Bologna Part One.

Day Sixty:

• Got up leisurely at 9 and took a shower then caught up on my Thursday night TV show until Kirby woke up.
• Had breakfast of yogurt and granola and tea.
• Left the house and walked around seeing churches and markets and stores of all kinds filled with meats and cheeses and fruits and candy and bread. Food everywhere. It was amazing.
• Had gelato at a special gelateria which specialized in strange flavors like ginger and fennel. I got a flavor called brownice which was sort of like Rocky Road without marshmallow and Kirby got the ginger which was very strange.
• For the second part of our lunch we got delicious pizza from a little store.
• I had some specific things in mind (gifts, which I cannot reveal) that I was looking for so we walked around looking for those specific items and that took a good bit of time, as did general window shopping.
• The weather started out sunny in the morning, got grey and started drizzling, then did on-and-off grey and sun, drizzled for a few minutes (we took shelter in a cafe and had some hot tea) and then continued its sunny/grey back-and-forth.
• We came back to the apartment for an early first half of dinner, Kirby making some tortellini that we bought and serving it in a vegetable broth as is popular in Bologna.
• Then, since we were tired, we hung out in the apartment on our computer and just resting and talking with music in the background. It was very nice to have a very full day out on the town and then have a relaxed hour or two in the apartment before going back out.
• We left around 10:30ish to meet up with three of his friend who were having drinks at a cafe called Eataly (har har) inside a Borders-like store. We met up with them and sat with them at Eataly and talked for a good hour. His friends knew some English so we were able to talk pretty well and they were curious about my program in Alba (totally understandable--I don't even know why SMCM is there).
• Then we went to get sushi since that had been Kirby and my plan for the second half of dinner (later in the night as is normal for Italians). Two of his friends came with us and we got great sushi (I picked the perfect roll [sometimes it's hit-and-miss with sushi, I've found] and it was delicious!) and debated about the ethics of hunting vs. the commercial meat industry. There was a lot of disconnection via communication (even when the conversation moved to just Italian, or so I came to understand) and a lot of getting distracted by related topics but it was fun.
• Then we walked his friends home and we came back to the apartment (late--1:30!) and now we're going to bed so we can get up early for Venice! Our train leave at 10:15 in the morning and we should have a very full day.

Should be pictures tomorrow--hope for a sunny day!