous classes combined. Yikes.

Friday, March 15th

With midterms coming up next week, I decided that it was best to keep the weekend travels to a minimum, but I could spare a little time for a day trip to Bologna. Morgan desperately wanted to visit the Ferrari Museum, which was in a town near Bologna, so she left in the wee hours of the morning to go there, and said she would meet me in Bologna in the afternoon.

For once, I was able to leisurely awake at a reasonable hour and make my way to the train station with a noted absence of any manner of running or haste. I was almost at the end of my book, which turned out to be the super sad and emotional part, so there I was, practically bawling on the train. I had to pause my bawling for a few minutes in order to run to my next train (and just barely made it because my first train had been delayed), and then got right back to crying. But in a good way, of course.

When I arrived in Bologna, Morgan was still a few hours away, so I wiped my tears and began to explore. I spotted a park on google maps (I seem to be inexplicably drawn to parks for some reason), but as I climbed the massive stairs, I somehow missed a step or something and promptly fell on my face, for everyone around me to see. Nothing to see here, folks, just some impromptu midday entertainment for you all. You're welcome. Well, that's certainly a great start to the trip. A few of the ladies walking by seemed quite concerned and asked (in Italian, of course) if I was ok, but despite my bruised thigh and ego, I was completely fine.

The park turned out to be vaguely ugly and majorly underwhelming, so I passed through it quickly until I found myself amidst hundreds of white tents. I'd stumbled upon the Piazza Della Agosto Market! I say that like it's famous, but it's really not, I just like to include the names of things. I wandered around (as I love to do), marveling at the array of cool Thailand pants and Hawaiian shirts, and browsing through a wide selection of leather coats.

I have to say, the leather coats were quite tempting, but it was only the beginning of the day, and I wasn't too keen on lugging around a giant coat for the rest of the duration of the trip, so I successfully avoided that temptation. Until I stumbled upon this over-sized brown leather jacket that was only 5 EURO! How could I pass up a leather jacket that was 5 euro?? So, I didn't. 5 euro won't kill anyone, right? Someone help, please. I resolved not to buy anything else, but that notion was soon thrown to the mud and stomped on by all of the passersby in the vicinity when I spotted a stand full of beautiful handmade jewelry. Ahhh, my kryptonite! The earrings were so beautiful, I simply couldn't resist. I had to. For my funky earring collection. I couldn't possibly pass up the chance to acquire these beautiful earrings. I gazed at them with adoration, admiring the way that the brass wire swirled and intertwined to create shapes of dangling flowers with spherical stones woven into the center. The man at the stand perceived my unbridled trance to the earrings and asked if I wanted to try them on. I politely refused, but asked if he made all of this jewelry. His wife had, actually, but he made the leather bracelets on the other side (which made sense due to the greater level of manliness they clearly possessed). He waited patiently while I stood there for a while, my inner thoughts at war with each other, as I attempted to make a decision.

Ok, now I was finished buying things. I was wandering around the streets some more, snapping pictures here and there with my new leather jacket stuffed in the precarious contraption of a plastic bag hanging from my purse and my new earrings safely stowed in my wallet, when I spotted a vintage store across the way. Nope, I'm not doing it. That would be absolute suicide in a thousand extremely grotesque ways for my wallet. But then I saw the sign that read, "SALE! Everything 5 euro!" (translate that to Italian in your mind), and told myself I would just look around a bit. Just some browsing couldn't hurt anyone right? Famous last words. Surprisingly, by some act of the magical fairies sent to protect me and my financial stability, I somehow managed to make it out of there unscathed. That was a close call. 

After a tad bit more wandering, I found a group of people huddled around a little hole in the wall. No, seriously, it was a literal square hole in the wall. What could possibly be so great about this hole? My affinity for specifically avoiding anything that was liked by the popular mass in an attempt to be my own unique individual self failed me in that moment and curiosity won me over. My brain bought into the mob mentality, creating a plethora of unwanted thoughts. That hole must be so great. What if it's a portal to the Netherworld? Or even better - Wonderland? You better go check out that hole. 

There was no Wonderland to be found. The hole overlooked a little stream of water which a little plague to the side deemed to be "Little Venice". You've got to be kidding me. I was just in Venice and it's literally only 2 hours away. Why is everyone huddled around this little measly stream when the real thing is so close? And why does everyone feel the need to call it "Venice" whenever they have one tiny bit of water in their city?

Amidst my wandering I also stumbled upon the fanciest Conad I've ever seen. This must be Super Conad, it has got to be the biggest on earth! There was even a fresh food cafe inside, and the only self-checkout kiosks I've seen in all of Italy! I bet you can't guess what I bought.

With my milk in hand, I set off again, this time to the center of town where I finished my book and waited for Morgan to arrive. Once we had reunited, we found a restaurant at which to dine and ordered dishes that Bologna is supposedly known to make very well. I had the handmade tortellini (which we had been seeing and hearing about all throughout Bologna), Morgan got the Bolognese pasta (bet you can't guess why that one is famous in Bologna) and we tried a bit of each other's dishes, to get the full experience, of course.

