Bologna and Verona

(Mid January)

First stop was coffee of course, went to a little café a few streets away from the hostel, and sat there for a while just enjoying my cappuccino and people watching. After that I just wandered around the city for a little while, stopping to check out some of the outdoor markets in the little piazzas and whatnot. Eventually I started getting hungry and decided to go find a pasta place that the hostel owner guy had recommended. It was pretty easy to find since it was only like 3 streets away from the hostel. The place was called Trattoria Za-Za, if anyone is ever in Florence I seriously recommend going there. 

First of all, the decór is really kool, when you first walk in it appears to be a fairly traditional looking Trattoria. Slightly dimly lit, lots of dark wood and antique looking light fixtures hanging from the ceiling, candles and well folded napkins on the tables, some old looking pictures on the walls etc. But as you look at it more closely you realize it's more funky, there pictures in the frames are actually party event looking pictures, everything from the little ceiling lampshades to the random roman column in the middle of the room to the walls were painted in a mosaic of colours, some all blended and other parts looking like an artist had just started wiping the surfaces with paint brushes that were covered in random coloured paints. The tables had pastel coloured table clothes and all the chairs were different colours. It was a funky place, the older man working at the door seemed like a proper Italian man but a lot of the other staff members were younger, chill-looking people. I'm sure on a weekend night it would be an awesome place to go for dinner and drinks. When I was there since it was barely lunch time, it was pretty empty, but the peaceful atmosphere was rather nice too. 

I ordered Spaghetti Carbonara, it was one of the best meals I had during my trip, no lie. If anyone is ever in Florence, I definitely recommend going there. After that I still had a few hours to kill until my train so I went wandering through the city. Of course I ended up back in my fav area by the bridges and got some delicious gelato. I chilled around there for a while, checked out some of the markets and eventually decided to grab a coffee since I really had nothing else to do. I was kind of stupid and stopped in at a small café near the bridges since it had a Wi-Fi sign in the window. Of course forgetting I was in such a touristy zone the cappuccino I ordered ended up costing me like 3 euros. Ouch. 

After that I just started wandering back towards the train station. Got to the train station to find that my train was delayed 10mins, great, of course. So I just sat on a stone bench near my platform and waited. All of a sudden a 20-something ginger girl came and sat down beside me, we kinda smiled at each other then both looked away and checked our phones. I kinda assumed she was an English speaker since she was ginger but didn’t say anything to her. She was in the process of making her own little salad kind of thing and then phone started ringing, she picked it up and I was surprised to hear fluent Italian come out of her mouth. Okay, I know I shouldn’t judge people based on their appearance but I was a little surprised when she turned out to be Italian.

My train was still delayed so I wasn’t going anywhere and she didn’t appear to be going anywhere after she hung up her phone so I struck up a conversation, in Italian of course, asking where she was going. As it turns out she studies at uni of Florence but lives in some small town about half an hour away and was on her way home now. We talked for a while longer, mostly in Italian, sometimes I had to switch over to Spanish or English when my Italian vocab was lacking but it worked. Eventually she had to catch her train and my train was finally pulling into the station so we parted ways. She was really nice though and gave me some tips of Bologna, which was kool. I can now say that I have met a ginger Italian, who knew.

Finally I was on my way to Bologna, I’d never been to Bologna before so I wasn’t too sure what to expect but I had been hearing lots of good things about it.  However, when I arrived it was snowing, no not snowing, Blizzarding. There was so much snow and it was freezing. I wandered from the train station over to the bus station to try and find this #68 bus that would take me to the hostel I was staying at. I was following the instructions on the hostel website about how to get to the bus but they ended up being kinda useless. I wandered into a café to warm up for a bit and then asked the bartender where the street was that the bus apparently stopped on. I found the road but could not find the bus stop for this #68 bus, I was starting to think it didn’t exist. I wandered into a little souvenir shop that was run by a nice old couple, I pulled out my laptop and showed them the instructions on the website, they didn’t know a bus 68 even existed but they directed me to where the directions said the stop was. I eventually found the road but still wasn’t sure so I stopped in a little café on the intersection corner and asked them about #68, none of them knew anything about it either…wtf? I left the café and turned the corner onto the street where the bus supposedly stopped and to my great relief on the other side of the road about 50ft away was bus #68, I ran for it. Got onto the bus and asked the bus driver about my hostel to make sure it was the right one, thank freaking god it was. I was cold and miserable and tired and just wanted to get to my freaking hostel.

