Funny Video

Okay, I know I have taken a very long hiatus....I will post something about my trip to Florence later tonight or tomorrow--promise! In the meantime, you all have to check out this video. I received it from someone in my European Securities class, so it is sort of related to school....Anyway, enjoy! And Happy Halloween!

http://www.big-boys.com/articles/kosovo.html

I Went to Church

Okay, now in all fairness, I have been to church since I arrived in Italy. However, this was the first time that I went to mass at the church around the corner. Now, I am not just posting this to alert my mother and other potentially interested parties that I went. I have some rather interesting observations to share. Before discussing the mass, though, I realized something rather interesting as I was walking to church. This mass marked the fourth time I have experienced a Catholic mass in a foreign language. I have previously been to a German mass in Austria, a Portuguese mass in Rio, and a Czech mass in Prague. Now, this Italian mass made four. Pretty cool, I thought.

Back to the mass. First, it started at 10 PM. Yes, that is not a typo--10 PM was the start time. And the place was PACKED. Lots and lots of people. A lot of young people, too. I haven't seen that many young people in a church since I went to mass at Cornell.

The church was amazing. Mind you, this is just one church of many in Bologna, but it was larger than some cathedrals I have seen. I do believe it is larger than the cathedrals in Sydney and Prague. And the lights in the church were actually more like chandeliers that one would have in a ballroom or foyer. I had never seen such lighting structures in a church.

The congregation also seemed to take communion very seriously. In the States, I have noticed that it is odd for people not to go to communion during mass. The vast majority of people go, whether they should or not. But yesterday a lot of people did not go to communion. I wondered why. Perhaps people take confession more seriously here, so if a person hasn't been to confession recently, they don't feel they are worthy to accept communion. I don't know--that is just my current theory.

And the best parts of my mass-going experience? There was NO music. No singing, nothing. And the mass only lasted 40 minutes, mainly because of the absence of a musical repertoire. Not quite as expedient as Fr. Eugene, but it's still better than the 1.5 hour masses I experienced at Cornell and pretty much every church I have visited since then.

Now if only I had any idea what they said during the mass....

My First Bologna Dinner Party

Last night I hosted my first dinner party of the season, with my roommate, Megan. It was a last minute decision, but we managed to round up a good group of willing diners.

From right, Jeanette, Shay, Mark, my empty chair, Megan, and Pete (my third roommate, who I think is making his blog debut)

The same group, but with me included

As anyone who I have cooked for in the past knows, there is only one thing that I will make and willingly serve to others-risotto verde made with leeks and fresh herbs.

This actually is a picture of the recipe. My roommate in Seattle, Kristen, had a large book filled with recipes. I really liked this one, so I scanned into my computer. Pretty high-tech, no?

This is second time I have made risotto in Italy and neither time has the dish turned out as well as when I make it in the States. I can't figure out why. Perhaps the rice doesn't soak up the flavour the same way? Maybe the bouillon isn't as flavorful? Maybe my metric conversions aren't perfect? I don't know. It still turned out okay last night, but it is just not the same. Perhaps the Italians are just trying to prevent Americans from coming over and making better risotto than them. ;-) I just don't know.

Anyway, the dinner party turned out very well. Mark brought yummy cheese and wine from southern Italy and Shay brought salad fixings. He even made croutons. I am always impressed when people make things that I never considered making myself--like croutons and salsa. But they are so easy to make. Almost as easy as taking a box off the shelf at the supermarket. For dessert, I bought, at the last minute, individually wrapped chocolate pies. It was the equivalent of putting Hostess cupcakes on a plate and serving them, but since this is Italy it was a little classer than that. All in all the dinner went very well.

After dinner, we made the requisite trip to the Celtic Druid. Ah yes, the Druid. Can't go a weekend without a trip. This picture, therefore, closely resembles previous pictures taken on previous trips to the Druid. I may even be sitting in the same seat. Oh well.

Jeanette, Mark and myself. At some point I will learn that the camera actually has a much wider focal area than I realize.

The goal tonight is to find some place new and different. Yes. New. Different. Perhaps even Italian?

A Fancy Night Out

On Friday, the night before Natalie and I went to the market to buy scarves, I attended a "fancy" party, thrown by my friend, Dan, who traveled with me to Capri and the Amalfi Coast in September. The party was rather fun, once we actually got there. Natalie, bless her, got the original address wrong and took us on a wild goose chase across the city. Of course, I was wearing very uncomfortable boots, so this was not fun.

Some fun pictures came from the night, though:

Me and Dan, who took Pre-Term with me in DC

Adam. Jeanette, and Courtney

Courtney, Me, Natalie, and Jeanette

The last picture will be replaced with a better picture, if Courtney sends me her photos. She just happened to get better photos that night....

