Bolonga!

Thursday we had lunch with Francesca. It was much different that I had thought but it was still really cool. We went to Trattoria Mario which is one of the oldest trattorias in Florence. We didn't get to actually sit in the restaurant which was packed so we went down into the celler which looked like a bomb shelter but was filled with food and supplies and chairs and candles for us. We got a two course meal. The first dish was Ribolita which is minestrone soup and bread made into a stew like soup. The second course was pasta with meat sauce. They were both delicious! Francesca explained to us the ingredients and about Florence cuisine. She is actually a chef on the side so she knows a thing or two. Florence uses very simple ingredients and only whats in season or what you can find in your home. Nothing too extravagant because the Florentine believe in tasting every single ingredient. Its days like these when I can't believe I'm getting 3 credits for this class! But I do have to do my fair share of work...don't get me wrong. Its just an awesome class!
Saturday we took our first Rutgers excursion to Bolonga. This is a town about 1.5 hours away in the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy. We all boarded a very nice bus at 8:00am and we're off. Within about 15 minutes the bus had to pull over due to some "technical difficulties" which included a fan that didn't work but our handy bus driver fixed it and then we were really off. The ride there was beautiful! The mountains with tiny little towns and villages are something you would see in a movie! It was a beautiful day but very cold again but it did warm up during the day. When we arrived we were greeted by our tour guide for the day who was no other than....drum roll please...that SAME tour guide that I had on the trip to Rome last weekend that spoke very little English! Of course...my luck..out of all the tour guides in Florence..or even in Italy!! His name is Samuello and he is extremely intelligent. He knows everything about all of the architecture and paintings everywhere we go but at times he tends to drag on little bit to much and I felt bad because he was losing everyone's attention at time and even Nick had to speed him up a few times. But this time we spoke almost all English..thank goodness! We got our "whispers" as Francesca calls them. (Our one-way walkie talkie, we're the tour guide talks and we can all hear him through our headphones.) After a much needed coffee and potty break, finally the whole group was ready to explore Bologna. First we went to Santa Maggiore Palazzo. Since this weekend is Caravale in Venice they were celebrating in Bologna too with a celebration for the kids. There were tons of little kids running around in Halloween costumes throwing confetti and getting balloon hats! It was so cute! In the Palazzo, we visited the San Petronio Basilica which is the 5th largest Basilica in Europe only after The Vatican in Rome, The Duomo in Florence, St. Paul's Cathedral in London, and Notre Dome in Paris. It was very beautiful inside. It is unfinished in the back because the creator died and it was never completed. Inside there is the worlds largest sun clock. All along the floor there are numbers in the marble floor and then in the ceiling there is a little hole where the light comes in and shines on the numbers telling the exact time. Its really cool! From there we went to the University of Bologna which is the oldest university in Europe and the first to let women attend. Originally, the University was specified in Law or Medicine. It is persevered really well with all the coat of arms of all of the students and special professors hand painted on the walls throughout the school...it looked just liked Rutgers...NOT. It was amazing to think how old the university is and that it is still attended. The library looked like something out of Harry Potter's Hogwarts School of Witchcraft! We also got to see the "Anatomy Theater" where they would dissect bodies and learn about the human anatomy. This room is made completely of wood and with statues of all of the famous professors on the walls. Most of the room was destroyed after Bologna was bombed during World War II so everything had to be carefully restored but they tried to keep as much of the original things as possible. After that we had a few hours of free time to explore on our own and get lunch. The town of Bologna is just so quaint. Its much smaller than Florence and less touristy. There were open flower, fish, meat, and cheese markets and it seemed like almost everyone had a cute dog or a baby. It was just really fun to people watch and check out some of the stores. This is a lot of history in the town and it is really pretty. Much different from Rome and Florence but I like that I'm getting a feel for all kinds of different towns in Italy. For lunch, I had this incredible tortellini with a cream sauce. It literally melted in my mouth. So delicious! After lunch we went to the Two Towers of Bologna. Bologna used to have many towers but most have collapsed or have been destroyed. The Two Towers are the symbol of the city where built in 1375 and both of them lean (this is a fact I am happy I did not know until after I climbed the tower.) You can climb the higher one and see the whole city. Nick warned us that if you are afraid of heights or if you're claustrophobic you should stay down but I was not about to miss out on this so I decided to climb it. Well..Nick wasn't kidding when he said it was tight inside. There is a total of 480 steps. The first few flights were spiral and then this just go straight up. I had a minor panic attack probably half way up. I knew I couldn't turn back but I didn't want to go any further. I started getting really sweaty, my hands were shaking and my heart was pounding. All I could think of was that if the stairs broke because they were so old. It was so small inside and there were so many people. It was really scary but I was really happy when I reached the top. It was a beautiful view and I would have been upset if I had missed it! After I recovered and got down on the ground, we went to one more church, the Santo Stefano Basilica which was very interesting and different than all the other churches that I've seen. Then it was back to Florence for dinner out with Nick and Maria.
One of the head directors of the Rutgers Study Abroad office, Lauren Randolph, is staying in Florence this weekend to check up on things. She came with us yesterday to Bologna, she just came out to check on our apartments, and tomorrow she will be at school with us. Its reassuring to know that they check up on things here, even though Nick does an awesome job. She is very nice and said she would help us with anything we needed.
Tomorrow for culture class we are going to the American Cemetery in Falciani. It is there that all the American soldiers that died in World War II are buried. Should be really interesting.