As you may have noticed, I arrived safely in Bologna a week ago today. So far it's pretty cool but rather uneventful. 3 out of 4 of my apartmentmates are here, including my roommate Giulia who is a very nice girl from a town between Napoli and Roma. I've hung out with her a few times, and the other girls in my apartment are also really nice and friendly. One is from Lecce, and the other is an artist. That's about all I know about them so far. I'm also slowly meeting my neighbors, who are also really nice. But really, nothing important has happened here in the Bo.
However, this weekend I did end up going to Rome for a day. Or more accurately, a night. It was rather spur of the moment. Actually the conversation went a little something like this:
I was on the phone with Mike when Arielle called me. I answer, "Hey Arielle, what's up?"
She replies, "Do you want to go to Rome?"
"Now?"
"Yeah, I'm getting on the bus to go to the train station right now."
"Um... ok, sure. I'll meet you there." ::switch back to Mike:: "So it looks like I'm leaving for Rome right now..."
And then we went.
It was pretty ridiculous, surreal almost. We met up at the train station, took the next train, arrived around 8:30, 9 that night. It's a few hours by train. Arielle's sister and a friend were visiting Italian friends of theirs. So we met up with them, met up with their friends, and basically just hung out.
It also happened to be La Notte Bianca, the one night a year when everything- stores, caffes, buses, EVERYTHING- is open all night. So it was insanity. There were crowds of people just walking through the street. We went to a bar, where the girlfriend of our host bought us Chupa Chup lollipops and we discovered they're actually really good dipped in red wine. We went to the opening of a small yet absurdly overpriced boutique where we got to eat some bread. We walked around the Coliseum, which Arielle's sister's friend had never seen. We eventually ended up at a Pizzica and Tarantella band competition in some park (Pizzica and Tarantella are traditional music/dances from the south). As it turns out, that was also a big meeting for I giovani comunisti italiani- The Young Italian Communists (also, bear in mind communists here are about the equivalent of democrats in the US, not what we typically associate with communists). So basically it was a hippie festival. I bought a really pretty rainbow hippie skirt. We were there until about 3:30 when we went back to Giovanni's apartment.
In the morning, we went to the Vatican. Unfortunately, we had slept through the Pope. Oh well. We still visited St. Peter's Basilica and the Tomb of the Popes. The Basilica is probably the most impressive building in the world. It's crazy huge and fancy. Oh, those Catholics...
Then we went out to lunch in a hip part of town, stopped at the Pantheon literally long enough to take a picture, and headed back to the train station. Also, both ways we had to ride in 1st class, which was a brand-new and different experience for the both of us. Did you know that they give you free drinks and snacks in 1st class on the train? We didn't, but we damn well did take full advantage of that. And the seats were so roomy. 1st class rocks.
Marina, Giulia's 4 month old niece, just arrived with her sister, so I'm gonna jet.
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