I did a little research on what kind of sweets were the best in Bologna and came upon Zuppa Inglese which translates to English Soup (sounds tasty, right?). According to my research, it is said that the dessert was created by Italian chefs who were inspired by the English trifle, a dessert made with layers of fruit, custard, and sponge cake. The original recipe for Zuppa Inglese had a base of sponge cake soaked in Alchermes, a bright red liqueur made from cinnamon, cloves, and other spices, which was then layered with crema pasticcera, a rich and creamy custard cream, and sometimes chocolate. The dessert was initially served in the wealthy homes of Italy’s nobility and upper classes. Over time, the popularity of Zuppa Inglese grew, along with a development of several variations of the dish, and it became a staple of Italian cuisine, particularly in the regions of Emilia-Romagna and Tuscany.

After we had finished our delectable pasta, we had exactly that - because how could we not, after that mentally, spiritually, and emotionally connecting to its origins? I thought it was pretty good, but there was a tad bit too much liqueur for my taste.

Back at our exploring once again, we found our way back to Piazza Maggiore, the main square of the town. I had tried to find some postcards along the way, but it was an utter failure. I searched high and low, over fields and fountains, moor and mountains, following yonder star, but I soon grew tired of searching after the first 7 or so postcard stands full of nothing. I guess Bologna isn't touristy enough to have any decent postcards. It kinda put a damper on the day for me. I was determined to find a decent postcard for my collection, but we didn't want to waste all our time looking rather than enjoying Bologna. I did enjoy the square quite a bit though, mostly due to the guitar man serenading us with tunes and the bubble man spreading cheer to the children all around with his enormous bubbles. I sat down to enjoy the rhythmic melody being strummed and watched as the sweet and innocent little bambini skipped around.

Despite my lack of postcards, I liked that it wasn't so touristy here. Looking around, you could see people going about their days, families spending time together, starry-eyed couples floating about, and other such things that I imagined to be a part of typical Italian culture.

On our way back to the train station, by some stroke of luck, I managed to find a decent postcard! Not an exquisite one by any means, but one that was significantly better than all of the others. I'm not even kidding, all of the other postcards we so bad that I sincerely wondered why anyone in their right mind would buy one of those ugly things. At least now I could sleep tonight, knowing I had successfully acquired a postcard in Bologna.

TA-DA!

Welcome to "Photo dump alla Bologna", presented to you by the one and only: Slightly Over-Obsessed and Chronically Sleep Deprived Self-Proclaimed Amateur Photographer of Europe!

Saturday, March 16th

Now it's time for the fun part, studying for midterms! Yay. This semester was actually not that bad in terms of midterms, since 3 of my classes have projects, which are my preferred method of examination. The whole thing of perpetually studying, never really sure if you've studied "enough" or are prepared "enough" for that one hour that half of your grade depends on isn't really for me. I'd much rather spend hours beforehand working on something that I can say is done, and then be done with it once and for all.

So, this led to most of my Saturday being spent slaving away on my interior design project, hunched over like an old crook, but I didn't mind too much.

However, more traumatic than my midterms studying was the event that happened this fateful night. About 5 minutes after I lay my head down to sleep, I heard a buzzing quite close to my ear, which quickly grew louder, giving me the impression that it was coming closer. I reflexively smacked my hand over my ear to prevent whatever it was from flying inside, and the buzzing stopped. I cautiously lowered my hand, foolishly thinking the danger gone, but then I began to feel a strange sensation in my ear. With horror, thoughts ran rampant in my mind of a nasty little evil mosquito with glowing eyes and pointy teeth (yes, I know that mosquitos don't have teeth, I just added that for dramatic affect) crawling around in there and doing unspeakable things to my poor brain.

I frantically (but quietly, seeing as it was the middle of the night) pulled out my phone to see if this was truly something that happened to people. Sure enough, "what to do if a mosquito flies in your ear" was a relatively common thing to google. Oh no, this wasn't going to bode well for me. I read that it was not an uncommon occurrence since there is some sort of scent that our ears give off which are attractive to mosquitoes. This certainly wasn't making me feel better. Google said that if there indeed was a mosquito stuck in my ear, I could tilt my head and try to pop it out by smacking my head, or I could pour oil into my ear, which would kill it and then float it to the surface. The oil option didn't sound very appealing to me, so I decided to go with the smacking my head option. It didn't seem to do anything, so I went into the bathroom to see if I could somehow look at it in the mirror and glean any information as to whether there was in fact a mosquito in my ear or not. I was unable to find anything, so with great uneasiness I crawled back into bed. I didn't know what else to do, so I decided that I would just wait and see if anything happened. If my ear swelled up like a balloon in the next few days, I guess I would have my answer.

I finally fell asleep much later, with my hands over my ears and a sticky feeling of apprehension in my heart.

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What a note to end on. Maybe I'll start writing cliff-hanger horror novels next.

I hope you enjoyed this short little post about a small little Bologna. Tune back in soon to hear about Midterms week! Fun, fun, I know. Don't worry, I'll make that one short to spare you the secondhand stress, and then soon you will get to hear about my adventures in Spain, France, and Germany during Spring Break!

Hang in there, I'm catching up, I promise.

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