2 Months, One Post: Family Visits, New Years, and Rome

I last left off with a post about studying. Before Christmas I took 3 out of the 4 exams that I needed to take to finish fall semester. I took the last of the 4 at the end of January, and did fine, despite having caught the Italian flu the week before. So, fall semester? Check! Mixed feelings of relief from being done with oral exams and panic in realizing that I only have one semester left in Bologna.

On December 18th my mom and brother arrived in Bologna. I've realized that having visitors here is great because not only do I get to show off my Italian, but I get to show them around and in the process remind myself what I love so much about Bologna and Italy in general. This can be easy to forget when caught up in the stress of studying and exams, so having my family here around the holidays was very refreshing.

In Bologna, some of the highlights included the Teatro Anatomico, which I discussed in an earlier post, the 7 churches of Santo Stefano, and caffè affogato (espresso poured over gelato) at the Sorbetteria. My mom and brother also climbed Asinelli, the taller of the famous two towers.

I couldn't join them because of some ancient myth that if you climb it while attending the University of Bologna, you will never graduate. Let me be clear: I'm not a superstitious person. In fact, I've stepped on this bad boy more times than I can count:

The University of Chicago seal. The legend goes that if you step on it, you won't graduate in four years. 

I'm not trying to mess with any Italian superstitions, though. Here's Mom and Ollie at a cafe near Santo Stefano:

After a few days in Bologna, we traveled together to the small city of Bolzano. Bolzano is so far north it's almost in Austria, so we got a taste of winter wonderland while we there, which was nice so close to Christmas.

The real attraction of Bolzano, however, was this guy:

Otzi, born circa 3300 BCE (photo from Wikipedia)

Otzi is a prehistoric "natural mummy" who was found all well-preserved in the icy mountain-scape between Italy and Austria. The actual location of his recovery has been largely disputed over the years. He has a whole museum devoted to him in Bolzano, only part of which is the actual mummy. The rest is theories about his death and reconstructions of what his life might have been like. Look at the juxtaposition of Ollie and Otzi right there. That turned out quite nicely.

After Bolzano, it was just Mom and I for Christmas. I'm going to share more about Christmas in Venice with another post. Before that though, Mom and made the pilgrimage up to San Luca, a church in the hills of Bologna. Ecco le foto:

The portico that leads up to San Luca is the longest in the world.

Wow this is getting long! Good thing it's mostly pictures. I hope you aren't tired because we have a ways to go.

I've never been to New Years Eve in Times Square, but I imagine that Bologna matches up pretty well given its size. Piazza Maggiore on New Years was like a mini Times Square, but without the police presence. Everyone was drunk, there was broken glass everywhere, and people were packed in all to get a view of one of Bologna's strangest traditions. Each year, they burn a giant statue that symbolizes the past year as a sort of "out with the old, in with new" kind of thing. This year the statue was of a wind-up monkey, intended to symbolize how as a people in 2012, we were too controlled by society and our surroundings. So, it stands to reason that the robot monkey had to be burned in a huge public demonstration, right?

Video! Guaranteed to make you dizzy!

The rest of January went by very quickly. The new people for BCSP spring semester arrived, which resulted in the rest of us getting all the free dinners that we got the first time around in the fall. I think I've mentioned this before, but when BCSP feeds us, they FEED us. My roommate Monica moved out in order to make room for our other roommate Elisa, who came back from study abroad in Belgium. Monica is still living down the street right now though, so we still see her every so often. I got the Italian flu, which sucked majorly, but I recovered nicely with a 28 (A-) on my lit exam.

Right at the tail-end of January I went to Rome with Noelle and Margaret. I've been to Rome before, on a high-school trip. I loved it then obviously, but it was cool to see these things again without being in an enormous group following a lady with a blue pom-pom on a stick. I'll let the pictures do the talking, but among the highlights for me were the catacombs, the spring-like weather, and the view from the top of St. Peter's.

Fontana Trevi by day

Fontana Trevi by night

Panteone

Oculus

Forum where Caesar was stabbed

It was stray-cat ridden. Noelle almost died.

Colosseo by night.

St. Peter's

Noelle dreams of being as tall as this column!

Look at that holy sunlight! 

Views from on high

Home!

Margaret's not excited

Sunset #1

Sunset #2

Red-carpet celebs, nbd. 

Alla prossima, bella Roma!

Winter Wonderland!

Woke up to snow in Bologna this morning!

Harriett Studies: The most riveting blog post of the year!

Looking back at my blog, I realized I haven't actually clued you all in into what I'm really doing here. The truth is that I'm in Italy to do more than travel and drink wine and eat gelato. I know, I know, those last three things should definitely be enough to satisfy me.

