Random Sights from Bologna

I have been quiet this week for the same reason I always have for being quiet--studying! Boring, I know. I have also been dealing with a lot of paperwork for a security clearance for a summer job. In fact, this paperwork took me to Florence on Tuesday for fingerprinting at the US Consulate. Just imagine this building with guards out front:

This was my first trip to a consulate since July 2000 in Sydney, when I had to go and make sure my passport, which fell in a river while trying to forge a canoe upstream in rapids at Katherine Gorge, would get me back to the States okay. It did. But the consulate scene in Sydney, as you can imagine, was very different from what I encountered on Tuesday. No guards, no police officers. You just got in an elevator and pushed the button for the 10th floor. Florence was very different. In fact, I was walking down the street, trying to decide if I was, in fact, going in the correct direction, when I saw a roadblock up ahead with lots of guards. I decided that must be the place! Everything for fine. Totally uneventful.

I thought I would share with you a couple random photos from Bologna. First, 'tis been a little cold and icy in Bologna, as you can see from this poor naked mermaid that sits at the base of the Neptune statue in Piazza Maggiore:

Also, Bologna is home to quite a variety of musical buskers--gentlemen who play the sax, the accordion, a weird scooter-type radio instrument, etc. I thought this guy was rather interesting, because he plays suspended glass bottles:

And that is all I have from here right now. Next week I have 3 finals and then I am headed to western Ireland for a few days before heading to Vienna for the big Austrian ball! I promise to have lots of great photos!

A Discovery....

Last week I was walking down a stretch of Bologna that I have walked down many, many times before. However, I always walk under the porticos, which severely limit your ability to see anything that is outside of the porticos, especially anything that is above your line-of-site. On this day, I was walking outside of the porticos and saw this on the side of Bologna's main cathedral, the Basilica di San Petronio:

I immediately stopped at this oddity and asked what is that? [In case it is not obvious from this photo ,"that" refers to the half-of-a-stained-glass-window protruding from the side of the church and which seems to have had the other half cut off] What "that" is was Rome's attempt to put a cap on the size of the basilica. At the time San Petronio was built, in the late 1300's, the original design would have led to this church being larger than St. Peter's in Rome. Apparently, the Vatican did not like this idea and forced Bologna to scale-down its project. As a result, the building of the church was prematurely stopped. Here is this part of the church from the other side:

The morals of this story? Don't spend your whole walking beneath the porticos and don't have aspirations that exceed the grandeur of the Vatican....

The Olympic Torch Runs Through Bologna

Okay, I will give 5 blogger bonus points if you can tell me who this is carrying the Olympic torch through Florence in December....Give up?

The person, of course, is Joe Torre, manager of the baseball team that I used to like, until they sold their soul to A-Rod. But that is a topic for another post....

The point of this post is that the Olympic Torch passed through Bologna today, on its way to Turin for the Winter Olympics at the end of February. It was very interesting. All I had to do was wander about 2 blocks from my apartment and there it was....The whole event only lasted about a minute, but within that minute I also saw the highest concentration of police cars since leaving Washington, DC. It was no Presidential motorcade, but for Bologna, it was quite the show.

It is interesting because this is the second time I have lived in a country/city (not including living in the States when it was hosting the Olympics in '84, '96, and '02) that was about to host the Olympic Games. During the first half of 2000, I was living in Sydney, Australia as it was gearing up for the Games. I never saw the torch there, but I came close many times. While Sri and I made our walk-about around the country in June and July, we always seemed to miss it by a day or two. Every little town seemed to have a flyer up announcing that the torch relay was coming or that it had just occurred....At least this time I got to see it up close!

Back in Bologna

I am now back in Bologna. I arrived back last Wednesday, after spending a week at home and then a few days in New Jersey with my good friend, Ron. My week at home certainly had its ups and downs. I already touched on my travel difficulties during my last post. My other problem was my body's decision to reject the American food that I tried to feed it. Apparently the wonderful American food snack called "Munchies" is not something to eat when you are used to subsisting on significantly less-processed food. As a result, I spent much of Christmas Day in bed and the days following the holiday lounging around the house. Oh well....I still managed to have a decent holiday season. Santa even bestowed a new suitcase upon me. The better to transport my stuff to and from Italy....Here are some pictures from my familial Christmas celebration:

My father and two brothers in the kitchen:

My brothers, grandmother, and Fr. Eugene:

Fr. Eugene and me, who was rather ill at the time:

My mother:

And sadly, I don't have any pictures of New Years. I don't know why I didn't take any pictures. So, in the absence of a current picture, I thought I would post a picture from a previous year. Of Sri, Ron, and me about to ring in 2004 in Cape Town, South Africa or Ron and me in Baltimore in 2005. Unfortunately, blogger isn't letting me load the pictures. The only picture I was able to load was this one of me getting ready to bungy jump at Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe: