A hilarious English translation

This is at a cafe that I see every time I walk downtown. Obviously "the cold fishing lemon" is the best (or worst?) of the translations, but I quite enjoy the "wine glass of..." and "middle beer". Also, why would they have "milk of almond" and then, "fruit's milkshake"? Why can't it be almond's milk or milkshake of fruit ? (which doesn't actually make any sense, if you think about it)

So it's been a while, but I swear nothing (much) has happened

So I feel like life had slowed down for a while. No more frisbee, Bologna mostly empty, hanging out with a few Italians, and sunbathing in the park. For a week in early August there were only about 6 students, and I was in a class of 2 and alone in my apartment. Hint: don't travel to large, inland cities in Italy for the first 2.5 weeks of August unless you like seeing a ghost town.

I have learned a few words of interest:

punkabestia - this is used to describe the young-ish people on the street, you know, often with dreads, dirty clothes, tattoos, piercings, etc. and, most importantly, a dog. That's where the second half of the word comes in. But there are lots of these people around Bologna, just hanging out with each other and their dogs.

maccaronico - related to the word macaronic, but mainly used to describe when an italian speaks or sings in english, and it's apparent they don't really know what they're saying. I learned this at a Buskers festival I went to, and when we heard the acts singing in English (and there were many) at least one person would say to me "maccaronico."

There are probably more interesting words, but none come to mind.

I've also gone to Parma a few weeks ago! That's when things started to get interesting again. It was a very pretty town, though I went with another student after classes and we found out that the one building of museums there closes at 2:30 (we arrived around 3). It was very picturesque, and had a lovely park with the strangest tricycles.

The kids loved them, even though it looked like someone tried to improve a bicycle, and went horribly wrong.

The next interesting thing that occurred was Tara's visit! I saw Venice for the third time, I can't seem to stay away, but I did finally get to see the Guggenheim there, which was amazing. In particular, there was this Italian painter, Giacomo Balla, whose work was particularly interesting. We climbed to San Luca again, very hot, but I believe it was worth it. In general it was a good vacation, I got to stay in the hotel in the center of the city with Tara, and show her Bologna, both for the good and the bad. The good being San Luca, and aperitivo, and the like, while the bad being, as one example, the waiter who brought us our check and asked me for my phone number, using the phrase "voglio conoscerti," literally, "I want to know you." Creepy, as he had a noticibly receding hairline and I'd place him at the youngest, at 30.

And, finally, last Saturday I went to Ferrara. For some reason the teacher decided to have us take the train at 9:00, getting to the station at 8:30, meaning I had to wake up around 7:00. It was a broiling hot day, and we saw the cattedrale (cathedral) and castello as a large, cumbersome group before breaking off into more manageable pieces. My group of 4 ended up walking for a bit, getting a light lunch, then 3 of us went to rest in the park before the Buskers festival began at 6:00 (now you see why I was against going there at 9 am).

Unfortunately, the two I was with weren't that into the festival, and why we were slowly heading to the train, I saw some Italians that I had been hanging out with in Bologna. All in all, the festival was great, both the good and the bad acts were entertaining, and I found this shirt:
So you can't really read it (if you click on it, it becomes much larger), but it says "Basta un poco di zucchero," translating to "a little bit of sugar is enough." Sound familiar? It's the Italian lyrics to Mary Poppins' "A Spoonful of Sugar," of whatever that song is called.

Anyway, that festival was a lot of fun, just wandering around a really pretty Italian town listening to music or seeing an act every block or so. I even got to hand out with an adorable dog named Toulouse (as in Lautrec), named such because the owner is an art student - specifically a painter - and the dog is small.

Also, I learned how to make pasta on Sunday! With ragù. Which is meat sauce. Which I ate. I guess I'm not a vegetarian anymore? Anyway, it was delicious. Here's a picture of right after we cut some:Doesn't that look amazing? Anyway, I have no regrets. That meal was just so good.

Pictures!

So there's tons to say, I should have posted something earlier. Here's the long and short of it:

1) I went to Venice for a beach tournament - the same weekend as Sandblast, with kids around 16-17 years old. It was their first tournament and their coach, the same Davide and the other tournament, as well as his girlfriend Alba, and I were there to more or less be their hands. The sand was hot, the ocean was warm, and the fireworks were amazing, or, in bolognese dialect slang - "Soch mel." (That actually means something pretty vulgar, but is used more like "wow" than anything else.)

2) I received the best package - a camera! I took tons of pictures and put most of them here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/32796644@N05/sets/72157621836886028/
It's actually my dad's flickr, but I made a set of "Bologna" for the summer, and then I'll make another set, probably called "Rome" for the fall.

