Ferrara, etc...

Hello! It's been a while, and I've been doing lots!
Last weekend, I, Lucy and Rosemary went to Ferrara, a beautiful town only 30 minutes away by train. We spent the day there and in the morning checked out the D'Este Castle, which was built in 1500s and had a moat, drawbridge, dungeons - pretty much the real deal. There were beautiful frescoes in so many of the rooms and we got to climb to the top of a tower which gave us an amazing view of the whole city. We wandered around and looked at the Duomo or main church (only from the outside, because it was closed) and it was beautiful. For lunch we went down a side street to La Osteria Brindisi, a restaurant which has been running in one form or another since 1435 or something like that. Ferrara's specialty (foodwise) are cappelaci di zucca - or Tortelloni filled with pumpkin and served with butter and sage on top - oh my goodness. I ordered this and it was one of the best meals I've ever had - certainly the best so far in Italy. The atmosphere of the restaurant was cool because the tiny dining room is stacked wall to wall with bottles of wine. Many are old and dusty and I bet have been there for a long time.

Besides the fun weekend trip, I've been settling into life here - trying to buy detergent (I accidently bought stain remover because I couldn't understand the package), doing my laundry, picking classes for the coming semester, and gettting to know my roommates and my new city better. I have one week left of the presession course of Italian grammar, and then it looks like I'll have a few weeks that are pretty much free before new classes start. I bet I'll take advantage of that by doing some travelling around Italy.

I almost forgot to mention! I got to watch the inauguration here at La Scuderia (which means horse stables - the building used to be this), which is the student union. They had a gathering for all of the American students and Americans in Bologna to watch the ceremony on a big projection screen. Afterwards they even had a champagne toast! It was wonderful to be able to watch and to share the moment with other Americans. There were plenty of Italian people there to watch as well and it was cool to see their interest.

Today I think I'm going to wander around the city some more and have a relaxing day!

Hope you all are well. Thinking of you.

Anna