As a BA/MA student at SAIS, I knew I wouldn't be spending my senior year in Baltimore. I had a choice between D.C., a great city, and Bologna, a great city in Italy.
I chose Bologna, although I had some doubts, not least of which was the fact that I didn't speak a word of Italian beyond "pizza." I pushed these details to the back of mind because I knew that I would not have many more chances to live abroad. So when August came, I packed up and moved to Bologna.
Home to a university founded in 1088, Bologna is really the original college town. However it is not just an Italian version of College Park. Unlike prefab college communities, Bologna is a real city that just happens to have a population made up largely of University of Bologna students.
To cater to the young crowd, there are plenty of bars, cafes, nightclubs, meeting places and stores. On any night you can find a bar at which to get aperitivo: a buffet of appetizers like salads, bruschetta, olives and dips that is included with the purchase of a drink. This is a great deal, especially if you are not looking for a big meal. Caf??s in the city center are housed in 13th and 14th century buildings painted in warm shades of red and yellow. Despite their age, a lot of these buildings are in much better shape than Gilman Hall.
I was lucky enough to find an apartment near the center without the help of the SAIS housing consultant, the notoriously stone-faced Salvatore (who, I am told, is actually one of the more happy-go-lucky Sicilians). My apartment is in a good location and has a washing machine and internet, two things that are sometimes hard to find here. Dryers are pretty much non-existent, so clothes are hung on the line outside or the drying rack. I pay what was originally a fair price of about $500 a month. However, today, given the current exchange rate, this equates to considerably more.
Although there is an efficient bus system, I have chosen to walk for the most part when I am going somewhere in the city, mainly because I love glancing in all the store windows (I have never seen so many kinds of pasta!) and people-watching. Not to mention, a lot of the sidewalks are covered with beautiful porticos.
When I first arrived, I spent hours wandering around and exploring the city. Ancient churches seem to be around every corner, and nestled between the buildings and towers are open piazzas. Some of these are loud and bustling like the Piazza Maggiore where people meet around the central fountain, sit at the cafes, or just hurry through on their way to work. However, others are small and intimate, places where you can escape the noise of the city and sit inside a miniature garden.
One thing that is definitely different here is the way people dress. You won't find anyone in sweatpants walking down the street. Even if people are on the way to the gym, they usually bring clothes and change there.
Also, girls seem to be averse to carrying backpacks. I have seen more women with several handbags than with one backpack. I break these unspoken rules daily because I continue to carry my huge backpack that screams "American!" and even (gasp) wear my running clothes downtown.
For the first five weeks, I am taking a Survival Italian class in which we usually digress from grammar and prepared dialogues to talking about useful subjects such as how to ask for someone's number or how to complement an Italian girl. In Italy, girls expect compliments. So, what passes for borderline harassment in the U.S. is business as usual here.
A recent digression focused on the so-called "bad" part of town. Now compared to Greenmount, this area (around the Piazza Verdi) is about as wild as a petting zoo, especially during the day. It is where Italians with dreads and tattoos come to hang out with their dogs, drink, listen to music and smoke illicit substances. Useful Italian vocabulary word of the day: "Il Punkabbestia," literally "a punk with beast," defined by our teacher as those that frequent Piazza Verdi, but they can also be found all over Bologna.
Apart from these random facts, so far, I have learned how to ask for directions, order about five items off a menu and communicate effectively with gestures, noises and pictures. I get to practice these skills on my Italian roommate, Luisa, a student at the University. She has introduced me to Italian game shows, music and homemade food. She comes from the South of Italy and loves making huge dinners. This past Sunday, we had pasta with homemade sauce (something she eats at least once a day), fried pork nuggets, meatballs and a potato and tuna salad.
Much of Italian TV is dubbed American series. The first week, I found myself watching Murder She Wrote and Walker, Texas Ranger. However they do have a lot of very original commercials. If you want an example, (and need a laugh) Google: "Air gum commercial Italy." In fact, I recently met the star of one such commercial, an actor whose claim to fame is his starring role in the Control Condom Commercial of 1992. The commercial seems to have been effective not only in giving this guy a great pick-up line, but also in getting Italians to use condoms, since the population growth rate in Italy is one of the lowest in Europe.
