Evenings in Ferrara

So having been kept busy from morning to morning with 6 hour intensive italian classes, naturally during the afternoons and the evenings we all have been doing our best to explore Ferrara and blow off steam. The best way to do this?

Passegiata a mercoledi:

In the evenings in Italy after dinner, everyone heads to the center piazza to mingle and socialize, and in Ferrara the biggest Passegiata night is mercoledi (wednesday), and for us young people every other night is also for festaggiare or partying. This past wednesday was the first night we had a chance to go and it was shoulder-to-shoulder. Most people congregate around the Cathedral and the surrounding bars. We've met a bunch of italians, but university here has yet to start so most college kids are still out of town. As you can tell from the pictures below my candids need a little work so I have borrowed a couple of my friend's much better photos. . .

The Spritz

Living in Italy has done wonders for building my my cocktail knowledge and unlike in the U.S., Italians like to keep it simple. There are 2 typical drinks here-the Negroni which I have already talked about and the even more popular Spritz.

Every bar you walk into people are most likely drinking a spritz, it is made with Aperol Liquor (no, I have no idea what that is) which looks like a less red Campari, and white wine. When ordering you can ask for either still or sparking wine (ferma or frizzante). It's delicious and not quite as hit or miss as a Negroni.

Internet problemos, the beginning of the semester

Hi, long time no post.

It's been a very hectic 4 days. To make a long story short, our directors had to do some last minute adjustments to our living arrangements and it turns out that I am in a home stay with another girl from my program, Natasha. Our italian mama is Carmen. She she speaks no english, provides us with 2 meals a day, and does our laundry. Pretty great deal. Her house is beautiful and in the medieval part of Ferrara, it's only a 20 minute walk to class, but after class is over, pretty much everything else is also 20 minutes away so it ends up being a lot. Tomorrow I'm renting a bike.

Today was our first day of class, we have two weeks of intensive italian classes, as in 6 hours a day. I was quite nervous this morning because I'm in the "advanced" class, but it turned out fine. I understood (mostly) everything but speaking still needs some work.

Considering the amount of time we are having to spend in class plus our non-english speaking italian parents, I better be damn good at this by december.

Everyone in my group is great, there are 16 of us and we all get along well. We all have each other's phone numbers and we all meet to go out so it's great.

I haven't taken a lot of pictures in the past few days because we were in orientation from 9-11 and then we've been settling into our homes.

New Pictures to come. . .

Bologna and a little Ferrara

So the past three days mom and I were in Bologna before heading to Ferrara for a day before my orientation starts. In the airport in Bologna we had met Allison--a super cool fashionista (she works for Stuart Weitzman, calls him 'Stuart'. No, really) -- who happens to have several mutual friends and is from Texas just like my mom. We hit it off and decided to meet for drinks in dinner our last night. She's lived in Bologna for 10 years and thought we should meet some of her friends. She brought along her lovely friend, Mariano, and two rounds of Negronis later we were off to her favorite restaurant.

Osteria dell'Orsa has been written up in the New York Times twice, which is not surprising because everything was DELICIOUS. The restaurant itself is obviously a strictly locals place. It's completely casual, bench seats, t-shirts, teeny tiny space. perfect.

After dinner and a bottle of wine, we decided we had to stop at Allison's favorites, Nu Bar. We walked in and were immediately greeted by the staff, including the bartender who was a drink master. Even mom said they were the best cocktails she has ever had. His business card is actually a dog tag and it reads "exotic drinks". I can't remember the names of anything but the peach colored one was garnished with 4 pieces of fruit. It was so pretty that it was fun to walk around a take pictures.

The next day we headed for Ferrara, dropped our bags at the hotel and walked around the centro. With the looming castle and turrets, and the renaissance buildings I feel like I'm living in a fairytale. I don't understand how there are no tourists and no one seems to know about Ferrara or much about Bologna.

Negroni

Although the typical drink of choice in Italy is wine, lately they have been catching onto the British/American's love of cocktails. I had never had an italian cocktail, so in Bologna when mom order a 'negroni' I decided to try one too. Made with bitter campari, rum, and sweet vermouth and topped with an orange slice this little baby looks like Kool Aid with a kick. It seems to be the only cocktail most italians drink, every bar I walk into everyone his holding this shirley temple look alike.

Arrival and Revenna: The Mosaic City

Hello Dear Readers,

In an effort to keep everyone up to date on my trip, I have hopped on the blogging bandwagon. What better way to post pictures and fun stories. 

After 28 hours of missed connections and flight delays, mom and I finally made it to Bologna for our mini vaca before we head off in separate directions. Our first day was spent in a nearby town, Revenna. We took an hour-long train ride and were dropped into the centro of this beautiful little city. It is where Dante escaped Florence and is buried, and is also known as "the mosaic city" because of it's large array byzantine mosaics. 

First stop:  Bisilica di San Vitale. Built in the 6th century, the interior is covered from altar to dome with the mosaics.

Next door is a little chapel that literally looks like the inside of a jewelry box because the entire place glistens with golden tiles and rich indigo and deep green tiles. 

 And then two other churches whose names escape me, they are all Basicilica di San Something Something. . . The first one was a very old medieval church with beautiful mosaics. Mom and I especially liked the boats, the castle with stones made with golden tiles, and the three wise men.

The next one was a little church that had been built over the roman ruins of a palazzo, so we went down to the basement to see all the preserved mosaics (sorry no pics, no cameras were allowed).

We then went to Dante's Mausoleum. . .

Lunch. . .

On the way back to the train station we found what mom called an "italian totem pole"

Obviously she liked it