A few good photos......

And what would a post be without a few good food photos?


Well, here you go. The first one here is of a storefront near the Piazza Maggiore (main square) of Bologna, and you can see how good all of the fresh pasta (with some background ham) looks.

But, be careful not to touch the produce, as you can read for yourself what might happen.

I can attest (as can my brother) that this goes for Torino as well as Bologna, as we saw a woman almost lose an appendage after learning that chestnuts roasting on an open fire, though a nice holiday tune, are not for sampling with your fingers without asking first.



Here is another food photo of a gelateria down the street, though not my favorite one , boasts some spectacular flavors and is where we purchased an ice cream cake (think Baskin Robbins, but totally different) which was almost entirely consumed by Paolo, the father of Stefano and Michela, after a welcome lunch consisting of spaghetti with meat sauce, lasanga a la bolognese, pigeon (one for each person), vegetables and wine...may be forgetting a few things.

Yes, they do eat like this every day....okay, maybe not to such a degree, but the pranzo (lunch) usually does consist of a pasta course, followed by some type of meat, then vegetables.


As you can see in the picture below, Robin was in no condition to walk after her first three meals in Bologna, and Adam was more than happy to oblige by carrying her down the cobblestone streets of Bologna without even so much as coming closte to stumbling.

Visit from la famiglia

Ciao ragazzini.....! Wow, a whole week (or maybe even longer) without a post. Are you still around....?


In any case, posting was a bit difficult since my family was here and we were in the mountains with limited internet access.

I guess where we left off was last Saturday, right before I went to Stefano's 30th birthday party. The picture below is of Stefano and his girlfriend Mirela, who came out from Amsterdam to celebrate.

It was a great party with excellent food, of course, the majority of which was made by his mother (homemade tortelloni di zucca (squash), lasagne, meats and a few different cakes). I must really be turning Italian now (not only because of my white belt to match my white sneakers) because I am able to drink an espresso at midnight and still sleep. That being said, when the family was out here, we discussed a notable difference in the after effects of wine as well as espresso, both of which seem to be a lot more subtle here...as for the wine, not too sure why, but apparently the way of making espresso out here relies on a different type of drip mechanism that lessens the effect of the caffeine, or such was our hypothesis.



On Sunday, Adam, Robin and my mom arrived, though unfortunately my dad could not make the trip out due to this little financial crisis taking place in the States (and worldwide for that matter). Here is a picture of the three of them, looking quite good only hours off the airplane. Amazing what a pizza and espresso will do for you ;)














After lunch, Adam's good friend Vittorio and his wife Chiara came from Vicenza (1.5 hours by car) to visit us for a coffee and share some wedding pictures. I may also visit them in Vicenza some time over the next few weeks. Here is a picture of the four of us below.

I am going to break this post up into a few different ones due to the size of the photos, and so you can read one at a time if you like. So, for now, go ahead and have an espresso and I will be back in a minute with the next post....ciao!

Ready for the weekend!

Amici, state bene? I hope so!

Today is Friday in Italy, and it looks like the markets have taken another big tumble in the States, and for that matter elsewhere in the world. Without having followed the chaos closely, I am not qualified to make any intelligent comments, but, what I can do is report on what is happening in Bologna.

I thought this was a nice picture of the street located near my language school. You can see that the leaves are starting to change, though it has been quite warm the past week. The little stand with the green awning is a flower shop, where I bought a few bouquets for the teachers today since it was our last day of class. They really treated me well and I am sure that they work for very little, so I wanted to get them something to say thanks....they were very grateful.

I really enjoyed my little class, meeting the other students and teachers, so to put an end to this brief chapter was bittersweet. I feel like I learned quite a bit of Italian and am definitely glad to have taken the one month course. For the remainder of my stay, I think it will be a question of practicing and learning more vocabulary since we covered most of the grammar. Fortunately, there will be plenty of time to practice!

Other than that, no huge plans for the weekend. Tonight, I am going to meet up with Mario, my Colombian classmate, with whom I may also travel a bit later during my stay.

