Bologna!

Following the wonderful trip to Bergamo, I was excited when my roommate invited me to Bologna the next day. She ended up wanting to go later in the day with two guys from the US, but I still wanted to go earlier in the morning so that I could spend more time in the city and see more things. On Saturday morning I met my roommates friends at the train station at 7am and our trip began. I had met the two guys before and they are both really nice and fun people so I was excited. Their names are Bruno and Fernando and they are from Chile and Brazil respectively. Between the three of us we represented South America pretty well! Since Fernando speaks Portuguese and Bruno speaks Spanish, they find it easier to communicate in Italian so the 3 of us spoke Italian the ENTIRE day! It was funny because we could have probably gotten by speaking English, Spanish, or Portuguese but the 3 of us from S.America spoke in our 3rd language!

We took a 3-hour train because it was considerably less expensive (12.50Euros vs. 90Euros) but we were all so tired from getting up at 5:30AM that we just slept and rested on the train and the ride went by really quickly. When we arrived in Bologna the weather was absolutely amazing. It was easily the most beautiful day I have seen here in Italy. I don't think I saw a single cloud in the sky the entire day. Unfortunately some of my pictures turned out too bright from the sun, but I would trade nice weather for bright pictures any day. 

Once in Bologna, we were all pretty hungry and Bruno and Fernando wanted to head straight to McDonald's so we each got a couple cheeseburgers and left to explore the beautiful city. We headed to the historic district and it was really nice. The church in the center was HUGE! Definitely not as big as the Duomo da Milano but  probably bigger than the others I have seen so far. In the square near the middle of the city (apparently all old cities have a square in the middle) there was a big statue that everyone was sitting around and enjoying the warm sun so we did the same for a while. Then we walked around and saw the other building and headed to a really tall tower which you could go to the top of. Next to the tall tower that we went to the top of, there is a  smaller tower and these two towers are the symbol of the city. Here is link to the towers so you can read about them! Inside the tower there are stairs that lead to the top and it took us like 15 minutes to make it to the top! I can't remember the last time I climbed so many steps at one time. Once we got to the top, it was worth it because the views were spectacular! All of the buildings are brick and have a similar look so it was just beautiful to see them all from above, especially on such a nice day. 

After the tower we continued on our trek and met up with my roommate and her friends. After that we were ready for lunch so we found a small restuarant to eat a bowl of the famous pasta with Bolognese (meat) sauce. After the pasta I had in Siena, I would say this was the 2nd best I have eaten here and I wish I could have eaten like 5 more servings. After the wonderful lunch we went and got gelato which was also delicious. I got 3 different servings and was surprised when the chocolate gelato was actually dark chocolate, which I hadn't tried in years. It was great! I had a really nice day with Bruno and Fernando and really enjoyed speaking Italian with them- I hope I get the chance to travel with them again!

After a long day of walking around and exploring the city and its many churches it was nice to sit back down in the train and rest for the 3 hour ride home. Once we got into Milano the guys wanted to go back to McDonald's (I was almost in disbelief) so we ate dinner and then I came back home. That evening I ended up going to Johan's place because he had a bunch of people over and then over to Emelie and Jarina's (2 really nice girls from Sweden) place because one of the guys we were with couldn't get into the club we tried to go to because the bouncer wanted to feel special. 

Overall, I had a wonderful day and the perfect weather will make my memory of Bologna that much better!!

Bergamo & Old Fashion!

Ciao!

Last week was more busy for me, but fortunately, I still managed to go out a couple of times! On Tuesday night, my neighbors were throwing a party and they invited me, so I went to try and meet some new people. To my surprise, I was basically the only person who spoke English (besides me neighbor) so it was one of my first real opportunities to talk to people my age in Italian. I found that my Italian is pretty decent but I can really only speak in the present tense so they probably think I talk like a little kid whose trying to learn to speak. I was there for like 3 hours and barely spoke English though so it was awesome to be understood in Italian! I met some really cool people and I will have to give them a call so we can hang out and I can practice speaking more. It's interesting that the Italian college parties and the American ones are so similar even though the two places are so far from each other. I was expecting everyone to be dancing like crazy but we were all just talking and listening to music.

The next evening I went to Old Fashion with Oscar and had a fantastic time. We got there early for an Aperitivo (the only one I have seen at a club) because it was supposed to be Mexican food, but we basically ended up eating chicken nuggets which was really disappointing. The rest of the night I just danced a lot and met some new people so it was great.

On Thursday, I just stayed in to rest (since I had gone out the previous 2 nights) and because on Friday I went to Bergamo with the guys from Scandinavia. For dinner on Thursday, one of my roommate's friends came over and we ordered pizza for dinner. I made the mistake of ordering a pizza with french fries on it but I learned my lesson because it wasn't very appetizing! I wish I would've taken a picture of the group in Bergamo because there were about 8 or 9 of them and then me (I don't exactly look Swedish).

Bergamo is a small city roughly 40 minutes NW of Milan by train so it was perfect for a short day trip. The city was pretty small and I think it has roughly 100,000 residents. The best part was that the train ride was only €4.50 (unfortunately, as you will find out later, the ride home was MUCH more expensive). Once we got to the city at 11am we all went to McDonald's for breakfast and then walked around downtown Bergamo. One thing that I learned this weekend was that Europeans LOVE McDonald's when they are traveling because it was so cheap. I literally went to McDonald's 5 times in 2 days and it would have probably been more had I not refused to eat there for dinner! Needless to say, I will try to eat there as little as possible while I am in Europe!

The really cool thing about Bergamo is that there is a lower city and an upper section of the city which is in the hills. The top part of the city was used as protect the residents from invaders and basically had a wall around it to keep people out. Fortunately we took a Gondola-on-a-track so we didn't have to climb up! The upper part of the city was much older than the lower section and also much more beautiful. I am guessing that part of the city was built first, because this is where their Duomo and other big churches were.

We also saw a fortress/castle-like structure which was really cool. Unfortunately the weather was terrible (rain/snow) so the views from the hill of the lower city were not as great as they could have been, but it was still beautiful. It was crazy how fast the weather changed though because when we first got to the top of the hill we sat at an outdoor cafe to drink a cold beer and by the time we finished it was raining! While we were sitting outside the pigeons attacked the left over food on the tables next to us and it was pretty entertaining to watch the waiter try to swat them away.

I would say that Bergamo was not as beautiful as the other cities I have been to here in Italy, but being so close to Milan I would definitely go again because it was still really nice and old (especially the upper city). On the ride home we forgot to stamp the time on our train tickets and we had to pay a 50EURO fine- which is something I won't ever forget to do again!!!!

Until next time, Arrivederci!