3) If you look at the flickr the rest of this post is pretty unnecessary, but basically I've been doing some sight-seeing (lots of churches and towers) and I went to Ravenna, a town due east of Bologna with Dante's Tomb and gorgeous Byzantine frescoes. I've also been enjoying "aperitivi," basically cocktails, but so much better. Any place that has them also has a free buffet for anyone who buys a drink. That's basically somewhere between 4 and 1o euro, depending, for a satisfactory dinner and drink.

All in all, lots of Italian, and lots of amazing people and places to see! Now let's see if I can get pictures to work...

I climbed a medieval tower last week, which had an incredible panoramic view of this city. Here you can see Le due Torri and Strada Maggiore. Behind the lower lit-up building is Piazza Maggiore, literally the center of Bologna.


This is via Santo Stefano and Le Sette Chiese - which once was a complex of seven churches, but now is just a monestary with four churches. I think it's the prettiest part of Bologna.







Also, Bologna has a gorgeous Venetian-style river. Who knew?

That's about it for this post. The flickr speaks for itself, especially about my visit to Ravenna. Anyway, I'm feeling a little homesick, and I'd love to hear about everyone's summers so far. Seriously. Email works wonders. :)

Ciao ciao!

Frisbee tournament!

This weekend I went to Milan for a tournament. I was driven there in a large van, controlled by Davide, the coach of not only the youth team I practiced with on Thursday but many others as well. He is the epitome of a crazy Italian driver - speeding and rapidly breaking, yelling at the other drivers as they waved their hands and gave him dirty looks. I definitely wanted to go to the tournament, but at the end of Thursday's practice he let me know that it wasn't a choice. "You have to," he said to me, for the Milan tournament, the Venice tournament, and even tomorrow's practice, when I shrugged and said I wasn't sure.

I played with a team of boys from outside of Bologna, I'm not sure where, as well as three girls from the Bologna team. We were the Jokers, a name that fit the boys well, which I realized during the evening's festivities. It was pretty exhausting, as there were plenty of boys but only 4 girls, and we were usually playing 3 at once.

One thing that was strange, though, was that these boys were all around my age, 18 and 19, yet they were all in, or had just graduated from, high school. (In Italy you have five years of high school, and most people enter university at 20.) They were all very friendly, though, and my of them spoke English pretty well, which came in use when they were all discussing strategy, and with all the terminology I was in desperate need of a translator. After one time out their captain asked me if I understood, I said no and he said "f--- f--- f---, not down there" (pointing to the endzone behind us), "but down there" (pointing to the other). The girls I was playing with were a little less welcoming, as they seemed mostly around 17 and younger, and seemed to be very absorbed in their own conversations which I could only understand a tiny piece of.

The first day, the boys did not pay much attention to me until the festivities began directly after dinner, which was outside the gym we were sleeping in - the real party was at an actual bar/club/restaurant that we had bracelets to get into. The TD (I think) started organizing what he called a "beer race," which initially sounded to me like it would be flip cup. However, I was very wrong. At the mention of beer, one of the girls, 17, ran over to see if she could join, eager to be served alcohol. Davide once again asked if I was going to participate, once again using the phrase "you have to." I politely declined , saying I didn't much like beer, but walked over to see what was going on. As I arrived at the crowd, the boys I was playing with started telling me that one of them was playing yet needed a partner (the game required a coed team of two) they started chanting my name and I thought, why not.

This was the game: first, drink two small cups of beer, about the size of 1.5 or 2 dixie cups each. Then, spin around in a circle ten times. Finally, do an easy 20 piece jigsaw puzzle. As soon as I heard the last step, I knew there wasn't going to be a problem. While my drinking was average at best, and I'm sure my spinning was slow, we easily finished the puzzle with time to spare, my partner not believing how little time it took my to put it together. He said something like, "with drinking I'm good, puzzle not so much." We advanced to the final round, against the winners of the other round, and, once again, drinking average, spinning was a little faster, but probably still average, and puzzle took no time at all. The whole time they were chanting our names, singing some song I didn't understand, and then went crazy when we won. Yelling and picking us up and circling us. Even chanting "USA."

After that, I was completely accepted into their group. I couldn't believe it: all because of a (usually useless) ability to complete jigsaw puzzles. When we got to the party they were asking me if I had a boyfriend, and when I said yes they said "he's all the way in Chicago" and "every American comes to Italy and has an Italian lover." When we said goodbye the following day - only one car-ful was left, those boys kissed my on both cheeks, as Italians are prone to do, and told me that I had to join them at more tournaments, including one in London (I don't think I can go, I think it's the weekend I move-in at Rome).