We will probably grab a beer or three and see what is going on. My main partner in crime, Francesco, is out of town, visiting a friend in Ireland until Sunday. In any case, we may also meet up with Alessandro and some of the other Siciliani.

Tomorrow is Stefano's 30th birthday, and he has invited 50 of his closest friends over for dinner and drinks....should be a lot of fun and I will be sure to snap a few photos. Speaking of which....Stefano and I had lunch the other day, his treat, as I am helping him translate his web site from Italian to English.

Below is a close up of our dish, tagliatelle alla bolognese (meat sauce), the most typical and famous dish from Bologna, appearing in Italian restaurants throughout the world.

It was really good, especially when accompanied by a mezzo litro of vino rosso between the two of us (which, unfortunately did not make the translation easier). I was this close to having an espresso or two after lunch, but my previous afternoon espressi followed by sleepless nights reminded me why it was not such a good idea.

Other than that, my family arrives on Sunday and we will spend two days in Bologna before heading to the mountains. Sunday we will also see Adam's good friend Vittorio and his wife Chiara, who are driving from Vicenza to spend the afternoon with us.

Have a great weekend and we will be in touch........ciao!

Battle at the Lavasecco

Ciao ragazzi! It's Wednesday in Bologna, and a muggy one at that.

The weather out here has been quite strange; was cold for a few weeks, then started getting warm again......go figure.

So, I am fighting what appears to be a losing battle with the dry cleaners. I will spare you all of the gory details, but suffice to say, my argumentative Italian has gotten a lot better.

At this stage, I have received four of the five shirts they owe me (from two weeks ago), but am still missing one shirt and two "golf" (sweaters).

I'm not sure if pulling rank is protocol, but figured it did not hurt to mention that a good friend of mine here in Bologna is a lawyer...which is sort of true (i.e., Michela's dad Paolo, though non practicing).

In any case, they have until tomorrow to find the goods (evidently, the machine broke and they can't find anything; tried to give me someone else's shirt the other day), then I place a call to the owner.

Other than that, laundry is going pretty well. I am now washing with both detergent and softener, though I have learned that color guard is not standard, and have socks that are both clean and soft.....but alas, charcoal grey. Next step - bleach.

On the having fun front, last night we did appetizers at Alessandro's house.

My simple task was to bring three critical p's - prosciutto, parmesano and pecorino. That was easy, compared to some of the things prepared by Alessandro and Francesco, including a savory tart filled with prosciutto, spinach and mozzarella, three spreads -1) red pepper, 2) Sicilian pesto with tuna and 3) baked eggplant and scamorza (smoked mozzarella; not pictured below, because it was still in the oven).

This was all supplemented with some pizzette and other baked goods, and of course, copious wine.

If that wasn't enough, Franceso felt compelled to re-visit rum shots, because hey, after all, it was Tuesday.

Step 1) take sliced orange, dip one side in sugar, other in coffee, Step 2) eat sugar and coffee covered orange, Step 3) shoot rum, Step 4) try to look more like Monica and Alessandra (nostre amiche polache) in the "before"" picture, than Francesco in the aftermath (his eyes actually stayed like that).

Studying is going well....have had private classes two out of three days this week (Sebastian, the Colombian guy) decided to show up one day.

We are making really good progress one-on-one, and tomorrow we will delve into the ominous subjunctive. Truthfully though, the grammar is very similar to Spanish, but just different enough to throw a few monkey wrenches into the mix.

On Sunday, my parents, brother and Robina come to Bologna, and, shortly thereafter, we will head to Piemonte for the week. Really looking forward to that! Hopefully my sweaters and shirts will also make the trip.

That's about all for now...about to head to the gym to squeeze in a workout.....hope your Wednesdays are going well and we'll talk soon....ciao ciao.

Smile, it's lunedi

Ciao amici, I hope all is well and you are weathering the storm of the tumbling market. Kind of hard to ignore the fact that the financial system is in a state of total disrepair, but hopefully we have bottomed out and the new administration can begin to pick up the pieces.

