Bologna: I've "arrived"!

Hi everyone! I’ve been meaning to write, and meaning to write, and . . . well. It’s true that I’ve been busy: I’ve been waiting in lines for three weeks straight! I did write a few posts – which I didn’t post – and I’ll add them to the blog shortly, even if they’ll be out of order. I don’t think it matters.

The brief update is this: I’ve moved to Bologna, and I’ve started the Master in the “History and Culture of Food” here at the University of Bologna. I love the program. My classmates – there are only six of us – and professors are great, the material is really interesting, and there are a lot of “incidental benefits.” For example: all of my classmates are – this is probably pointing out the obvious – passionate foodies. We had our first feast of the program last week, when Antonia invited us to her place for an epicurean fish dinner. I’m not sure if I’ve told you, but I’m hooked on octopus. On the Camino de Santiago, the Spaniards I was walking with kept talking up this town “up ahead” – Melides, at the eastern border of Galicia – saying that it was famous for its octopus, oh-wow-is-it-amazing, can’t-wait-to-get-to-Melides-for-the-octupus. I’d never tried octopus, but it seemed fun to look forward to Melides so intently, and so I got excited about the octopus, too. We walked four or five hard days in a row to get to Melides, “to get to Melides!”, and the pulpo awaiting us was – I confirm it – amazing. Since then, and forever-after, I think, pulpo retains something of a legendary status for me. So I especially liked Antonia’s pulpo.

Anyway, I love going to the classes, I love doing the readings . . . and I love Bologna. I have a great apartment right in the center, and it’s a small enough city that you can walk – or run, if you’re an eccentric like me – everywhere. The coolest thing about Bologna is that there are porticoes extending 44 kilometers – that is, just about everywhere you go, there’s a portico. I’d read about the porticoes before arriving, but – unlike the octopus – they didn’t really captivate me until I arrived. And now, I really, really like ‘em! Have you ever seen a cloister – where the nuns and monks can walk around “outside” in their courtyard, but protected from the elements? I always thought of the cloister as a kind of covered “track” for the nuns, though I think they probably emphasized laps around the Rosary beads more than laps around my “track.” Anyway, imagine a cloister that goes around an entire city: that’s Bologna! I ran the other day on a world-record-winning route: you can go eight kilometers without ever leaving the porticoes!

On the downer side, I’ll admit that I’m discouraged by certain elements of Italian culture. I had a conversation the other day with a Spanish guy who’s been here since September, and I think he summed up what I’ve been thinking but not wanting to say or even think: When you first get here, Italy is just enchanting. Fascinating, historic, sensual, full of flavor, full of life. But after you’re here for a while, it gets . . . tiring. And not really in a good way. The things that tire you out are bureaucratic absurdities, a personality that tends way too frequently toward arrogance, and an inappropriate juvenility that is, again, far too pervasive to be incidental. These traits aren’t universal by any means, and I’m really happy to have met a lot of great people. The coordinator of my program, my professors, my classmates, my language exchange partners – they’re great. Interesting, intelligent, thoughtful. But - I hate to say it – I’ve begun to think of them as “exceptions.” I’ve tried to avoid reaching this judgment, and not least of all because I liked being wholly enchanted by Italy. But I think it’s a valid evaluation. I’ll fill you, shortly, on some of the episodes that brought me to this point. Such as, for example, how I’ve been mistaken for a prostitute. More than once.