Ciao from Italy!

Ciao!

I´m having a great time in Italy, enjoying some beautiful Mediterranean weather, reminding me of home. I spent the rest of the weekend in Bologna. John showed me around some amazing old cathedrals and piazzas and pointed out the university he´s doing his PhD work at - the oldest in Europe. He has five other roomates which speak English to varying degrees and are super friendly, trying to help me plan out my day trips. There are all sorts of free concerts and other events every night here, but so far we end drinking wine on someone´s balcony with John´s friends and roomates instead. I´m trying to learn a bit of Italian which seems far less challenging than the other languages I´ve been encountering, especially with all of its overlap with Spanish. Yesterday I took a day trip to Ferrara, a great town just half an hours train ride away. I toured a huge castle and cathedral there. Then I tried a local cuisine specialty, little pasta pouches shapped like floppy hats filled with pumpkin with a butter and fresh sage sauce, in a cafe overlooking the cathedral piazza. Today I´m headed to Modena (where all the balsamic vinegar is from) for a few hours and then am meeting John to go to a concert tonight back in Ferrara in a small Piazza. Tomorrow I´m heading to Pisa and then Florence where John will meet me after work to camp outside of Florence. Then we are going to Rome for the weekend, also camping at a campground just outside the city to be low budget. Since I hadn´t planned on coming to Italy on this trip, I´m all of the sudden realizing how much there is to see, especially of the villas and piazzas we study in landscape architecture history courses. I don´t think I´ll have much trouble filling my next few days with sights and filling my tummy with more great pizza, pasta, and gelato. I´ll fly to London late on the 17th for my last UK leg of the journey.

Ciao!

Nicole