It is a bit strange to be removed from all of the chaos and only read a bit on the internet, and I can only imagine how hectic things are back home. I am sure of one thing, that I chose either the absolute best, or absolute worst time to leave a job in the financial services industry....but either way, am happy with my decision and am still enjoying things here in Bologna.

And what would a Monday post be without a few photos? I got some positive feedback on the German Shepherd photo, and thought I might post a few of my two pets, Kato (name of the cat) and Poppy Junior.

Since it is almost midnight and I am about to get thrown from this internet cafe, I will finish up with a few more photos from dinner last night at Osteria dell'orsa, with Francesco, his sister visiting from Mantova and Alessandro.

Tomorrow night, we are all gathering at Alessandro's house for some aperitivos, so I will have some more photos to share....hope your Monday is/has been a good one! Ciao for now....

s

Una cena orientale

Ciao ragazzi! It's venerdi, and you know what that means....well, I guess all it really means is, it's Friday, which is not a bad thing for any of us! In the case of this post, it also means lots of photos, hurray!

Let's see, since the last post, I think I mentioned that we were going to have a dinner party, and that we did indeed. Last night, a group of about 15 gathered at Alberto's house (seen below), which was more like a SoMA loft than any residence I have visited in Bologna, complete with billiards table, projection screen and.......German shepherd (Sax).

The girls, Kim and Mami (Korean and Japanese, respectively) went to a lot of trouble to prepare dishes that included inarizushi (sweet tofu skin stuffed with rice), kimchi, namuru and even bulgogi with sanchu (Korean style meat with lettuce). We washed all of this down with several bottles (remember, there were 15 of us) of homemade Prosecco and red and white wine.

And what great Italian (or Asian fusion for that matter) dinner would be complete without a little something dolce? Well, last night we were fortunate enough to have tasted a heart shaped torte (hints of rum, coffee and chocolate) prepared by Alberto's mama (and a very typical Italian mama at that!) and some gelato (from right to left like Hebrew: lemon, yogurt, chocolate and....cassis?).

By 1:00 AM, I was beat, and despite harassment via SMS from Alessandro, calling me "vecchio" (old man), I called it a night. As I learned this afternoon, they (Alessandro et al, who were not part of this dinner) were out dancing until 5:00 AM, which would have made today's lesson on prepositions and pronouns even more difficult than it was already.

Well ragazzi, that's all for now. I am at Stefano's office and am going to help him out a bit with some translation for his web site, then will probably meet up with the Siciliani for drinks later tonight....a great weekend to all, e ci vediamo presto (see you (us) soon!)....ciao!

Stakeout at the internet caffe

Ciao ragazzi...yes, yet another photo-less post, but what did you want to see anyway...more pictures of pizza?

Actually, I may have finally od'ed on pizza for a bit, and think it will be at least 48 hours before I have it again (not counting the little "pizzete" they sell in the bakery).

In any case, I definitely will not be having pizza tomorrow night, unless you count pajun/chigimi (Steven.....Jed...?). Michela's friend, Kim, is Korean, but has been living in Italy for 12 years or so, and we are going to make Korean food tomorrow night...rather, she is going to make Korean food at her house, and a group of us are going to eat. That should definitely provide some photo opportunities.

On the local news front, two computers at the Internet caffe I occasionally use are temporarily out of service, or they have been "put" out of service by the carabinieri.

Last night, when I stopped by to check my mail, there were four police officers inside the place, and one standing guard out front. Evidently, police are cracking down on illegal immigrants, and found some people in the caffe without documentation. So they punished the proprietor by temporarily putting some of the computers out of service.......somehow doesn't seem right, but that's what they did. So here I am, back at Mosquito Coast Caffe, providing nourishment to a small family of Bolognese mosquitoes.

It's about 10:30, so still a bit early to go out, will probably get a beer or two with Francesco and possibly some of the other Sicilians.

Class continues to go well, though some days I feel like I know a lot and other days, not much at all. I guess the important thing is that I am making progress, and quite enjoying things in Bologna.

That's all I have to report for today, and may your Wednesdays be merry....ciao.