Day Trip to Ferrara

Yesterday I took a trip to Ferrara for the day with three friends from Vassar, Nicole, Emily, and Giuliano. Ferrara is a city about a half hour away from Bologna, and I know it mostly from the book/movie The Garden of the Finzi-Continis by Giorgio Bassani, on which I took a class last fall semester. There wasn't too much to see, but we got a nice taste of the city in the few hours that we were there.

Our first stop was Ferrara's medieval castle, Castello Estense, built in the 14th century. There we saw Eleanor of Aragon's Garden and Loggia of the Oranges, where she filled her terrace with orange trees...

...and we also saw the prison and dungeons where King Nicolo III imprisoned his son Ugo and his second wife Parisina, after he found out about their illicit affair, to await their beheadings. (But to be fair, both his son and his wife were twenty years old, so there wasn't an age gap. Poor kids.)

Then we climbed the tower and got to see Ferrara from the air, although it was nothing near the altitude we reached when we climbed the Duomo in Florence.

One of the Castle's courtyards

Giuliano, me, and Emily on the tower

We also saw Ferrara's Duomo, the city's main cathedral from the 12th century. This is the street next to the Duomo, showing the campanile constructed by Leon Battista Alberti:

The Duomo's façade - I was suprised to see a balcony

We also tried to go to the Synagogue and Jewish Museum, because Ferrara has a particularly sizable Jewish population (for Italy, that is). In fact, The Garden of the Finzi-Continis is about a Jewish family in Ferrara in the years leading up to World War II. But unfortunately, despite what my guidebook said, both the synagogue and museum were closed in the afternoon.

Giuliano, Nicole, and Emily in front of the closed Jewish Museum. On the left is a plaque commemorating the Jews who were deported during World War II, and on the right is a plaque with Ferrarese Jews' names.

However, I would say the highlight of our day was lunch. We sought out a restaurant with a typical Ferrarese dish, cappellacci di zucca al burro e salvia, which is pasta stuffed with pumpkin and parmesan, topped with butter and sage. I love pumpkin in the fall, and it's so hard to find here! It was a fabulous dish. So fabulous that it warranted taking a picture:

Yum.

I also bought a typical Ferrarese cake, pampapato, which is chocolate cake with almonds, candied fruit, and a chocolate shell. It was invented by Corpus Domini nuns in Ferrara. I actually haven't tried it yet (it's wrapped...we'll see how long it stays that way) but it looks like it will be delicious.

In and Around Bologna

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."

Oh Happy Day!

Pictures first, because Blogger is weird.

The ceiling in Ravenna that inspired Cole Porter (more details below)

The tomb of Dante Alighieri

Nicole and I, matching (unintentionally), in the Piazza

Fireworks show in the Piazza

Mosaics in Ravenna

More mosaics in Ravenna

Even MORE mosaics in Ravenna!

Today, my friends, is a very happy day. I am FINALLY FINALLY FINALLY reunited with my computer! After spending five weeks trapped in Italian Customs, the laptop was finally delivered, thanks to a helpful lady at FedEx who did not agree with what her company was doing (or not doing), and finally got it to me. YAY!

Now onto the real stories, which are many.

Last Saturday, October 4th, was the Feast of San Petronio, the patron Saint of Bologna. There was a big stage set up in the main piazza, and in the evening there was a dance/acrobatics show presenting the history of Bologna over the past 150 years or so. It was extremely corny, with images floating on a big screen in back of the performers with music of each era to go along with it, but it was an interesting cultural experience nonetheless. The best part was at the end of the show, when there was a big FIREWORKS SHOW in the piazza. It was so beautiful. The fireworks were right above the palazzo, the government "palace," and it could not have been more spectacular. The music that went with them was varied, from Pomp and Circumstance to concertos to movie soundtrack music. I thought fireworks on a beach or over the Manhattan skyline were magical, but seeing fireworks in an Italian piazza was definitely a new and unique experience.

The night before that, I went with Emily and Nicole to see a concert presentation of an opera, Verdi's Il Trovatore. It seemed to be a community production, with just a piano accompanying the singers (and a keyboard for sounds like church bells). The ensemble was good, most of the leads were good as well, and some were excellent. There was a summary given in Italian at the beginning of each act, but luckily I had printed a summary in English to look over, because the plot was too complicated to be able to follow in Italian. But overall it was an enjoyable night out, and we felt very cultured...not to mention we were among the youngest people in the audience.

This past Saturday night, we cooked a big dinner for our Italian friends. We wanted to introduce them to traditional American breakfast foods (not to mention we were craving this stuff) so we made breakfast for dinner. It was the first time I've cooked for a group of people, so it was an interesting experience, but there were several of us cooking so I wasn't responsible to for too much! The menu consisted of french toast (with maple syrup, which is nearly impossible to find but so necessary with breakfast), potatoes with paprika, sausage links with ketchup, eggs with spinach, tomatoes, and onions, and mimosas. It was delicious, although the Italians did think that spinach in eggs was bizarre. Then with the extra batter intended for pancakes (we ended up making the french toast when the pancake batter wasn't fluffy) we made crepes with nutella for dessert. All in all, a very good meal.

