la citta e la sculoa

// the city and the school

Bologna
When I arrived in Bologna the city was filled with fairy dust. All through the air floated white cotton flowers from the nearby fields, I almost expected to see Tinkerbell flitting past. In the sun, the flowers glittered and every now and then one would find its way into my hair. It lent a very surreal air to an already surreal arrival.

Bologna is one of those cities that's easy to gloss over as a tourist, but also incredibly easy to fall in love with as a resident. Maaike (my flatmate) and I both felt at home here after only a few days!

The city is famous for a few things and has many nicknames to show it. Bologna La Grassa, La Rossa, La Dotta, La Toured. Meaning, the fat (most Italians apparently admit that the food in Bologna is the best), the red (Bologna leans a long way to the left and is the communist centre of Italy, also there are 'pace' - peace - flags everywhere), the Learned (the oldest university in the world is here) and the Tower'ed (once the rich families of Bologna showed off to each other by building towers taller than everyone else's ‑ now there are only two left and they both lean.)

There are also many porticoes in Bologna, built above the streets when the students over-filled the city and more accommodation was needed. Some are plain while others are decorated beautifully and it's possible to traverse the whole city under the 42km of porticoes. 666 of them trail up a steep hill to the Church of San Luca which presides over the city, nestled in green parklands. It's quite incredible once you know your way around, each street takes on its own personality but all the way along you feel protected and welcome.

Via Zamboni is the uiversity street and it's where the action is. Every night there's a random street party and the place is littered with students and empty bottles, which are cleaned up every morning by the street cleaner. Piazza Maggiore is the main square and it's where the whole city goes to hang. There's an old market street with the best cheese, salami, fish and sweets in Bologna. Sadly it's just around the corner from our house.

Our street is 'molto rumorosamente'‑very loud. It's Via Mascarella and is littered with bars, and excellent gelateria, and various restaurants. Yep, if you remember me when I was thin, let go of that image pronto!

The people of Bologna are everything I hoped they would be. Punks all over the place, emos, rockers (Italian rockers though which to be honest are kind of funny), lots of 'bikies' with scary looking dogs and hilariously cute little vespas. Hells Angels they are not. I saw a guy do a wheelie on his Vespa the other day and had to stifle a laugh, it just isn't the same! There are gays and lesbians all around the place, strange looking old dudes, crazy men who live in boxes and show each other all their stuff. Like 'this is my shoe, I found it over there'. And EVERYWHERE there are rose sellers. The place is open, welcoming, happy in that serious way that Italians have (smile but make sure there's nothing in your teeth).

Our walk to school each morning takes in the sights and smells of an incredibly ancient city with an incredibly young heart. On Via Mascarella, we walk past the daily 'pazzo' (crazy man), skip around a couple of Italian boys who leer at us, and check out the timetable at the cinema on the corner. We take a right, walk past our favourite little restaurant 'Osteria dell'Orsa' where we always have wonderful, simple, tasty meals. There's a high wall with gardens and we pass them, and then come into a wide pedestrian‑only street with ancient grey cobble stones and bars lining it on one side. With Yohann, I had a flaming strawberry shot kind of thing at one of them ‑ hard to describe but it involves alcohol, sugar, strawberries and fire.

Around the corner we come into the always‑hectic via Zamboni. People line the street, drinking coffee in the mornings or alcohol at night. As we walk under the porticoes of the Opera School we pass speakers that blare opera music at us, it feels like being in a movie with your own soundtrack. Passing an International bookshop, a gelateria, and the famous Due Torri (two towers) we swallow our fear and dash across the blind corner that we have seen buses and bikes speed around, and occasionally crash in! We speed up to make it past the weird section where the footpath and the street are the same thing and then with relief, we are on the street that takes us to school. We press the button, the door opens, we walk up a very large, very wide, very ancient white staircase and past many beautiful pieces of furniture to our classroom.

The only thing I miss in Bologna is trees‑it's a city of buildings, porticoes and bricks. Very little greenery, only two parks at the edge of the city walls, and a large park overlooking the city which is about a 30 minute bus ride away.

The city is beautiful, I wish I could bring you all here to see it!

Cultura Italiana
This is the name of my school. It's close to the main square, in a huge building owned by one of Bologna's most pretigious families.

Italian is fun to learn, which is lucky, because for an english speaker it's also bloody hard! Many words are similar but the verbs come with about twenty thousand variations each, depending on whether it's you, me, them, us, rformal or informal and THEN whether it's the past, the present, how many people are involved, oh the list goes on. Constructing a simple sentence takes a lot of effort and time! However, I'm able to understand most of what is said, at least enough to get an idea of what's happening. I can communicate with shop keepers realtively easily and find my way around without too much hassle. I'm really enjoying the lessons and both of our teachers are great.

In the morning, we have a grammar lesson from 9‑11, then at 11.20 our very expressive, very Sicillian teacher comes to give us our 'practical' speaking lesson. We make up bizarre stories about photos of people, talk about our weekends and so on. I don't think I will make much progress in four weeks, but maybe after I've been in Italy for a few months I'll return to the school and do some more lessons. It's really a fantastic experience, so well organised and so much fun.

I love the way a new language slowly opens itself to you, revealing secrets and little familiarities, until suddenly it feels strange to think that one you didn't understand a word of it. My English is suffering though, because I am the only native English speaker here, and because the more Italian I speak, the more I start to speak English as though it's a direct translation from Italian. It won't be long before I am asking Maaike "Did you have seen the my shoes red?"

I find it really interesting to notice how speaking an unfamiliar language changes one's personality. We have all commented to each other that we feel somehow restrained. It's impossible to be funny, often it's hard to elaborate on a story. We frequently find ourselves responding with enthusiasm to someone's story and saying "Si! Si! Quando io...er....ahhh... um...si." Often your responses stop at "yeah I agree". On Mercoledi Italiano - Italian Wednesdays - when Maaike and I try to communicate only in Italian, we both reach the end of the day feeling like we are someone less ourself, a little restricted and relieved to switch back to a more familiar language.

I also use my hands a lot more, to describe whatever word I am trying to find. We are all fast becoming very good actors!

I'm writing all these new posts at the same time so it's hard to conclude them neatly. Scusate! (Excuse me).