But, I'm still a junior (3rd-year, clueless, whatever you wanna call it) college student. I think this blog might make it seem like the most interesting moments I have here involve some kind of party or weekend travel. Actually, though, one of the coolest (at least I think so) sides of my life happens right here in Bologna, at the university.

Right now, I'm enrolled in 4 classes. Two are taught at the actual university, and the others are through my exchange program, BCSP. The university classes are in Italian literature and Roman history, while the BCSP classes are in advanced grammar and modern European history. It's ended up being a sweet mix of small and huge, as well as familiar and unfamiliar. The BCSP classes tend to be smaller and somewhat more discussion-based, like they would be in Chicago. They run on a similar schedule too, with regular homework assignments and exams.

UniBo classes are completely different. My literature class is probably the largest lecture I've ever been in. Foreign students have to read 3 books to be prepared for the final exam. I'm reading the Inferno (by which I mean I've read maybe 2 cantos), and I'm hoping to read Machiavelli's The Prince and something by Italo Calvino before the final.

Most university courses here culminate in a final exam given orally, with the professor or a TA. This means that you sit down with them and they ask you a bunch of questions about what you've read or heard in lecture. Then they give you a grade on the spot. That grade is your grade for the whole course. Sounds scary right? It is. The good news is that you can take the exams more than once. In fact, most professors offer the exam monthly or bi-monthly, so if you're not happy with your grade the first time, you can re-take it. Phew.

My literature and my Roman history class work roughly the same way. My Roman history lecture is also humongous, but not in reality. The professor speaks very quietly, the hall has bad acoustics, and his microphone breaks at least once per class, at which point one of us has to run and get the technician from next door to come fix it. As a result of all this, a good half to two-thirds of the students stopped coming to class. But, little nerdy Harriett went diligently to class every day, a method that seemed to reap little reward at first. However, the professor finished talking about Roman history about 3 weeks before the scheduled end of the course. Christianity invaded, the Empire crumbled, the Medieval age had begun. There was nothing left to talk about. So, on Tuesday, the professor turned the collapsing Empire into a democracy and asked us if we would like to end the course the following day. Obviously everyone raised their hands. This is the point where my attendance paid off. The professor took down the names of everyone who had been in regular attendance, and indicated that our attention through all his whispering lectures would be rewarded in the exam.

I told you, riveting.

As terribly exciting as I'm sure it's been to read all about my academic life in Bologna, I should go study for these rapidly approaching final exams. Wish me luck!

Thanks

Ciao tutti,

I hope the month of November has been treating everyone nicely.

In the US of A today is Thanksgiving. Now that I've been here for almost 3 months, I realized it's time for a few thank you's, and today is exactly the perfect day for that.

Last night, I was at a birthday party for my friend Orsolya (try pronouncing that, I dare you.) I met Orshi because she is my American friend Noelle's roommate. Orshi is Hungarian, and the one gift she asked for was a recipe from every person at the party. This turned out to be an excellent idea, because the invitees included Hungarians, Italians, Americans, and even one Japanese girl. So, Orshi's going to leave Italy with a book full of international recipes. That's pretty cool.

Anyways, on with the story. Before heading over to the party, I was trying to figure out what kind of recipe to give Orshi. I don't really cook, and the a lot of the meals I eat regularly in my apartment I learned to cook from my roommate Monica (Thank you, Monica. That's one down!) I tried for a long time to think of something American that I know how to cook. I ended up going with the fluffer-nutter sandwich. I have no idea if Orshi will ever find marshmallow fluff or peanut butter in Europe, but all of this is besides the point.

The point is that ever since coming here, being an American has slowly become more and more important to me. It never mattered that I was an American in the past. I would occasionally get a few patriotic butterflies on holidays like 4th of July but truthfully I never really considered that my nationality could be such a huge part of who I am. Now that I'm here and I regularly meet people from all over the world, my American-ness is the one thing that defines me in their eyes. Just as I think of Orshi as "my Hungarian friend," others probably think of me as their "American friend," (or possibly as "that girl whose name starts with an H so we can't pronounce it.")

I think it's crazy that it took me leaving the country to become aware of my own nationality. Especially on a day like today, where it's a major holiday there but it isn't here, I've been thinking a lot about how much I've started owning, caring about, and occasionally even defending my nationality since I've been here. I might not be proud to be an American every day, but in the end, I'm grateful, and I just thought that today, I should say that.

But let me rewind a little bit. I probably wouldn't be here, experiencing this cheesy, sentimental moment with out the support of my family. So! Mom, Dad, thank you guys so much for making this happen. And to the rest of my American friends and family, especially any of you that helped convince me that this was a really good idea, thank you! And of course, to all my friends and roommates in Bologna, who treat me like family even though we are so totally not related, thank you too.

