Week 1 in Bologna!

Buongiorno! We made it to Italia and have been settling in for the past week. Thanks to everyone who sent us good wishes while we made the big transition. We are having an amazing time exploring so far. Here’s what’s been going down:

After an insanely stressful week in Pittsburgh (who would have thought transitioning from living in the DMV to abroad within the span of a few days would be stressful?) we made the long trip overseas. We both got COVID while at home (thanks to our parents for hosting us and taking care of us!) but were luckily recovered well enough to fly out on the 28th, my 33rd birthday! Fun fact, I’m extremely afraid of flying. Thanks to the combination of being completely exhausted from the week before and some anti-anxiety pills, everything surprisingly went really smoothly!

We arrived the next day and taxied to our new home for the next 4 months. We are living in a tiny apartment that’s within the city center on the southwest side. Turns out figuring out how to order things on Amazon and get basic essentials was/is a bit of a learning curve, so our first night we slept on a bed without pillows or sheets! Roughing it. But we were sure to run out and get a fan ASAP. It is HOT here in Italia.

The next day we celebrated Matthew’s 34th birthday with an amazing Bolognese meal at the restaurant Trattoria Da Me. We got our first taste of some of Bologna’s signature dishes: crescentine (small round pieces of bread that you open up like a pita and stuff with mortadella, cheese, and this amazing onion tomato sauce called friggione), tortellini in brodo (in broth), and tagliatelle al ragu. My mouth is watering just writing about it. We ate panna cotta for dessert and got some gelato. In the morning we had cappuccino and cornetti (croissants). I think I can get used to this cuisine for the next few months 🙂

We met up with my classmate Ariana and wandered around some of Bologna’s famous landmarks like the Piazza Maggiore and Due Torri (two towers). Bologna is a small winding city with delights around every corner. There’s amazing vistas, adorable alleyways, ancient churches, portici (covered archways over all the sidewalks), and lots of very cute dogs. We got to visit the National Museum of Bologna for free since it was the first Sunday of the month. Our jaws dropped looking at works dating from the 1300s-1600s that were created here in Bologna including an original Raphael and Il Greco. We have been trying to learn the way of life here which includes lots of butchered Italian while conversing with locals, but we’re slowly figuring things out.

Another highlight was visiting a wine bar called Bottega Portanova. The owner, Paolo, is a true connoisseur of wine and introduced us to some amazing varietals from the local region we’re in called Emilia-Romagna. He also took the time to explain the tagliere plate (kind of like Italy’s version of charcuterie) to us including the traditional order in which to eat the mortadella and salame rosa. It felt like a local gem and we hope to make it a regular spot of ours.

Last but not least, we got to squeeze in a beach day at the very end of the season! We packed up some sandwiches and took the regional train to a town called Cervia about an hour and a half southeast of Bologna. We reserved chairs and an umbrella and enjoyed floating in the salty Adriatic Sea and soaking up some sun.

We’re so grateful we’ve had this time before classes start to really dig in and explore the region. We’ve also been spending a lot of time taking care of paperwork to declare that we’re legally in the country and getting ready for classes, but Ariana’s host family has been graciously helping us navigate it all! Foreign bureaucracy is a bear, but fingers crossed everything gets tied up this week. We’re headed on our first bigger trip to Venice and then hiking the Dolomites next week, so stay tuned for those posts!