Buongiorno Italia!

Hi friends! Sorry it´s taken me awhile to blog… BUT it´s all because of good things J I decided I would split my blogs up into groups so you don´t have to be boredddd with a giant blog. This one is about my first leg—Bologna!

I have made it to Italy! After the most horrific weekend of my life… but you already read about all that.

So my lack of pre planning has worked out INCREDIBLY. And when I say lack of, I mean that I literally started figuring out what I was doing the day before I left. I had a roughhh idea of where I wanted to go, flying into Bologna, go to Venice, Florence, then Rome.. plus some cities here and there. That´s about as far as I had gotten.

I started looking for places to stay the day before. There are literally like NO hostals in northern Italy. I started my search for Bologna since that´s where I flew into but alllll I could find were hotels for 30 euros and up. Then I looked into Venice and that was like 40 euros and up. So that was going to break my budget in a matter of days. With this in mind, I decided to try out the Couch Surfing world! I had made my account the night I had everyone over for chili when I was wine.d thanks to Chris´s influence. So that was good that I made that a while ago so I didn´t seem so sketch. I started to send out Couch Surfing requests for my first two cities… and TA DA within the first day I sent my request, I got an acceptance in Bologna from Giulia (and her room mates).

Insert from my personal journal from April 5 at 1230:

Eeeee! Made it to Italy! …This is my first time traveling completely alone in a country I don´t seak the language, Thought Spanish would be close enough.. nope even ordering a calzone was tricky…

But yes my time in Bologna was lovely. The first day, was a little rough because I was walking around with a 10 kilo backpack on, but I did feel like a badass since it was my first time ACTUALLY backpacking! Saw all kinds of pretty things…

Piazza Maggiore

like these little streets

Basilica San Stefano

Eventually, when I was in desperate need for a break, stopped at this little café for a coffee. Ordered a macchiato-which means coffee with just a little milk, not whatever starbucks says it is.

THIS IS REAL LIFEEEE

I finally went to my hosts apartment round 7 or so. They were SO hospitable. Seriously, I got my own room with a bed already made and they cooked dinner! Pasta a la carbonara which is pasta with bacon and beaten eggs. It was soooo good. Except I was like beyonddd tired, so after food (and cake!) and enough wine to make me sleepy, I decided to go to bed. Not reppin´ Erasmus too well…

For my second day in Bologna, Giulia gave me a to-do list of what I should do now that I had done most of the big tourist things.

1)      Go to the outdoor market. My plan was to buy a leather purse seeing I am in Italy and you know, they have good leather… I didn´t see any purse I like but I kind of compulsively bought a leather jacket. As soon as I handed the guy the 50 euros, I like sped off to the nearby plaza to contemplate what I had just done… I was kind of worried I had been cheated because the jacket didn´t smell like leather etc.. BUT in the end, don´t regret it. It´s real leather. I can smell it now. And I´m so euro walking around in a brown leather jacket J

2)      Go to the library to see the remains of ancient Bologna. Then I ended up chilling by Neptune´s Fountain for awhile to enjoy the SUN! until this guy from Marrekash started asking me if I had a boyfriend. Moving onnn.

Neptune Fountain

   3) Eat lunch at this authentic fresh home style pasta place. It´s this little hole in the wall bakery looking thing where these three old women make their pasta and sauces from scratch. You literally order your meal and then “take away” or eat it in the tiny space standing up. I wanted lasagna but it was finite…so I got pasta a la ragu! Aka Bolognese—so another dish that originates in Bologna

SO MANY STAIRS

     4) Walk up to San Luca. She told me it was a two hour walk, but for some reason I thought she was exaggerating. Nope, literally two hours, and one of it was going uppp hundreds of steps. The view was worth it though and there was a very beautiful basilica at the top. I have never seen so many people sitting in a basilica (I always do, you know say something seeing I´m Catholic...) My theory is that the walk was more exhausting than most people planned. Good to burn all the carbs eaten in Bologna haha

 5)      Eat Gelato. My first gelato in Italy! I don´t even know the flavors I got. So many to choose from… It was deliciousss though

The Bologna group took me out for aperitivos for dinner. Basically, it´s like a little earlier than dinner, around 7 or 8, and you buy a drink and then get to eat from a buffet of food. We went to a few bars after that and then they showed me the seven secrets of Bologna! I don´t think I can share those on here though—you´ll have to go to Bologna yourself J