What I Am Reading Now

So as not to be accused of not updating the blog frequently enough, I thought I would post a random update on how my schoolwork is going. Not that anyone is interested in this information, as I assume adventures at the bar are more fun and involve more pictures, but unfortunately, this is the bulk of my waking life now.

Tomorrow is the last day to register for classes. Or at least to register for the classes that you actually want to take, as opposed the classes you "thought" you wanted to take, before you actually thought about whether you want to take international trade theory and international monetary theory in the same semester. I decided not to--why not spread the economic fun over two semesters?

Anyway, I decided my class schedule will consist of French (intermediate-low; how I am intermediate anything in French is beyond me), international trade theory (think edgeworth box), America and the world since WW II (a sort of required course, so don't laugh at me), international political economy (talking about the meaning of capitalism at 8:30 on a Monday morning sounds like fun to you, too, right?), and European security studies (when are the EU and Russia going to be friends again?). I actually like the group of classes. Amazing when your classes are actually interesting....

I have to get back to studying now, but just thought I would leave you with a "what I am reading now" teaser, in case you yourself are looking for something to read:

It is about American foreign policy since 1938. I am only on page 10. So far so good....

Saturday at the Market

Yesterday my friend Natalie and I decided to visit the large market held every Saturday in Bologna. This place has everything that you could possibly want and for less money than you could ever hope to pay. Of course, one could assume you trade a little bit of quality for price, but oh well. In particular, we set out to buy scarves to wear around town, so that we can look more "European." Or at least more Italian. We bought the scarves and we also bought these very funny, very cheap 1980's-type arm warmers, complete with thumb holes. They are a sight. Here are some random pictures from the market. They aren't that exciting, but oh well. First, here is me eating gelato. Looks good, huh? Come to Bologna and you can try some of this gelato-goodness, too!

And below are the two symbols of the 2006 Torino Winter Olympics, in Bologna for a visit. They are quite funny looking things....

And that was pretty much Saturday at the market....

A Real Italian Meal

I have been in Italy for a little over a month and a half now (geez, has it really been that long?) and last night I had the opportunity to experience my first true, Italian, or at least Bolognese, meal. I have obviously eaten out before, as you all of seen the pictures of my food, but this was my first dining experience.

This particular place that myself and 6 friends dined at is a true hole in the wall. It is down a side street, with no sign out front or anything. You just have to know it's there. Anyway, we go inside, sit down, order our vino di casa and acqua naturale (house wine and water), and then the food starts coming.

The food is served family style, which is Italy means bringing to the table large plates of food containing more cuisine than 7 people could ever hope to finish. First, they serve an antipasti course, which really amounted to 10-12 different kinds of appetizers. Then there was the pasta course, with 3 different kinds of pasta. And then they brought out the dessert. Oh, the desert.

The person on the right in the above picture is Gene and he is being handed a giant bowl of chocolate. And on the left is Natalie, who is handing Shay the plate of pastry puffs that you are supposed to put the chocolate on.This is a group shot, obviously, and you can see the variety and quantity of desserts spread around the table. From left, that is Gene with a bowl of chocolate mousse, Shay with a creme torte, Me with an apple tort, Mark with something that I can't see, Courtney, Natalie, and Jeanette with a chocolate torte, a bowl of creme brulee, and a nutella cake in front of her. The idea is that our table would take what we wanted from these desserts and then they would be passed to the next table. And then after dessert came the grappa (a liquor made from the leftovers of the wine-fermenting process). They just set a whole bottle of grappa on the table, trusting that we would not drink the whole thing.

Needless to say, everyone was pretty full by the end of the night. Did I mention the whole meal took about 3 hours? We did it in true Italian fashion, getting there at 9 PM and leaving at 12 AM. In all fairness, we had an important gathering with the mayor of Bologna before dinner and that pushed it back a bit. Here are some photos from before everyone was too full and when people still looked happy:

Courtney (who lives next door to me in Natalie's apartment building) and Natalie

Mark and Me (Do I look albino or what?)

Jeanette and Gene (both Iraq War vets)

Shay (he was next to me and for some reason didn't want to pose for a decent photo)

And now Natalie and I are off to join the gym!

I Passed!

I just found out that I passed my macroeconomics placement test, so that's good news. No more macro for me. Now it is on to international monetary theory. Doesn't that sound like fun? I also had my French language placement exam yesterday, which included an oral part. I was a little nervous, but I actually managed to have somewhat of a conversation with the woman conducting the exam. It was not high-brow stuff, but even I was surprised by what came out of my mouth. I may have even talked my way into an intermediate class. I should know tomorrow or Friday, when French class actually starts. So, good news all around....

A Picture of Me

Here is a picture of me that was taken by a classmate last week at a fundraising happy hour I attended at Cortes Maltese, a local bar in town. The picture doesn't look a lot like me, but it is me. Even I had to look at my earrings just to make sure!

