Rosa and me making breakfast-for-dinner last weekend, picture courtesy of Nicole
Piazza Maggiore at dusk
I hope putting so many pictures on this blog doesn't make it difficult for the page to load, because there are just so many beautiful sights I have to share! Now, for a quick visual tour of Bologna:
The Government Palazzo ("palace") in Piazza Maggiore
The Fountain of Neptune
Neptune from the side
Bologna's "Due Torri" or Two Towers
One of the city's many ports, remaining from Medieval times when it was a walled city
We've been very fortunate because the weather has been absolutely gorgeous lately. Mid-70s during the day, a little cool at night, but nothing like it was during that cold spell in September. I'll write a bit about my classes, since I haven't gotten around to that yet. I've decided to take my "Semiotics of Art" class at the University of Bologna for 12 credits, which transfers to 2 Vassar credits. In addition to that, I'm taking a theater class with the ECCO program, which seems like it will be a lot of fun. Right now we're still talking about history and theory, but in a week or two we're going to start having class in a theater space and working on theater texts in Italian. Our final for that class will be a showing - I hesitate to say performance, because it isn't really a show, the intention of the class is more to help us with Italian diction and pronunciation rather than acting skills. We're also required to take a "Writing Workshop" class once a week with ECCO. We've only had one of those classes so far, and we've started reading a newly published fiction novel from the bestseller list. It seems like it will be interesting.
In addition to my academic classes, I've still been going to the Afro-Brazilian dance class twice a week. It's really fun, especially since there are live drummers! The teacher is a really cool little blond Italian woman who has these crazy Afro-Brazilian moves. I'm really enjoying it, but unfortunately I'll only be able to go once a week after my UniBo class changes locations in November. (Right now I'm running to dance after class on Tuesdays, but I won't be able to continue to do that after the location change.)
I've also started volunteering with an English class at the local elementary school. Two of my friends have been going, and I tagged along with them this past week. It's an interesting situation because the teacher herself doesn't speak English that well - she was supposed to be the art teacher, but the school already had an art teacher, so they threw her in with the English classes. The kids, who are 5th-graders, seem to understand a bit of English but don't speak very well yet. I still think it'll be a fun experience, and the kids to like interacting with us.
Another highlight of this past week was the cooking class, organized for us by the ECCO program. It's a three-class series, and we had our first class on Monday night. Oh. My. God. It was divine. We made two types of pasta - spaghetti with ricotta, parmesan, and fresh herbs (from the woman's terrace herb garden), and penne with tomatoes, fresh herbs, zucchini, and pine nuts. Next on the menu was a veal-prosciutto-cheese wrap, served with parmesan mashed potatoes. All served with white wine. For dessert there was an apple-banana-chocolate torte, served with a bubbly dessert wine. She also sent us home with a cake for breakfast, of lemon rinds, crushed almonds, and raisins. But there was no way I could manage to eat it for breakfast after dinner the night before! Next Monday we're learning to make pasta by hand...yummm. All of these dishes are much more labor-intensive and complicated than what I normally cook, so I don't know if I can actually recreate them at home, but I have the recipes, so I can certainly try!
I also mailed in my absentee ballot today - my first presidential vote!
I'll leave you with a few autumn-y pictures of Giardini Margherita, the park in which Nicole and I go for runs. These pictures are from about a week ago, so the foliage is a little more vibrant now, and while it's nothing compared to Vassar's foliage, it's really beautiful and gives me my fall colors fix! I also learned the verb in Italian for leaves changing colors, ingiallire, which literally means "to turn yellow."
In addition to my academic classes, I've still been going to the Afro-Brazilian dance class twice a week. It's really fun, especially since there are live drummers! The teacher is a really cool little blond Italian woman who has these crazy Afro-Brazilian moves. I'm really enjoying it, but unfortunately I'll only be able to go once a week after my UniBo class changes locations in November. (Right now I'm running to dance after class on Tuesdays, but I won't be able to continue to do that after the location change.)
I've also started volunteering with an English class at the local elementary school. Two of my friends have been going, and I tagged along with them this past week. It's an interesting situation because the teacher herself doesn't speak English that well - she was supposed to be the art teacher, but the school already had an art teacher, so they threw her in with the English classes. The kids, who are 5th-graders, seem to understand a bit of English but don't speak very well yet. I still think it'll be a fun experience, and the kids to like interacting with us.
Another highlight of this past week was the cooking class, organized for us by the ECCO program. It's a three-class series, and we had our first class on Monday night. Oh. My. God. It was divine. We made two types of pasta - spaghetti with ricotta, parmesan, and fresh herbs (from the woman's terrace herb garden), and penne with tomatoes, fresh herbs, zucchini, and pine nuts. Next on the menu was a veal-prosciutto-cheese wrap, served with parmesan mashed potatoes. All served with white wine. For dessert there was an apple-banana-chocolate torte, served with a bubbly dessert wine. She also sent us home with a cake for breakfast, of lemon rinds, crushed almonds, and raisins. But there was no way I could manage to eat it for breakfast after dinner the night before! Next Monday we're learning to make pasta by hand...yummm. All of these dishes are much more labor-intensive and complicated than what I normally cook, so I don't know if I can actually recreate them at home, but I have the recipes, so I can certainly try!
I also mailed in my absentee ballot today - my first presidential vote!
I'll leave you with a few autumn-y pictures of Giardini Margherita, the park in which Nicole and I go for runs. These pictures are from about a week ago, so the foliage is a little more vibrant now, and while it's nothing compared to Vassar's foliage, it's really beautiful and gives me my fall colors fix! I also learned the verb in Italian for leaves changing colors, ingiallire, which literally means "to turn yellow."
4 comments:
Gabby! Your classes sound sooo interesting, I'm glad you had the chance to elaborate a little more this week. The writing workshop sounds like it will be right up your alley :) Fantastic pictures, as usual - that fountain is stunning(and what a gorgeous park to jog in) and I'm so glad you're still enjoying your dance class!!! Ok, the food. You are making. Sounds sooo DELICIOUS! I'm literally going to buy some pine nuts today and experiment with the zucchini/tomatoes dish (it sounds AMAZING). Miss you so much, love you <3
Hi Gabby:
No problems with the blog loading with the pictures. Keep them coming they are gorgeous! Nice to hear about your classes too. When you come back I want to check out those new recipes you're learning.
Love you,
Ro
Bedda Maggia! Che cose! Non posso credere come bellissima sono tutti! Ho fame: non vedo l'ora di vederti e di mangiare insieme. Spero che tu possa cucinare qualcosa per tuoi genitori! Ti voglio bene e ci vediamo abbastanza presto!
...bapa da boopee!
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