Week #1 in Bologna

     The rest of this week has been filled with little learning experiences sprinkled here and there. We followed a regular schedule of going to class every morning at the same, followed by lunch, then a nap at either our house (Brooks and I) or Maddie's house, and then we'd go for walks around the city to explore. There were many lessons learned, but most of them are minor and not really worth mentioning. We learned at the beginning of the week that there are skinks (tiny lizards) all throughout the city. One day we were walking along the street and we noticed this little thing scurrying along the sidewalk where the sidewalk met the wall of the building we were walking along. We tried catching it, but they are wicked fast and hard to grab. When we finally catch one (which is inevitable) I will make sure to take a picture and post it here on the blog. I finally had an Italian gelato this week as well. It was so delicious! I got pistachio gelato and fell in love with it right away. I don't know if I'll ever be able to eat American ice cream again haha. The three of us also learned about something called aperitivo. Aperitivo is essentially the least expensive way of getting a good dinner. It occurs every night from about 7:00-9:00 PM. The bars (café) put out an all you can eat buffet of small foods. The way you gain access to the food is by purchasing any type of drink. In a nutshell, you get an all you can eat dinner and a drink for around€ 5-7 ($8-10). The food, like it is everywhere here, is fantastic. They have everything from small sandwiches to pasta and everything in between. That was probably our greatest lesson because now we know how to eat a big meal and save money when we want. 
     On Wednesday after class, Brooks and I decided we wanted to Il Torre degli Asinelli...the taller of the two towers in the center of Bologna. These two towers are icons of the city and were built under the patronage of two families in the city as a way to express their power (obviously the family that built the taller of the two towers, the Asinelli family, was wealthier). The interesting thing about Il Torre degli Garisenda (the other tower) is that it is actually leaning quite noticeably from most likely a failure of the foundation. All of these pictures are views from the top of the tower looking out in all directions as well as one that is looking down upon the smaller tower and another that is looking down through a knot hole in the floorboards of one of the landings looking down the interior of the tower.

Brooks and I counted our steps on the way down the tower, and we ended up counting 498 steps to get from top to bottom. It was quite the workout to say the least. In some of the pictures you will notice huge hills outside the city. This weekend we plan find a way to get to the top of the hills because there are two churches up there that we want to see as well as seeing the city from that vantage point. It should make for some more good stories and pictures. Ciao!