May Your Days Be Merry And Bright

Finally, the weather in Bologna is merry and bright! It's been overcast and rainy for weeks, but just as NY was getting a snowstorm (of which I was a tad bit jealous) the sun came out in Italy and the weather has been beautiful. This past week was very busy, as it was my friends' last week in Bologna, so we had to do many farewell-to-Bologna things.

Uploaded this picture out of order - shelves of wine at the restaurant where we ate our final group dinner

A manger scene in the window of a pasta shop

On Wednesday, we went to see the church of San Francesco, a gothic church with a beautiful altarpiece. They will also have their Nativity scene set up starting December 24th, so I'll make sure to go back and see it.

After seeing the church, Nicole, Adri, and I climbed the taller of the two towers (the one with the cascading Christmas lights down the front) in celebration of finishing our finals. There's a superstition that if you climb the tower before you graduate, you won't graduate from the University of Bologna. There's also that same superstition with crossing the piazza on a diagonal. We've been crossing the piazza on a diagonal all semester, since we won't graduate from UniBo anyway, but we decided to save the tower until after our finals as a celebration.

After climbing up 498 wooden stairs (that, thankfully, were not in a spiral), we saw the most breathtaking views of Bologna:

Piazza Maggiore and the church of San Petronio

I Colli Bolognesi - the hills surrounding Bologna

After the climb!

To reward ourselves for our steep climb, we went for a celebratory gelato. The gelateria we had planned to go to was closed, so we went to one recommended by my guidebook, called Il Gelatauro. They had the most amazing flavors, and it was possibly one of the best gelatos I've had in Italy. I had Zucca e Cannella (pumpkin and cinnamon, which was basically pumpkin pie in gelato form) and Regno delle due Sicilie (literally "reign of the two Sicilies", which consisted of pistachio, almonds, and sponge cake). Yum.

Fresh pasta and tortellini in a store window

On Thursday was our final group dinner at a restaurant that happened to be near our dorm. We've passed it many times and peered in, but it looked too fancy for anything we'd treat ourselves to, so we were very glad that ECCO decided to take us there instead. We were served many traditional Bolognese dishes, starting with some kind of cream-covered spinach soufflé, a plate of tortelloni ("tortelloni" is ricotta-filled, "tortellini" is meat-filled...finally, I've gotten that straight!), tagliatelle with meat, a veal dish, and finishing with a chocolate torte covered in chocolate sauce and powdered sugar. And of course lots of wine. We went dancing for several hours after dinner, so we didn't feel quite as stuffed and remorseful as we did right after eating!

A picture I stole from Nicole's blog, of Martina, me, Chiara, and Nicole after our Chinese dinner last week

Now my friends have all flown back to the US, except for Nicole who is traveling to Barcelona and Amsterdam with Estefi, and I'm busy showing my parents around Bologna. They arrived Saturday afternoon, just narrowly escaping the snowstorm in NY, to be greeted by the sun shining in Bologna. They're still getting over jet-lag, but enjoying the sights and tastes of Italy, of which there are many, and more to come!

I'll probably get one more post in before Christmas, but just in case, Buon Natale! And Happy Hanukkah, too - I convinced my parents to bring a miniature menorah with them, so even though we have a poinsettia plant instead of a Christmas tree, we can still have our dual-Holiday celebration.

Buone Feste! (Happy Holidays!)