Carnevale a Venezia e un po' di lavoro

Ciao tutti,

Well, I’ve been very busy the last two weeks. Mostly with classes, which started last Monday, Feb. 4. Here’s an update on that, and then we can get to the fun stuff:

After a little bit of juggling, here’s what my schedule looks like (hint: it wasn’t supposed to look anything like this. Some things transcend location). For the first part of the semester, I’ll be spending about 18 hours a week in lectures. Sound like a lot? It is. Factor in that those lectures are in Italian, a language I’m not quite proficient with yet, and… Yeah. It’s going to be an adventure.

The classes I’m taking are Ancient History of Emilia Romagna (this region of Italy), Contemporary Italian Literature, and Modern African History. I know, I know, that last one’s a bit out of nowhere, but Rachel and I are both trying to fill some credits while we’re here. Hopefully that one will transfer! The history and literature classes will definitely count for our minor in Italian.

So far, things are going pretty well. Emilia Romagna is almost all American students – although there are a scant few Italians, a Spaniard, and an Australian as well. In fact, there are quite a few foreign students in all of my classes. I find myself wondering if we picked classes that are easily accessible to foreign students, or if there are so many foreign students here that all the classes are like that. My guess is a little of both – if we found out about the classes and thought they sounded manageable, chances are others did too. But there are also over 4,000 foreign students at Bologna every semester. So who knows! I’m considering it a benefit, for the time being. Being in a class with other non-native speakers makes me feel more comfortable, mostly because the professor knows there’s a large number of us and will be accommodating. At least, hopefully. We’ve had good luck so far.

The way credits work here is a little bit complicated and took us forever to figure out. Kudos to Rachel for doing most of the thinking on it and producing all of the results. I was a little bit too culture-shocked and jet-lagged the first week to be of much use. The way credits transfer to OU, enrolling (I use that term loosely – Italians don’t care much for such things like “enrolling” and “taking attendance”) in 24 hours here is equal to 12 at home. So to be full-time students, we have to take a combination of 6 and 12 credit hour classes that total to 24. What’s the difference between 6 and 12, you ask? Well, we were confused, as well. Could a 12 credit class be so hard that it could possibly be worth twice the amount of credit? Is it possible that we could spend 24 hours in lecture a week, twice what we do in the US, for the same amount of credit?

Well, no. See, the 12 hour classes are 6 hours a week all semester. But the 6 credit classes are 6 hours a week for half the semester. So instead of taking four of the 6 credit classes and being in lecture 24 hours a week all semester, we’re able to divide it up. Rachel and I have decided to take two 6 credit classes and one 12 credit class. This means, of course, that we’ll only have one class after our first exams in April.

I hope you don’t mind my technicality talk too much. This is, after all, our primary concern here – making sure we’re still considered full-time students by OU (and therefore being allowed to come back and retain our scholarships) has been a stressful and pretty complicated business. We have had some help from some advisors from Arezzo, the English-based OU program in Italy, and a study abroad coordinator here in Bologna. Thankfully we haven’t been completely on our own!

And now, the good stuff. This past weekend was the big finale of Carnevale. It technically culminates in Fat Tuesday (Martedì Grasso here), but the place to be is Venice the Saturday before that. 

Ciao, Venezia

Hard to believe it's a real place!

After much urging by our fellow travelers, Rachel and I joined some other exchange students on an 8:20 a.m. train to Venice. We almost missed it, but that’s irrelevant – we didn’t, and if we had it would have been my fault. I’m sure none of you are surprised. The train was packed. Of course we weren’t the only ones headed to Venice – there were families, students, you name it. The crowd, combined with our tardiness, had a pretty unfortunate outcome: we had to stand for the 2-hour ride. It could have been much worse – we were in one of the least crowded cars, so we at least had some breathing room.

It was way too early for this.

We got to Venice around 10:30 and walked with the crowd in the general direction of Piazza San Marco, the main square. Let me tell you, I have never seen so many people in one place. It was fascinating people-watching, especially with the costumes. Most people opted for just a mask, the traditional maschera, but dang, some people got decked out. There’s a sort of French revolution look that’s very popular, but there were also a lot of crazy, out-of-nowhere outfits going on.

My favorite costume of the day -- a mermaid-y thing. Who knows.

Venice was much too crowded to do the traditional sightseeing – this day was all about Carnevale. We spent several hours heading towards the piazza with the throngs, of course stopping for some pizza on the way there. There was a lot of window-shopping to be done along the way, so it was far from boring. We managed to pick up a few pieces of genuine Murano glass at a little shop. I won’t be revealing those, though, in order to maintain mystery for a few lucky recipients.

One of many souvenir stands

Venice was a really great day of wandering, people-watching, and window-shopping. The highlight of the day for us, though, was getting our faces painted. We just couldn’t resist!

Work in progress...

All finished, with my Venice buddies -- Abby and Rachel

After meeting up with some fellow Americans in the piazza, we headed back towards the station. Let me tell you – it’s hard to find your way back by following a crowd if there’s not a crowd anymore. The trick was going the opposite way -- the night crowd was on its way in, and looking a bit more rowdy than anything we’d seen that day.

We made it back to the station with plenty of time to grab seats this time (thank goodness) and had an uneventful trip back to Bologna.

Venice was by far my favorite trip so far. Granted, there haven’t been many yet, but I’m really looking forward to going back on a day when it will be a bit less crowded and maybe a little warmer. It’s a beautiful city, and I completely understand why it has the reputation it does. Luckily I have at least one trip guaranteed in March. Can’t wait!

