Shapes and Sizes

Well, the days continue here in sunny Bolgona. I think I'll give you a little geographical perspective on the city. There is a large, circlular street (the viale)that surrounds the city which follows the path of the medieval wall. They took the wall down, but left the doors (the porte) There are twelve porte around Bologna.

Yesterday I saw three apartments, each in very different parts of the city. One was very in centro, very close to all the action. Another was near the southern part of the city, where seven people lived all squished together. The third was on the far east of the city, in view of the porta di San Felice. None are what I'm looking for. I don't want to be unrealistic, but I do know where I want to live, in the south east of the city, near the large gardens. I'm not so much of a city girl, and I know I'll miss trees!

Tomorrow I have an appointment to see and apartment in exactly this location. There are three girls, and they're looking for a fourth. The one I've been emailing sounds really nice, and I have a feeling maybe this is the one! But I don't want to get my hopes up, so I am going to make a few more calls for appartments.

Telephone plans in Italy are quite different than those in the US. Most people use pay-as-you-go and buy phone cards to load onto their phones. There are monthly plans, but there's no contract, and no monthly bill for them. First of all, you pick each little thing you want in your plan. How many minutes you want, if they're only for people on your plan or for everyone, if you want texting, if you want to call other countries, everything is added seperately. Then you still have to buy those calling-type cards and load your phone with money, because the cell phone company will detract the monthly fees from that. Confusing, yes? Well, imagine how it was for the guy who had to explain it to us... in Italian!

Doors in Bologna have been such an adventure. It seems that every door needs to be opened differently from the inside. Sometimes there's a button on the door, sometimes a lever on the handle. No two are the same. Today, when Clara and I were trying to exit a building after seeing an apartment (which she decided to take!), we could not figure out how to open the door. It probably took us four or five minutes, and all the people walking outside could see through the glass door as we frantically poked anything that looked remotely like a button or lever, until we noticed there was a button on the wall. But we took that as a sign that Clara was meant to stay there.

Today I didn't seem to get much done. But we did take a placement test for the pre-session and meet the teachers, and there was food, and of course it was great! Sandwich-y stuff, if I can call it that. But the bread was so soft, and the cheese and tomatoes and artichokes and proscuitto was so fresh and good! I saved one, and I'm going to go eat it now. I'll get back to this later.

Signed, the Sengenblogger