Dog Days

It’s gotten suddenly very hot and sunny here. Considering that only a month ago I was comfortably wearing my winter coat, this weather change is kind of disturbing. But after the damp, foggy Bologna winter, it’s nice to see flowers blooming and people spending time outside. Starting in late afternoon, I can’t even ride my bike down the streets near the University. They’re absolutely packed with people. (It helps that it’s legal to drink on the street.)

Last Saturday I went to an outdoor concert in the main piazza. We didn’t realize that there had been an open-air pillow fight earlier in the day (also sponsored by the city). In order to listen to the music, we literally had to trudge through piles of discarded stuffing and torn pillows. Sometimes it seems as if Bologna is owned by students.


My friend Celestine playing his drum at one of our choir concerts.


This is a photo I took at an outdoor concert we had last week. Not the best photo, but you get the idea. The bright spot that looks like a fire is one of the citronella candles. Actually, it was more like a bowl of burning oil.

Yesterday (Wednesday) was a holiday. I went with some friends from my choir to the Festa della Zuppa. Basically this is a soup-tasting free-for-all. It doesn’t cost anything, and after trying some (or all) of the 50+ soups, we could place votes for our favorites. The soup-makers stood behind tables with big metal pots, ladling their creations into plastic cups and bowls. I liked the pepper soup (from Cameroon) best. It was extremely spicy. The most unusual soup I tried was an almond milk soup from Spain. It was so heavy that no one could finish it. The only real disappointment was the borscht. New York does it better!

The soup festival itself, which was laid out along a closed-off street, was full of dancers, singers, and performers. Perhaps the only downside of the free soup extravaganza was that it was very, very homemade. We each found at least one hair in our various soups. But there’s always a price to pay for good food!


(Blood orange juice. Usually it's even redder than this. Or purple.)

Now that I’m not occupied for full days as I was before, my copious amounts of free time are starting to drive me crazy. I never thought I’d actually wish I had something to do – like a job – most of all in late spring, the best time of year to be outside, but I do. I continue to look for a new job or occupation here, but I find that I’m thwarted by the fact that I still can’t wrap my head around the way that Italian professionals operate. Few people make appointments in advance, the definition of “afternoon” seems to run up until 7 pm, and there’s no forum in which people can’t answer their cell phones – this especially shocks me. This is definitely the land of cell phones.

Aside from my disappointment about the way this experience has ended, work-wise, I’m finding that Bologna is a much more cheerful place to be in springtime. And the strawberries are really good.

Sandra's Eating Tour of Italy

This (past) weekend I had the great pleasure of playing hostess to the first friend I made at NYU, Sandra. She spent five days in Bologna, where I tried to be the best tour guide possible, considering that there's still so much I don't know.

Luckily, Sandra is adventurous, easygoing, and a good eater. These are very important characteristics for all Italy travelers.



We explored Bologna, which was especially nice considering that the temperatures were in the 70s for five days straight, without a cloud in the sky. We embarked on our own eating tour, sampling characteristic Bolognese food. By her second day here, Sandra and I had tried ragu at three different restaurants - and she'd also eaten her new favorite gelato, ricotta with caramelized fig, at two different spots. I'll give you her contact info if you'd like a detailed report.

We climbed Bologna's famous tower, from which you can see all the red roofs of the city. Other than being red, Bologna is known for being "fat" (due to the heavy cuisine) and "learned", because of the University.



Later, we took a day trip to Venice. (I love the fact that I can take day trips to Venice!)


(The requisite tourist photo.)



It was Sandra's first time there, and I loved seeing the city through her eyes. Because she studied art history, she was super informed and knew a lot more about the art we were seeing than I did. And Venice was so beautiful on the second weekend in April - cheerful, sunny, and bursting with flowers.



We also went to Modena, the home of balsamic vinegar, where we found a Sicilian food fair. Along with massive loaves of bread, cookies, sausages, and cheese, there was an entire section of marzipan fruit. Every bakery in Sicily is full of marzipan, molded in a million different shapes. It's pretty to look at - though it can be overwhelmingly sweet.



Sandra headed home with a suitcase full of cheese, sausage, chocolate, pasta, and marinated vegetables. (Let's not talk about her encounter with US Customs.) I wish I could attend the dinner party she's going to have in Brooklyn.

Kimchi Tasting, Part II

Now I'm going backwards in time: these photos are from my weekend in Milan with Anthony at the end of the March. It was rainy and gray, but there was Korean food! I can now say, from experience, that the Korean food in Madrid was better and less expensive. But it was good to get another shot of kimchi for my addiction. I've gone from a few times a month to once every three months, but I'm still alive, and I'm proud to say that I don't even whine that much (anymore).

Milan is a beautiful city. I wasn't expecting much, since I've heard from so many Italians that it's gray and ugly, but I liked it a lot! The Duomo is as interesting and spiky as it's supposed to be.