This is Hard....

I had no idea it was going to be this hard to back into the swing of school. It has been a challenge, mainly because I have really enjoyed the last 4 years of doing relatively little. I mean, I moved cross-country twice, had a real job, traveled to a few new continents, took a Calculus class, took a French class, got two new jobs, studied and took the GREs, applied to grad school, and moved to Italy, but really life has been pretty easy. No all-nighters, no using Sunday as a study day, no using weeknights as a study time, no using lunch as a study time, etc. Now I am back to that life. Back to having no life. I chose it, it's great, but it is still tough. What happened to my nights of watching TV and lounging in the hot-tub? Oh, wait, that's going back too far....Don't necessarily want to go back that far....Of course, the airline miles were nice.....(I was searching for a random picture of a hot tub and found this hotel spa in Budapest. Now, I think I might want to travel to Hungary. The rates are pretty cheap, too. Maybe I will post a REAL picture of this spa....)

Anyway, I thought my transition would be easy, but it is proving difficult. I thought I could just slide back into my hard-working, hard-fought Cornell ways, but so far it has not happened. I think the problem may be that it is just the first day, I don't have a ton of work today, and the weather is still somewhat nice. Tomorrow, though, I am sitting in the school's library all day. Doesn't that sounds like fun? This is after I take my French placement test, of course. Anyone have any tips for testing out of a beginning French class? There is even an oral section. THAT is scary. Je suis bien. That's about it....

Rain, Rain, Go Away....

It has been raining here for days. And unfortunately this rain has not been the nice Seattle-mist type of rain. The other day, as I was walking home from school, I got caught in a torrential downpour and even with an umbrella still managed to get soaked from the knees down. Here is a picture of a drainage pipe near school. It should give you some indication of what the rain has been like:

Last night we had a 7 PM lecture at school, given by a world-renowned foreign relations expert, Frank Fukuyama, who is a professor at SAIS' Washington DC campus. He gave a very interesting talk about W's potential foreign policy legacy. After the lecture, some friends and I headed to the Celtic Druid Irish pub again. On this occasion my roommate Megan was dared to relive her glory days by taking a shot of 151 proof rum:

Whether she actually did the shot is not for me to say....And here is a picture of me with my friend Mark:

I Am Back

Unfortunately, this is going to be a short post, but I will have more good stuff tomorrow. Tonight, however, I have to get to bed early. Too many late nights spent studying. Well, studying and last night there was a happy hour to go to, but I digress....

Today was our official first day of school. Of course, I actually started school in DC about 2 months ago, so today was really just another day at the office. Today, I did a little class-shopping to decide what my fourth class will be. I sat in on what turned out to be a very interesting class on American foreign policy. I know, I know....why go to Italy and study American foreign policy? It sounds crazy, but the way my program is structured and its academic requirements, taking this class would make a lot of sense. I don't have any classes tomorrow, but I still have to go to school to find our if I passed the rather difficult economics placement exam I took yesterday. I think I passed. I hope I passed. I studied for quite a long time--I literally did not leave my apartment for days (which is evident by the lack of photos and good times to report here). In fact, yesterday and today I ran into people who I hadn't seen since before my self-imposed hibernation last Friday. They asked me where I had been and why they hadn't seen me in a while....

Yeh, so that's really all I have to report for now. Although I hope to have some happy news to report tomorrow. If nothing else, I will be in receipt of a treasure trove of books my father so nicely sent me this week, so that is happy news in and of itself.

Since I have no new pictures to share, I thought I would share some photos I took in May. Yesterday after my brutal exam, I came home and consoled myself by watching Back to the Future III for the 87th time. This reminded me of a Jeep that I saw when I took a day-trip to Gettysburg with my friend Ryan this past May:

I used to have that exact same license plate. I was so excited to actually see it on a car, I had to take a picture....

This blog will go back to Bologna tomorrow!

One Random Comment

I have meant to point this out for a little while now, but always forget. One feature of this blogging service is a spell-checker. What I think is truly funny is the spell-checker embedded in this blogger service does not recognize the words "blog" or "blogger". It's like if Microsoft Word did not recognize the word "document". I just thought this was pretty funny....Feel free to disagree with me....

My Neighborhood Trattoria

One interesting thing about where I live is there are a lot of businesses that operate within close proximity of my apartment. Directly across the street is our neighborhood trattoria, where my friends and I ate for the first time on Thursday. To get a feeling for how close this place is to my apartment, take a look at the picture of the trattoria (it is the shop under the yellow building), taken from the window of my bedroom:

Here is a picture of Megan, Natalie, and I at dinner:

And a picture of the larger group:

And sadly that is all the excitement that I have to share right now. I have spent the last couple of days cooped up in my apartment being sick with a cold and studying for my big test on Wednesday. So, unless you want another picture of me reading, this is as good as it gets right now!