Yesterday we had a day trip to Ravenna, a city on the eastern coast of Italy that was the western capital of the Byzantine empire back in the day. The city is famous for its mosaics, which are very elaborate and very renowned in the art world. They were absolutely beautiful. The churches we visited were from the 400s and 500s, and the mosaics (certainly cleaned many times) still glitter in gold. One of the buildings we saw, actually a small round building constructed to house three tombs of the royal family, has a famous ceiling mosaic of 570 gold stars. My guidebook told me that it's rumored that when Cole Porter visited Ravenna in 1920, he was inspired to write the song "Night and Day" by the gold mosaic stars on the ceiling of the Mausoleum of Galla Placidia. Isn't that cool?! (I love that song.) We also got to visit the tomb of Dante Alighieri, a little anti-climactic, but still exciting, because it's Dante.

In other news, I think I am finally addicted to Italian coffee. I don't drink coffee at home, I can't stand the taste even with milk and sugar, but here, it's just better. I'm still not crazy about coffee without milk (which is actually our version of an espresso - there is no equivalent to our American coffee, which Italians think of as "watered down coffee"), but there's nothing like a good caffè macchiato to get my day started. It's coffee with steamed milk, but less milk than in a cappuccino, so the coffee is still hot. Not to mention it's taboo to drink cappuccinos after 10am in Italy, so it's good to have this alternative for after 10am!

Pictures, pictures, pictures! (and more)

I have wonderful friends. With the combination of Nicole's laptop and Hallie's camera cable, I was able to finally upload some pictures from the past month. I only picked the highlights, and of course I didn't get the order exactly right (uploading pictures of Blogger is slightly more confusing than it should be), but here they are:

One of the towers in the harbor of La Rochelle

The façade of La Sagrada Familia Cathedral in Barcelona

In front of La Sagrada Familia

Four of the cathedral's spires, viewed from another of the spires

The Bay of Naples

A vat of cows' milk being heated to become Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese

One of Bernini's angels on the Ponte Sant'Angelo in Rome

Mount Vesuvius viewed from Sorrento

The bay in which we swam in Positano. (I kid you not.)

Pompeii and Mount Vesuvius

Rows of Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese

Views of the countryside in Reggio-Emilia

Leather jackets and the Arno River

A view of Florence from the top of the Duomo

In other news, I had a full week of classes, which were more or less enjoyable. My class at the University of Bologna, "Semiotics of Art," is amazing. The teacher is half French and half Italian, and just looks like a classy art history professor. She wrote or contributed to at least half of the books on our reading list for the class. Plus, it's not that difficult to follow since there are so many images up on the screen. I've decided to take it for the full 12 credits instead of just 6, which means I'll take only one other class. Unfortunately I didn't like the program's art history class, and the program's theater class was cancelled this week, but hopefully the theater class will start up again soon. I'm hoping I like it. Otherwise, I might try a Roman art class at the University, with Nicole. 

Two nights ago Emily and I went to see a theater performance a little bit outside Bologna called "I Semafori Rossi Non Sono Dio," which means, "Red Stoplights Are Not God." Yeah...it was an interesting experience. We had a bit of trouble finding the theater, and were a few minutes late, but I don't think it would have made any more sense if we'd caught the beginning. It probably wouldn't have even been that great in English, unfortunately. There was a large stoplight in the middle of the stage that kept changing colors, and the protagonist was a woman who believed that you need to always stop at a red stoplight, as in freeze and stop doing everything. So she talked normally during the green light, rapidly during the yellow light, and froze during the red light. There was also a stoplight repair man, who reminded me of Joey from Friends, and a chain-smoking woman who was looking for her lazy husband. Luckily it was only an hour long. But I was very glad we went because it was interesting to hear Italian spoken on stage; their diction was very clear, and it wasn't quite as hard to understand as I thought it might be. (Except during the yellow stoplights...then it was impossible.)

I also met my language exchange partner a few days ago, who is a friend of an UniBo graduate who works in our program office. Her name is Alessandra and she's 29 years old, she graduated with a degree in law and is now in Bologna writing her thesis. She's very fun and energetic and talkative, but she's from Bari in the south, so sometimes she's hard to understand. But I didn't feel too bad about my level of Italian because once we switched to English, she was really nervous, so I spoke for a while until she got up more confidence to speak in English. We were planning to meet again yesterday, and meet some of each other's friends, but I cancelled on her because I decided to try an Afro-Brazilian dance class with another girl from the program, Adeneiki. She had found out about this dance class that is twice a week, and since I haven't taken a dance class in a while, I decided to check it out with her. It was actually really good. It's in the gym of a middle school, and the teacher is great. The other women in the class seemed very nice too. I've never done Afro-Brazilian dance before but I think I'm going to like it a lot. While Nicole and I do enjoy our runs in the park, especially with all of the beautiful fall foliage, it's wonderful to take dance classes again!

Another very exciting part of my week was finding The Little Prince in Latin - Regulus. I went into the international bookstore intending to buy Gone with the Wind, which Nicole has been telling me to read for weeks, and saw The Little Prince in Latin, so I grabbed that as well. Then Nicole realized that they had it in every language - I mean Arabic, Polish, Yiddish, Japanese, you name it, they had it. If you've been keeping up with the blog so far, you know about my slight obsession with collecting The Little Prince in different languages, so you can imagine that I kind of freaked out when I saw this bookshelf. But once I got over my initial shock, I reasoned that it would be absurd (and cheating) to buy it in any other languages. The rule is that either I have to buy it in a foreign country, or a friend has to buy it for me. Buying copies in an international bookstore would be one step away from ordering them online. But I figured that Bologna is the perfect place in which to buy the Latin version, it being the home of the oldest university in Europe and all...whose official name is "Alma Mater Studiorum." So that was copy #11 to add to my collection - it's growing fast!