Two weeks?  Is that all it has been since I arrived back in Bologna?  It seems like I have been back longer than that as I finally sit down to write this post.  When I left here in June I headed off to Great Britain for a 3 week tour.  One of the constraints about living in Italy is that I can only stay 90 out of every 180 days in European countries that are part of the Schengen agreement. I thought I would be applying for a year-long visa now but constant changes in the many regulations has put that on the back burner for the time being. But I can pop over to Great Britain as they are not part of the Schengen agreement and as an American I can stay for 6 months if so desired.  Trip planning is one of my passions and specialties so with great fun and some angst I put together an ambitious trip traveling through Scotland and England by train. I visited historic towns, tourist attractions, met up with colleagues and friends, went on some lively day tours, enjoyed a play in London and drank some great beer along the way!

Circumstances prevented me from renting an apartment here at the end of September as intended so I was “forced” to plan another trip in Europe before I landed here.  This time I flew into Frankfurt, Germany and after storing my larger suitcase, I was on a train this time to Freiburg im Breisgau in the Black Forest.  From there I headed to Bern in Switzerland, Colmar in the Alsace region of France, back to Germany again to see Heidelberg before reclaiming my suitcase and flying to Bologna. And I also drank some great beer along the way!

In planning my trips I like to find smaller cities or towns that will provide me a window into local life and allow me to interact more as a local than a tourist. Places like Freiburg are steeped in history and tradition and browsing the local markets and sampling the foods at the stands are all part of the experiences of learning about other cultures. But these places are not always as multilingual as the large tourist cities. A sign of this can be found in museums or historical placards displayed only in the native language.  I have become comfortable traveling through the small towns in Italy as my Italian is adequate enough to break down language barriers.  But I found myself frustrated with just my basic German terms of hello, please and thank you and saying often in German – do you speak English? The people were very friendly and accommodating, this frustration was one-sided on my part.

Freiburg im Breisgau

As I sat in the Frankfurt  airport waiting for my plane to Bologna, I never thought I would feel comforted by the sound of Italian chatter all around me, grasping snippets of conversations. A spur of the moment decision to become more fluent (and an email offering me a discount), I enrolled in an evening Italian language course beginning my first full day back in Bologna at  Madrelingua. The course is 2 nights a week and 3 hours long each evening.  My fellow students are a diverse group; 2 from the US, one from Switzerland, one from Malaysia and another from Georgia. They all work in Italy so are exposed to the language on a daily basis and we are a lively group that finds us all equally struggling to communicate coherently.  Our teacher is young and enthusiastic and never critical of our mistakes.  I will be so engaged 6 out of my 10 weeks here in Bologna.

Giardina Margherita

My apartment this time is about a 15 minute walk from the center of the city and affords me more of a local neighborhood that is close to a wonderful park. I slid easily into life here as if I never left and after being a nomad for over a year Bologna has truly come to feel like returning home to me.  It is the one place I have put down roots for the longest timeframe during my travels.  Taking the class has provided a routine to my days here and connecting with friends and acquaintances strengthens my bonds.  My first week here I was already at my friend Letizia’s house for dinner after sitting through a presentation of a book by a local author and another evening out for the traditional apertivo. Last weekend I hopped a train to a small seaside resort town for a local chocolate festival and this weekend it was the festival for the mortadella Bologna is so famous for. In-between I saw the movie “Inferno” with Tom Hanks dubbed in Italian and thankful that I had read the book in English! Sunday I met up with friends here from Maine who take their customers on a tour of Emilia-Romagna that I developed for them a few years ago. And at the festival this weekend the chef from a local cooking school asked me to sit in on one of his culinary classes and recount the highlights in my blog.  It is no wonder that it is hard to believe I have only been here 14 days.

Chocolate Festival- Riccione

So this time around I think I will focus my blogs more on my travel experiences both in Italy and elsewhere.  I have amassed quite a bit of knowledge about travel planning and will share tips and advice as well as some of the tools I use in my planning. Last year I attended several Christmas Markets and hope to see more this year but never shared my experiences about them.  I am sure some of my trials and tribulations of living as a local here will pop up in my blogs as well as I continue sampling other cultures alongside viewing mine through the proverbial looking-glass.

I am also researching new blog templates that will allow for translation to Italian as I have had several requests for this function. Ciao!