Sunday, June 13, 2010

Weekend in Bologna

So my first weekend in Bologna has come to an end. Not sure if i exactly accomplished a lot by means of figuring out where everything is located, but it was also a rather relaxing weekend.

So on Saturday i woke up and headed out around 11-ish with the plan of getting lost via shopping. I just headed downtown to look through the stores and such that i had seen on various other walking trips downtown but was never fully sure where the shopping area was exactly located. Come to think of it, i don't think i could really tell you were it's at right now either....i could probably show you if we were walking though. The main reason i wanted to find the shops was that i only packed 3 t-shirts (not counting the 4 tanks i brought) so i wanted to find a few more t-shirts. I don't think i had ever felt as intimidated in a store as i did when i was in the Gucci, Armani, etc. stores. It probably had something to do with the only thing i think i could probably afford to get at the store would be a pair of socks :-P i did end up getting 1 t-shirt for 13 euros and decided i would just have to keep looking for stores that might have sales or just wait until i go up to Milan in several weeks (at least that's my plan). I did find the Disney store as well and went in hoping i would find a Stitch that was Italian themed or so, but sadly there wasn't :-( I finally made it back to the apartment after getting slightly lost on my way back to the apartment but i was only 1 main street off of where i really wanted to be.

Saturday night was rather relaxing. We went to a place near the apartment called Old Bridge Pub, which was about the 3rd or 4th time we've gone there and it always seems like the place to be late at night and when i mean late i mean they're open until 4am. We were actually told to go there the 1st time by coworkers as i guess one of the girls (Federica, not sure if i spelled that correctly) that use to work in the admin part of the office here waitress' there. Either way, it's a nice place to just go and have a drink that's close. Plus they also have pretty good food from the couple of times i've gotten food. One of which was actually mozzarella sticks. I knew i ordered something that was mozzarella but was thinking it was just going to be a cheese plate.

Sunday, didn't get going again until about 11 but the only thing i had planned was to head to an outdoor pool that's near by that Federica told us about. Going to the pool was a unique experience. First of all it was a rather big pool as it can have i would guess about 10 olympic sized lanes and then they had a smaller pool which i'm believe was the kiddie pool. The next thing was the things that are typical at the pool (or beach and i believe it's the same for most of Europe). Two of the things include the swim wear that guys wear (speedos to boardshorts and everything in between) and the fact the the women can be topless. Both of which i actually rather like as i don't see why things always need to be so conservative like they tend to be in the states (i could probably go off on a tangent with that but i won't :-P ). The last thing that was a different experience was that in order to be in the pool you had to be wearing a swim cap (polyester or latex) even if you basically had a shaved head. Luckily they sold them at the place or i wouldn't have been able to go in....well i probably woulda been able to do a quick dip and then sit back on the edge of the pool w/out the lifeguards seeing. Overall the pool was a very enjoyable experience as it was relaxing and quite laid back and i didn't get burnt :-) i do believe i will go back to the pool on weekends that i stay in Bologna.

Sunday evening went for a walk to go to a gelateria that was on the way back from the pool as there was a bit of a line for it. i have to say i think it was about the best gelato i've had on this trip so far. it wasn't necessarily as light and refreshing as the other gelato i've had but their cheesecake della lamponi and fragola (raspberry cheesecake and strawberry) together was simply delightful. Definitely know i'll be heading back to that gelateria, especially to try some of their other more extravagant flavors of which most have chocolate in them :-P i usually try to stay away from chocolate gelato and just go for all the fruity flavors (as they're more refreshing and such), but maybe if i mix a fruit w/ the chocolate it'll balance out.

Now it's back to work and hopefully we will actually start training or something this week. We'll probably be given more things to read over but can't wait to be doing actual hands on testing. Until i do get that work i guess i'll be looking at either planning my next trip or listening to my learning italian cd's especially since i somehow lost my italian phrase book/dictionary within the 1st week of being here :-( lol.

oh yeah, and a quick note on the italians and the world cup. it doesn't seem like they're as soccer crazy as i had thought (at least in Bologna), but also Italy hasn't played yet. When they do it sounds like the pubs and all will be full of people watching it. If the Italy team does well then things will get more crazy, or so say my Italian co-workers.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Glad to see you had a relaxing enjoyable weekend!

Kelly W said...

Sounds like quite an adventure! Glad you made it safely and are beginning to find your way around.