Day Two!

11:17 pm here. What a day! I got up at 7:30 and had breakfast at the hotel, granola with unsweetened yogurt and Italian ham (sooo good!). Then all of us BCSPers had to go over to the BCSP office for an orientation meeting. We met Andrea Ricci, the director. He is soo nice and so very Italian! Also he is living proof that as cute as Italian boys are, they definitely get better with age! After the orientation, we had to fill out a bunch of paperwork for our "permesso di soggiorno" (living permit). Our first introduction to Italian bureaucracy!
After that we all went around the corner to Via Indipendenza (the main drag through Bologna) and got some lunch at a little bar, just like a little restaurant, not like bars in America. I had a wrap with some kind of delicious meat (ham?), mozzarella, and FRESH MUSHROOMS. They toast the wraps and sandwiches right before they give them to you so they are warm, crispy on the outside, and melty on the inside! I also asked for an apple, expecting to just eat it whole, but the guy sliced and even peeled it for me and put it in a little glass bowl. The food here is not only delicious, but also is presented so wonderfully!
After eating, we wandered over to a piazza and sat on the steps for a little bit, then went to a Tabaccheria, like a convenience store, to buy a special stamp we have to have for our living permits. After that, some of us who had not yet bought cell phones went to get them. I bought the cheapest cell phone in the store (29 €) and got the seemingly simple plan that most of the other students were getting. I'm glad to have that checked off my to-do list, but I still need to figure out how to activate it. Cell phone vocabulary is confusing enough in English, let alone Italian!
After that we had to go back to the BCSP office for a housing meeting and then a tour of Via Zamboni where most of the ads about available apartments are posted. I picked up so many, I'm bound to find something I like! Then Maria, Rodolfo, and I went to see an apartment. Maria had already contacted the boy who lives there and made an appointment, so Rodolfo and I decided to tag along. I am so glad I did because interviewing him about the apartment was a lot easier than I thought it would be, and now I'm not as nervous for doing it on my own! The apartment was nice, a little farther away than I would like, and I definitely want to live with girls, so this one was not for me. But it's only the first place I looked, and we have till September 5th to find a place, so I'm not worried. We got gelato on the way back at possibly the BEST gelato shop in Bologna (so said our taxi driver from the airport), La Sorbeteria.
Tonight the BCSP program provided dinner for us at a pizzeria, but we did NOT eat pizza! For our first course we had eggplant lasagna, fresh cherry tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, fresh parmesan, fried zucchini, green olives (with the pit!), and fried potatoes. Second course was homemade noodles in a cream sauce with ham and arugula, which I could not finish! We then had a choice of tiramisu or mascarpone for dessert. I chose tiramisu, and it was PERFECTION. There really are no words to describe the entire meal. It was absolutely unlike anything I've ever had in the United States. Everything here is made with such fresh ingredients. Everyone was speechless at dinner because we could not believe how good it was! We say people eating entire pizzas on their own, which I found incredible, especially since most of them really are quite thin. My American metabolism will not be able to keep up!
Today has been so much better than yesterday, even though yesterday was fun. I think getting a full nights sleep definitely helped, as everything looks better in the morning! Just the few interactions we have had with real Italians today have been fun. I am amazed at how quickly my language skills are returning, simply from having heard Italian all morning during our meetings, and talking with my fellow students. I am by no means grammatically correct most of the time, but I can get my point across. And the Italians we have talked with so far have all been very helpful and nice, especially the guy at the cell phone shop and the boy in the apartment. I am looking forward to finding an apartment and getting settled in!
Still working on pix! Mi dispiace! (I'm sorry)
xoxoxoxo