As for the actual frisbee-playing, our team finished ninth out of ten. The Jokers were a new team though, playing together for only 4 or 5 months. I was one of the most experienced players on it, and always was handling for them. Many of them were actually quite good, and I think their main problem, besides lack of experience, was poor decision making, like desperate dump passes at stall nine and useless hucks to a guy completely covered. I was pretty pleased with how I played, with a few hucks, a few breaks, and not too many turnovers.

Unfortunately the Jokers are not going to Venice - if I go it will be with another of Davide's youth teams, but hopefully I'll have another fun tournament with them in the future.

Gelato, school, shopping, and frisbee

School is going fine. I've been placed in a level a little low for me so I can review (sometimes it's things like simple future which is so easy for me and other times it's prepositions) and next week I'll go up a level. I've found myself mixing up a lot of works that I wouldn't normally - like thinking giovedì (Thursday) was actually Friday, and not remembering how to say "last night" and just being flustered in general. I feel like I'm getting into it though, the people are nice and the homework isn't difficult, yet.

One of the great things is in this small school, there's only one other American, and I haven't even met her yet. I live with a brother and sister from El Salvador who are in their early 20s, and an older man from Sweden. Across the hall are a Brazilian couple, also young, a middle aged Australian, and an Israeli girl, I think 24. I've also met another Brazilian middle aged woman. In my class are the two El Salvadorans, the Israeli, a 32 year old German girl who's getting married at the Heidelburg castle in August, and a 25 year old Spanish girl, who always brings candy to class and even made a Spanish-style tortilla for all of us today which was so delicious.

Since it's the last week for many of them, we all went out to this caffè called Cabala. Many of us had a bellini, which is a venetian aperitivo, or cocktail, made from prosecco, peach (i think) syrup, crushed ice, and came with a bunch of fruit. It was 4 euros, but the best part was food was included. At the front of the caffè was a whole buffet with cut vegetables, pizza, salami slices, chips, pasta with pesto, pasta with other vegetables, nuts, etc. 4 euros for a drink and dinner! I should see if there are other places like this around Bologna.

I've also made a habit of getting gelato very often. It's only 1 or 2 euro, and it's amazing. I tried this gelateria near my street that everyone says is delicious this afternoon. I got chocolate and this flavor which is like vanilla whipped cream, with wafers, chocolate, and meringue mixed in. I was astounded by how good it was.

One thing about Bologna though is that nothing is ever open. It's like everywhere is the post office, and the post office itself is open for about four hours in the morning on weekdays. Most places have a schedule where they're closed every after noon for 2 to 4 hours from about noon to 5, and they're closed Thursday, Saturday, and possible Monday and Tuesday all afternoon, and closed all day Sunday. I need to get my sandals fixed and found a "calzalaio" on the internet that said it was open Thursday afternoon. I walked there after class thinking what good fortune to find a place I needed to go open at a convenient time, except when I got there and found it closed from 1-3. I just didn't realize that "open Thursday afternoons" meant that it still closed for a few hours after lunch! Very frusterating.

In other, much happier news, I'm going to a frisbee practice today, in about an hour, and I might even go to Milan for the weekend for a tournament! I met with the captain of the women's team whom I had been emailing with, Martina, in a caffè just off of Piazza Maggiore, basically the center of town. Instead of smiling or shaking my hand she instead gave me a kiss on both cheeks and said how happy she was to meet me. We talked for a bit (in Italian, of course!) about how I've liked Italy, what I study, where I go to school, etc. and she mentioned how she studied in the US for 2 years and played with Indiana U's Calamity Jane and also UW in (near?) Seattle. She told me how in Italy there are only 8 women's teams and 20 men's teams TOTAL. That's it. Club and University combined. Isn't that crazy? Anyway, it ended with her making a few phone calls to organize a way for me to get to this practice, and inviting me to two tournaments in the coming weekend, without even asking me what position I play or my level or anything. She did say they were coed tournaments, and apparently in Italy, even moreso than America, women are in short supply. Anyway, I'm so excited to put on my cleats again, and hopefully the others will be as welcoming as Martina was, who kissed my again on both cheeks when we said goodbye.

The Restaurant Tour of Italy and the Beginning of Bologna

The last two weeks have been crazy hectic. It all started with a canceled flight out of O'Hare, fortunately Morganna and I were able to get into Boston and spent a few hours in Ipswich before our next flight. In London, we were able to make the transfer to Venice, but, our luggage did not. Or rather, Mo's suitcase and one of my three bags were the only ones, however that bag contained everything BUT clothes. British Airways gave us 4 bags full of toiletries and sent us on our way, with the promise that they would arrive at our hotel the next days.

