Bologna

Another day, another Italian city. After our bus fiasco in Milan Tom and I boarded a train to Bologna. After taking the train from Rome to the far north of Milan we were now starting to back track and go south. We got to Bologna in the evening and checked into our little hotel room. The thing about hotels here is that they aren't always what you'd expect in the States. Often they are located in an apartment building and occupy one floor of the building, and maybe they only have 6 rooms. The room was fine and the bathroom was down the hall, but they only had a room for one night so we had to find another the next day, which turned out to be no better. Anyway, we didn't go there to sleep, we had heard that the food in Bologna was supposed to be great so we were both looking forward to eating. We found a restaraunt nearby and were pleased to find the rumor to be true. The Bolognese sauce was very good. Basically tomato sauce with hamburger, but the meat tastes sooo good, you have to try it. The next day we decided to explore the town. Bologna isn't really the tourist place like the other places we've been and we really didn't know much about it, so we found the city center, which is always where you'll find the most interesting sites, and it had a nice feel to it. Bologna is known for it's arcades, no, not video games, but covered walkways in front of every building with columns and arches facing out. They give the streets a different feel and it's nice when it's raining. There was the usual big church and square, but then we found the towers, leaning towers. They were built right next to each other, I guess like a competition to see who could build the highest one, but one of them wasn't on solid ground and started to lean when they got half way up, so they stopped, which left the other to be finished about twice as high, but it leans a bit too.

We were able to go up inside the big tower to the top, over 400 steps, and get a view from the top but unfortunately it was cloudy so we couldn't see much, but it was fun. We went out early that evening to catch the happy hour at an Irish pub. We had a couple beers and split a hamburger and french fries to prime our stomachs for dinner later. No the burger wasn't that good, I haven't had a good burger in a long time. After that we went out to look for some good food when a girl gave us a flyer to go to a bar that night, so we took it and asked her if she knew a good place to eat. We went where she recommended and had some simple pasta with more Bolognese sauce, excellent. Then we went to the recommended bar, which was a bit slow when we arrived, but we decided to have a drink anyway. So there we were just standing there twidling our thumbs like usual, when I decided to take one for the team and go talk to three Italian girls sitting at a table. Those of you that know me in this situation know that I have no game when it comes to talking to random girls in a bar, even when they speak English! But since I'm in another country I have decided to leave that guy at home and be more outgoing, what have I got to lose? So I basically told them I was from California and wanted to talk to Italian girls, which somehow worked! (people here think it's cool that I'm from Cali) Tom was soon right behind me and they invited us to sit. Maria, Silvia and Maria, two of them Calabrese, from Cosenza where great grandpa (Coscarelli) is from. They were all very nice and Tom and I got to practice our Italian with Italians again which is always fun. We ended up dancing for a while and when the night was over we walked them to their bus stop. They were all very sweet and now we were two for two cities in making new friends. Overall Bologna was a good time and I only wish we could have eaten more food :) It would have been nice to stay another day, as I didn't get to make it to the Ducati factory this time, but I've been there before and it was good to see the city. Now it's back on the train to go a bit more south.....