When in doubt, go up the hill: Arezzo and Montepulciano

Well, I have quite a story for you. 

This weekend I visited my former roommate/current friend Brynne, who’s studying in Arezzo this semester. Arezzo’s a little less than 2 hours from Bologna by train, so I knew a visit was inevitable – I’m glad it got to happen this soon! There’s nothing quite like a familiar face and shared experiences to make you feel at home in a foreign country (not that I have extensive experience with this yet).

The lovely Brynne

I took the train Friday night with some help from Arezzo faculty who were in Bologna for the day. And thank goodness! I barely made the train – we’d been in meetings all day and I had to run home and pack a bag, then get back across town to the station (great time to try a new bus, it turns out) and buy my ticket. A very nice Italian man let me buy my ticket before him after I explained my train was leaving the station in two minutes. But I got on! Once in Arezzo, the teachers walked me to the building where Brynne was at a mixer with OU students and some aretini (Arezzo natives).

It was a pleasant surprise to find more familiar people than I expected in Arezzo – former classmates in Italian, friends of friends and some faces I recognized from campus. After a night out on the town with that crowd I was definitely worn out.

Saturday morning we set out for a daytrip planned by some of the other Arezzo girls. I use the word “planned” loosely, because they’d only thought as far as the train station. We bought tickets for Montepulciano, a small town about an hour from Arezzo known for its wine tastings.

Montepulciano, like many, many Italian towns, is high on a hill. Trains don’t really do hills. So the Montepulciano station is about 9 kilometers below the walled city. Usually that’s not an issue, because buses run to and from the station throughout the day.

But, of course, it was Saturday, and bus drivers need a day off. After the no transportation realization, we started to walk towards the town – how far is 9 km, anyway? Well, there were rain clouds rolling in and we decided 9 km is a very, very long way before we’d gotten very far at all. We decided to stop at a winery we passed to ask if they had any advice about taxis or some other sort of transportation.

I am, of course, the one in the group with the most Italian experience (although it is limited), so after the vineyard owner called several taxi services for us and got no answers, I asked him if he could drive us – his car only seated five, but with eight of us, two trips at 10 euro each was perfect. With that obstacle out of the way and finally in Montepulciano, we wandered the town looking for Piazza Grande, the main square, and a place to eat. It was all uphill, of course -- in Italy, when in doubt, go up the hill. All that walking wore me out, and I was definitely ready for lunch. As it was my first trip to Tuscany, I decided to opt for pappa al pomodoro, a local specialty soup made with lots of tomatoes and infamous Tuscan bread (it’s cardboard. Seriously, guys. Why are you so scared of a little salt? But in the soup, very good), perfect for a rainy day.

Did I mention it was raining? There were also some Oklahoma-worthy winds up on the top of that hill.

Windy and wet, but wow

After lunch most of the group went to find wine tastings, but Brynne and I struck out on our own to see some churches, a palazzo she’d heard about, and the town’s museo civico. After a very pleasant few hours of conversation and Etruscan artifacts, we met back up with the group and headed down the hill towards the now-open tourism office (everything here closes from 1:30 to 3 p.m. Keep that in mind). Brynne and I went into the office to ask about possible ways to get to the train while the group waited under the shelter of the office roof’s overhang.

Etruscan artifacts at the museo civico in Montepulciano

Down the hill to the ufficio del turismo

With some help, I figured out a bus route that would take us to another nearby train station, which also had trains to Arezzo, and which train to take once we got there. I even had a map of how to get to the bus station! Luckily it was just around the corner and through a park.

Of course, by that time our bus was scheduled to leave in five minutes – the next one would go about an hour later, but the group was committed to making that first one, let me tell you. We rushed over to the station, which included a very muddy path down a hill, and bought tickets.

And that’s when the wine bottle dropped. Wine. Everywhere. But we had to go! I shot the man at the ticket window my most apologetic look and he gave me a universal sign for “just go.” So, tickets in hand, some of us raced out to the bus. I brokenly asked the driver if he could wait just two minutes – there were more of us coming. He agreed, and when a few more got on, he started driving. But… then two more came running out of the station. The driver reacted very well to six Americans yelling “Stop!” in a panic. I commend him.

So, we all got on the bus, we all got to the station, and we ended up taking an earlier-than-expected train back to Arezzo. The day ended better than I could ever have anticipated that morning after I got off the train to a deserted station. Montepulciano was beautiful, I had a great time with Brynne, and I got to work on my Italian more than usual.

See what I mean? Montepulciano: beautiful in every direction. 

That night Brynne and I made gnocchi alla bolognese and stayed in, and Sunday afternoon (today) she showed me around Arezzo. It’s a beautiful city – much smaller than Bologna and very charming. I caught an evening train back to Bologna and a bus to my apartment. Rachel was waiting with pasta ready (what a good roommate!) and stories from her weekend in Cesena. She also got me my own set of keys – we’ve been sharing for the last week and a half, which makes this weekend the only time we’ve been apart since we got here. It was strange to be without my Italy buddy.

My first real weekend away was enlightening too – even without paying for a place to sleep (thanks, Brynne), traveling is expensive! I’m definitely going to have to pace myself this semester, no matter how hard it is to resist the call of constant travel.

Classes are starting tomorrow – we’ll see how that works out… We’re still not entirely sure what we’re taking, but we’ll be attending a lot of classes in the next few days figuring out our plan. Wish us luck! Or, as we say here in Italy, in bocca al lupo.

A presto!