Also, you can walk on its roof, which is pretty cool.


We also took a short trip north into the lakes region, to a small town called Stresa. Despite the gray skies it was clear that the area was beautiful, especially in summer. There was a gelateria on every corner, and all around the lake the hills were dotted with summer houses.


Of course, nothing else in Milan could compare to the well-dressed people and the fancy clothing stores. Really, they were never-ending.

Aside from the trips I've been taking, life in Bologna has been pretty stressful lately. Due to contract and visa issues, my job ended 6 weeks early, which has given me some unwanted free time. I have the next month or so to try to figure out what I'm doing next, and I feel as if I've traveled back in time one year. Ready to graduate from college, not knowing what the next step is.

Unfortunately, Italy's economy is not very strong right now and it's not easy to find a job here - much less as a foreigner, which saddles an employer with a whole bunch of extra paperwork issues. Every day I learn something new about the job/visa-search process, and it's usually bad news. One of my supervisors at work told me I was in danger of being deported after April 13 (this conversation took place on April 10). Luckily, that's not actually true (I called the embassy). But I can now say for sure that the threat of deportation is pretty scary, especially when it comes from someone you trust!

Advice for future Italy travelers: trust the American Embassy instead. Even when the phone is answered by a British woman.

Adventures in Poolia

I just got back to Bologna after spending the Easter holiday in Bari, which is one of the biggest cities in Puglia. That's the incredibly gorgeous region that makes up the heel of the boot, if you think of Italy like that.

I left for the trip hoping to take photos of the port area, for my Gallatin Senior's grant. Bari is the site of a famous detention center for immigrants and the coast is a major destination for undercover, overloaded boats full of people trying to enter Italy. This is partly because of its location - close to lots of different places (as you can see from this photo), accessible by boat, and monitored by pretty much no one.

Taking photos was interesting, especially because ports, as I learned, are very bizarre places. Full of strange people.

However, I was lucky enough to have lots of other adventures, because a friend of a friend, Antonino (a terrific name, I think) is from right outside Bari. Southerners are so hospitable and excited to show off their region. He took very good care of me! First we went to a procession in Bari's old town, which was constructed to look like a maze to protect the inhabitants from invaders. It's supposed to be one of the easiest places to get lost in the entire country. Also, Anto told me that it's usually guarded by the Mafia and difficult to enter. That is, if you try to walk around freely in some of the tiny narrow streets, the residents will do their best to make you feel unwelcome. That didn't happen to us, though because it was Easter weekend!
This is what happens on Good Friday.

The statues were pretty amazing. Every little town has its own particular statues, which must leave the church in a procession. The streets were absolutely packed.


Puglia is just beautiful. The water, the flowers, the wildlife, everything. Lots of the buildings are made out of white stone, which makes a striking contrast with the blue water and cloudless sky.




Too bad it wasn't quite warm enough to swim.


One of the best - of not THE best - aspects of the trip was the food. Anto's best friends from childhood are in the process of opening up a wine bar in a pretty seaside town named Polignano. Through them, he knows quite a bit about food, and good places to get it. On my first night in Bari we went to a little restaurant in Polignano where we ate ragu. Made from donkey. I thought it was a joke, and I know it's terrible, but it was actually good! How could I not try it? I was actually more scandalized by the appetizer we were given, which was a bunch of massive mozzarella balls filled with liquid cream. When you stick your fork into the mozzarella ball, it bursts. It was a little bit too much, I think.

The seafood in Puglia is yummy, too. But the best meal I had was with Anto's friends, at their house in the country. They're still developing the menu for their wine bar, so we were very kind and we helped them taste-test about 7 different cheeses. My favorite was the goat cheese, which was super rich and sort of like butter. In addition we had oranges and lemons - picked from the trees in the garden. And olive oil made from, of course, olives from the garden. It was amazing. Alessandra, one of our hosts, taught me a cool trick with tomatoes - in summer she grows lots of cherry tomatoes, which she hangs from a string in the kitchen throughout the winter. They slowly dry out and turn, almost, into sun-dried tomatoes. We ate them in pasta and they were great. So was a calzone her grandmother makes for Easter, which is made from onions, raisins, and anchovies. It sounds crazy but all the flavors actually go well together, when you're eating it. I would've been happy to stay there for a looong time.



Finally, on Easter morning, when everything was closed and I was starving, I found a Sicilian bakery that was open and completely crowded. Where I ate a huge pastry and cannoli, too, which were so good. Mikey, I did it for you. I felt kind of sick afterwards but it was worth it. The bakery was full of all kinds of Sicilian specialties, like cardamom flavored chocolate and rose liqueur. Hooray Sicily!



Now it's back to city life. Speaking of which, I'm all out of order with my blogging, but Milan is coming next.