It’s hot everywhere, here and in the States, and if I didn’t
have to go out into it I wouldn’t – but I can’t sit inside when the streets of
Bologna are calling to me. So I make a
plan to get up wake up early to do my site seeing and be home before 2pm and
then I’ll sit in front of the fans until the heat of the day moves on. As it is already past 2:00 when I arrived, I
spend the afternoon getting settled, taking a shower to cool down and then
reading a book. I’ve read a few good
ones on this ‘summer vacation’. I buy one
when I come across a book store that has English books and then leave it behind
when I done so another traveller who reads English can enjoy them. So far I have read:
- A Biography of Saint Katherine of Siena
- Catcher in the Rye, by JD Salinger (A good read, I could not put it down)
- Lady Chatterley’s Lover, by DH Lawrence (Great writing! A bit spicy – but great!)
- A Thousand Splendid Suns, by Khaled Hosseini (Outstanding!)
Here are some photos of my apartment, regardless of what it doesn't have; it is nice having a ‘home’ to live in for a while rather than
just a bedroom.
That little white thing is a standard household size washing machine.
Yep, standard size…
Yep, standard size…
This is the inside door of the freezer, I guess it is so you can figure out what to set your refrigerator dial to for your food. I’m not sure what would be in that pot in the first column, and where is the horse picture. I’ve seen horse meat listed on the menu’s here…. Nay – but I have!
I ventured outside a little later and found that right
around the corner from my pad is a great Gelato café. This stuff is incredibly cooling, delicious and
addictive! Most places, like this one,
make it fresh every day and it seems to be lighter than ice cream. As I
was enjoying my Crème (vanilla) scoop, I looked around at the decorations of
the place and see an old Hershey Chocolate box on one of the shelves. I say “Mi scusi Signore” (excuse me) to the owner
behind the counter, I point to the box and say “Mi casa!” (my home).
“Non!!!” he says – “SI, si, si.” says I. He starts rambling at warp speed in Italian;
I laugh and say “non capisco” (I don’t understand). He says “no English……wait!” He then gets on his cell phone and calls
somebody and says American and Ershey (Hershey), he hands up and says “wait.” A few minutes later another Italian gentleman
comes into the shop, talks to the owner then looks at me and says in broken
English “hello, good to meet you, it’s real – Ershey is a real place?” We then had a nice little conversation about
Hershey and America. They liked
the part about the town smelling like Chocolate, they found that very
exciting. It was a great
conversation. The owner than had to have
me try his chocolate gelato and tell me if it reminded me of home – I said it
did but that his chocolate was much better than Hershey’s. He was so very proud of that and I swear he seemed to stand a little taller. He told me I had to
come by everyday while I was there and try it because he makes it every day so
it might taste a little different tomorrow.
I told him it would be a tough job, but I would do it. Making friends is fun!!! I did stop in everyday along with my Italian
phrase book, just for a small scoop and a little conversation. It was a major highlight of my time here in
Bologna.
I don’t know what specifically the town is known for as it
wasn’t in my travel book and every brochure and map I picked up while I was
there was in Italian – so my guess is that it is not known for American
tourism… I am sure it is known for food as
bolognaise is its style, and the produce and food markets are incredible. If I
was looking at raw horse meat, I didn’t know it nor did I want to know. I did
not, however, have any pasta while I was there. Again, it was close to and sometimes over 100
degrees every day and I could not work up the appetite to eat a hot plate of
pasta in such heat. The restaurants that
did have A/C were packed and booked with reservations. So I spent my money at the produce stands
and bought premade roasted chicken and cooked fish entries that I took home to
eat in front of my fans. And Gelato - -
there is always gelato!
It is a very big city; I stayed in the old town section that
has clearly been around for a very, very long time. Here are some street shots:
What can be done with those old plastic bottles? Make art! At night, the store lights filter through the bottles and with the mirror ball spinning, it looked so cool.
The basilica is under construction, they always cover the building as they are being worked on so the dust from the rocks doesn't float around everywhere. Smart!
Free movies in the square on Thursday!
This guy was fantastic but he did not have a CD so I could not bring him home with me.
In between my site seeing and Gelato eating, I did a lot of
laundry because as I said before – it’s HOT and I am changing clothes at least
twice a day. For those of you that have
never hand washed anything in a kitchen or bathroom sink, here are some easy to
follow instructions to help you along.
- Put some cold water in the sink and add some gentle soap like liquid detergent, liquid hand soap or even shampoo will do just fine. If you have a little bar of soap, that will come in handy for scrubbing socks and stains.
- Look at the clothes before putting them in the water to locate any particular stain marks that you will have to work on.
- For bigger clothes pieces like shirts and pants/shorts, I find it easiest to do one piece at a time. You can use the same soapy water for all the shirts, but for maximum washing efficiency it is best to wash them one at a time.
- And lift and dunk, and lift and dunk, and lift and dunk – as many times as needed to wash out all the sweat from the day.
- If you have a stain to work on, get that bar of soap, find the stain and scrub, scrub, scrub, scrub, scrub! Then lift and dunk a few more times to get spread the soap suds around.
- If you have another shirt to do, take this one out of the sink and ring it out a bit then set it aside and repeat the previous 2 steps for the other shirts.
- Drain the soapy water.
- Rinse out the shirts with water from the spicket and again I find it easiest to do one shirt at a time.
- Ring out the clothes as best you can with your hands.
- Lay a towel on the floor and put lay out some of the clothes on the towel.
- Roll up the towel with the clothes inside and ring it out again, this removes the maximum amount of moisture from the clothes and transfers it to the towel. (Genius – I know…)
If you have a clothes line, great – if not put
on a clothes rack – if you don’t have that, then just hang on a hanger and
arrange wherever you can around the room.
And
that concludes this lesson – any questions, please send me an email.
After all that hard work, it is time to find some dinner –
some premade, not hot, dinner. If the
stove was working, I could have bought so many things to try but window
shopping is about all I can do and there is lots of that here.
Also while I was in Bologna, the Italian soccer team won
their semifinal match. I didn’t get to
see it because the TV wasn’t working either but I did get to hear it as ever
single person in my neighborhood was watching it. Even without the TV, I could tell by the
noise exactly who scored and when, and who won. The town went crazy that night
– everyone was out on the streets celebrating, singing, shooting
fireworks. It walked outside to witness
some of it and it was still going strong when I headed back into my apartment after
midnight. It was crazy! I could also tell, just as easily, when
Italy did not win the final match a few days later. No one sound - - - not one…
Bologna was an adventure, one that would have been made a
little nicer with A/C and a working stove but, tutto va bene (everything’s
fine).
Next stop – Verona.
Ciao~
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