I hope anyone that reads this has a really good day today. I know I will. Our program is hosting a supposedly traditional Thanksgiving dinner at a fancy restaurant in Bologna. Hopefully you'll see some pictures from it on this blog in the near future.

Alright, last one, I swear. Thanks for reading this if you did.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Trieste

Guess what? I'm still alive! I haven't been run over by a Vespa yet! (I consider this to be my most likely form of death while I'm here.) I know it's been a while since I've been in the blogo-sphere, but it's for good reason. I've been really busy (in a good way.)  I've taken a number of weekend trips, plus classes have really started to pick up. I'll probably write more about all that later. Right now, I'm going to talk about my recent trip to Trieste, which is what inspired me to write another post after such a long hiatus.

Geography lesson. Trieste is here:

It's not even in the boot. It's pretty much directly across the Adriatic from Venice, and I think there are actually ferries that run between the two cities. (We took the train.) Since Trieste is so close to the border of Slovenia, there's a lot of Slavic influence, and it also has a history of belonging to the Hapsburg Empire in Austria. So, it's a pretty unique place. For example, a lot of restaurants serve traditional Italian dishes as well as Hungarian goulash and German sausage.

We decided to go to Trieste (the "we" being me and 4 other American girls) because we had a long weekend, and we found a really decent-looking hostel there. However, in the days leading up to our trip, I checked the weather forecast, which of course was 90% chance of rain. So, I wore my fleece jacket and wool socks and packed a hat and two scarves. My roommates warned me of the high winds in Trieste and wished me luck. Evidently it's not a popular destination in November.

I don't know whether we got lucky or if the bad weather in Trieste was just hype, but it was super sunny and beautiful! If you don't believe me look at these pictures:

Mom look! Rowers!

In Trieste we saw two castles. The first, Castello di San Giusto, was situated on a hill overlooking the city and provided some excellent views of the city like this:

San Giusto also had a museum of war photography artificats and that Noelle (my fellow History major) and I spent a long time looking at. You can also see the ruins from the Roman city of Tergeste:

The second castle, Castello Miramare, was right on the sea. It was originally built for the Hapsburg archduke and later emperor of Mexico Maximilian and his wife, Charlotte. Awesome history aside,  these guys had some sweet digs.

Another highlight of this trip had to be the food. For lunch on Saturday I split the "Piatto di Buongusti" (Plate of good tastes) with Margaret. Somewhere this is documented, but it had a mix of Italian classics like gnocchi and polenta with Hungarian and German dishes like goulash and sauerkraut. Awesome!

One more picture of the water.

And this cat riding a motorcycle.

And this dog in a bandana. 

 
Okay. Over and out.

Urbino

On Saturday we had a program-sponsored trip to the city of Urbino. This was a similar deal to the trip that we took to Ravenna, and I enjoyed it just as much if not more. 

We started out the day on a tour bus at 7:30. The place where the bus picked us up was, of course, across town from my apartment, which meant that I had to get up at around 6:30. Normally I am a huge fan of tour buses because they have those giant windows that allow you to see everything, but instead I slept for almost the entire 2.5-hour drive to Urbino.

Immediately upon arrival I could tell I was going to enjoy myself. Urbino is built on a hill, topped by a huge palace that overlooks the entire city. It’s primarily a Renaissance city, and the giant palace (Palazzo Ducale) was built for the duke Federico III. We got to take a tour of the Palazzo, and some of the stuff this guy had in his house was incredible. I couldn’t take any pictures of the inside but here is the view he had overlooking his dukedom:

 The Palazzo Ducale from the outside.

This is Prof. Benevolo. He taught us some cool stuff.

After the visit to the Palazzo Ducale, we had lunch. Even though being in a tour group of 50 students can sometimes be annoying, our program always feeds us well. Lunch consisted of 3 different types of pasta, and then pork, veal, and then tiramisu. Oh and espresso. Always gotta have the espresso.

Of course, it wouldn’t be a BCSP outing without a little exercise and some great views. I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves:

Nick, Taylor, Clara (our presession teacher) and Jackie

Overall the day was pretty relaxed. The sights in Urbino are easily done in a day, or even half a day, but the city itself is so astounding that it doesn’t need a lot of incredibly famous things. 

Oh, and we saw a wedding, so that was cute. We thought about crashing it until someone in the group pointed out that Catholic ceremonies are very long.   

When we got back I had some American friends over to my apartment for dinner. We made pasta with pesto and watched Mean Girls. Can’t beat that!