Love at first sight...

So, this weekend was my first glimpse of the city that will become my home over the next year. On Thursday after class I caught the train from Roma with some of the other kids in the program. Three hours of rolling green hills, hay bales, and glimpses of miniature cliffside castles, and werolled into the graffiti covered Bologna train station. It was about seven o'clock at night and wehadn't eaten since noon, so we dropped our bags at the hostel and immediately made our way to the restaurant reccommended to us by the girl at the front desk.
There were seven of us and the restaurant was narrow and crowded, but the waiters happily made room, joking and flirting and teasing in true Italian style. Everyone seems friendlier in Bologna. There is none of that big city curtness that you find in Rome- they haven't yet learned to be impatient with American tourists, in fact, most seem genuinely pleased when you try to speak the language. Bologna is famous for several dishes, mostly for tagliatelle al ragu (known in the States as pasta bolognese) and any sort of filled pasta, like tortellini, ravioli, etc. I decided I was obligated on my first night in Bologna to try the dish that was seen as deserving it's name. The noodles were the egg-y yellow color of fresh pasta, piled with rich, velvety meat sauce, the savory richness cut perfectly by the acidity of red wine and freshly grated parmesan. For dessert, a chocolate cake with hints of amaretto and a dusting of powdered sugar. I left so full I could barely stomach the walk back to the hostel, let alone the pint of beer we ended up drinking at an Irish pub near the university with a sign outside declaring daily happy hours for exchange students (known in Bologna as "Erasmus").
The next day, fortified with a breakfast of chocolate croissants and cappuccino, we set out to find housing. I can't begin to describe how nerve wracking it is to walk out into a strange city and try to find a place to live with only a rudimentary knowledge of the language and a list of phone numbers pulled off websites, notice boards, and sides of buildings. The first place I saw was so far from what I wanted that I had to stop for a gelato pick-me-up to stave off the despair. The second place, however, was lovely. The address at first had me skeptical- a building on Ugo Bassi, one of Bologna's main drags, seemed like it would be unbearably noisy and chaotic, not to mention that I wasn't even sure where to find it amid all the glass storefronts and sidewalk cafes. But once I found myself in front of the enormous, double wooden doors I began to feel a little hope. Inside, once the heavy doors had swung slowly shut, all outside noise was hushed to a murmur. A marble staircase wound up and up and up, flanking an old fashioned elevator inside a wire cage. On the third floor, a lovely young woman named Elena smiled as she opened the door to show me inside. The room for rent was behind double wooden doors, painted white, facing a large window opening onto a rooftop courtyard. A narrow single bed in one corner, a bookcase, wardrobe, and a desk were the only furniture in the room. It was perfect. I looked around a bit more that day, but I knew that I had already found the one.
Bologna itself is incredible. It's a lot like a bigger, amped up, European version of Berkeley. It's a very young city, very bohemian, all sidewalk cafes and bars and women with dreadlocks and linen pants. Of course, this is Italy, so their sunglasses are still Dolce and Gabanna and the pants probably cost about as much as a month's rent in Berkeley. Still, I felt immediately as though I could feel at home there in a way that I haven't yet in Rome. I only have three weeks left here, but I can't help but count the days. Rome is too big for me, or maybe I'm just too small for Rome. This has been such a strange time, so much change that I'm not even sure what to think about any of it. I feel almost as though my edges are blurred... not a very good description, but then, I'm not really sure what I mean.
Anyway, enough of that. More to follow on the last weeks in the eternal city...