The beginning of Venice was a blur. I had not slept on any plane, and did not sleep until almost midnight local time. I calculated that I had been awake for about 30 hours. The main things I remember about Venice are this: very expensive, though unimpressive food, the Ducal Palace and the Duomo, the tourists, and the canals. While the food looked attractive in the canal-side restaurants, we all expected something more in quality. Tourists were everywhere; the only way to avoid them was to walk in the tiny, winding alleyways which were so enjoyable to get lost in. The great thing about Venice was that everything went by boat. We didn't see a single car until we went to the Piazzale Roma the last day to get our rental car. What we did see was boats: gondolas, UPS, garbage, police, ambulance, and fireboats, water taxis, and public transportation, or vaporettos. Venice was really another world, and definitely something to see, though we all agreed three days was enough to see everything and be sick of the constant crowds.

We then drove to the Dolomites to a town called Castelrotto/Kastelruth near Bolzano/Bozen. Everything there had two names: one Italian, the other German. Everything and everyone there spoke two languages, their first was German, and they learned Italian in school. Do kept calling it Switzerland (even though it was closer to Austria), and Morganna kept rolling her eyes. It really did look like small german villages, with everything white-washed and carved wooden decorations. Instead of a local wine there was a local beer, the man at the toll booth had a heavy, terminator-esque accent, and hiking on the trails all the markers were in German, and everyone greeted you with a "Grüß Gott," a greeting used mainly in Austria meaning "Greet God." This was also the beginning of Morganna and Mo's fear of the roads here, as they were very curvy and snaked up the edges of mountains. The local drivers sped around these curves, used to the roads, but it was all Morganna and Mo could do to keep from jumping out of the car and walking up the mountainside. We went to visit a castel and there was a road sign warning that this 1.5 lane road would be ascending ay 28 degrees. Unfortunately, I was sick for the majority of time I was there, and only felt better by our last day there.

Then it was on to Antella, a town which Do constantly called Nutella, just south of Florence. We stayed in this ancient Tuscan villa, probably my favorite hotel we stayed in. They had the sweetest cat, Tiger, who would just sit next to you during breakfast and ask for a bellyrub. We spent one day in Florence, saw three art museums with lots of famous art, and decided that Florence was not as attractive as everyone said it was. We ate a a restaurant in another small town, and were gifted about a 1/3 of a liter of wine by the next table who had finished dinner and were ordering limoncello. The next day Morganna about died in the car as we drove on skinny roads through the Tuscan countryside. We saw many adorable, old towns and ended up in Siena that evening. Once we started walking around the historical center, or "centro storico," we all agreed that a full day in Siena would have been ideal, though we were able to walk around the very well-lit streets and enjoy delicious food.

After our stay in Tuscany, it was time for our drive to Cinque Terre. Finding the hotel proved difficult, as there was more freaking out on skinny, mountainous roads and the town of Montorosso al Mare did not allow traffic on its streets, except for certain taxis and, of course, police vehicles. It was also a climb to the hotel, which was perched on a cliff overlooking the Mediterranean. The hiking and swimming was all great the first day. The water was cold, making it a wonderful escape from the hot, humid air. We also walked the trail between the five towns and took the train back to our own. The second day we kayaked to Vernazza, giving us great views of the shore. In Vernazza we were swimming , and Morganna and I were stung by jellyfish. Unlike previous stings I've had in the US, this sting was like ten wasps attacked my wrist. I got a sting about 4 inched long on the underside of my right wrist. That entire part of my wrist swelled and turned bright red, and even now, almost a week later, it looks like I have a scar there, though the swelling and pain rapidly decreased by the second day.

Our last morning there we hiked to Vernazza again, and ate lunch and swam, though I stayed near the shore and other people, so I'd hear a scream if someone got stung. Then, Morganna and Mo took a train to La Spezia, the nearby city, so they would not have to go on anymore mountain roads, while Do and I went back to get our car and picked them up, then drove to Bologna.

Initial impressions of Bologna: lots of graffitti and hot. I have yet to meet the captain of the women's frisbee team I've been emailing with, but hopefully I'll do that soon. Last night, I went with the program director, his wife, and three other students, a Brazilian woman, an Israeli man, and an Australian man, to the Medieval fair an hour outside of Bologna. Unlike American Renaissance fairs, this took place in a real medieval village, with a clock tower and a castle overlooking the town below. The most entertaining part was a couple of fire-jugglers, who were making constant jokes and, just before doing a trick with volunteers, proceeded to drop their flaming sticks as they were explaining how safe it was.

Classes start at 9 am tomorrow, and hopefully all will go well in the diagnostic exam!