A couple minutes later the bus leaves and I’m the only one on it, a couple stops later another girl gets on, I was kinda happy that I wasn’t alone… but then she got off a couple stops later and I started questioning the whole situation when the bus seemed to leave the main city and start driving into the outskirts..where in the world was I going?! So, apparently this ‘hostel’ I checked into is more of a summer vacation spot…it’s a big campsite kind of thing in the middle of nowhere with a bunch of bungalows and camp grounds..freaking weird. Guess that’s what I get for booking so last minute…ohwell. So I go into the reception area and get my keys and everything sorted out, I’m staying in a bungalow not too far from the reception which turned out to be a very good thing since the only way to get wifi was to get a password code thing from the reception desk and u had to pay for the wifi by hour so I ended up going back there a few times, such a pain in the ass. I was the only one in the bungalow, which was set up for 4 ppl so it was kind of nice having all that space, there was even a TV. Go figure. 

So there I was, in this cold, snowy, middle of nowhere bungalow in Bologna. Everything was quiet and dark, it was so strange. There was a few other small groups staying in other bungalows but it still kinda felt like a deserted area. Needless to say I barely left my bungalow except for when I had to go to reception to get more internet time. It was kinda weird but nice to have one night completely isolated from the world, after awhile I got tired of paying for the internet so I was just alone with nothing but my books and my thoughts.

Eventually I got hungry and wandered over to the little restaurant that was attached to the reception area, I was planning on sitting in there and getting some dinner but when I got to the restaurant there was 3 teenage looking Italian boys buying beer and a couple minutes after I ordered some pasta, a large group of older drunken Italian men walked in so I decided to get my food to go. I spent the remainder of my night reading, watching movies, movies and doing a bit of writing till I eventually passed out. In the morning I woke up to sunshine on my face, thank god. I was not really feeling another day of blizzard-weather. I packed up my stuff and headed to reception to check out and catch a bus back into the city, when I opened my door I was relieved to find that the snow had pretty much all melted and that it was actually kind of warm outside. I caught the first bus back into the city and dropped my stuff off at the baggage storage place in the train station for the day.

I spent the day exploring the historical downtown area of Bologna, it was a really kool city actually. There was the historical area but outside of that was a normal city scene, it actually reminded me a bit of Toronto. It definitely seemed like a decent university town, if possible I would love to do another semester abroad before I graduate at the university of Bologna. I just aimless wandered the city for hours, found a bunch of kool areas and checked out some of the historical sites/churches/museums –the cheap ones of course– and eventually stopped at a café for some late lunch. I was told by the crazy Florence hostel manager guy that I had to eat tortellini when I came to Bologna so I found a cute little restaurant and ordered some tortellini. It seemed like a fancier place, although they had a more casual pizzeria area next to the dining room area, it was an odd little place. The waitresses didn’t seem overly friendly but whatever, they also seem kind of weirded out when I told them I was there alone. Whatever. I sat at a little table by myself, at the table next to mine there was an Italian guy, a bit older looking also on his own. One of the waitresses came by to get my drink order and then took the lonely guy’s order, she talked to him for a bit then turned around and asked me if I wanted to join him at his table and at first I was just like..uhh what? I think she wanted to open my table since it was pretty busy in the restaurant and the guy kinda wanted company but after some confusing discussions the guy got kind of embarrassed and just told the waitress to forget it so I just stayed where I was. He wasn’t that sketchy looking or anything but I didn’t really want to join him all the same.

The tortellini was delicious! Another plus to this restaurant was that it had free open wifi which I just happened to discover as I was waiting for my pasta. I didn’t even need a password or anything, it was awesome, free wifi ftw! I finally paid my bill and got out of there, what a weird meal. After that I just continued my wander around the city and eventually started heading back in the direction of the train station, I was catching a late afternoon train to Verona. On my way back I passed these big outdoor markets which I had initially avoided since I wanted to site see and avoid crowds but now I had to time so figured, why not? I went wandering through, there was shit ton of random stuff there, I wasn’t really planning on buying anything but then I came across some nice, warm shirts that were only 4 euros which I just couldn’t resist and then happened to find a nice little coat which was only 8 euros, so definitely couldn’t pass that up, especially since I was going to Germany the in a couple days and would freeze my ass off there if all I had was my leather jacket.

After my little shopping excursion I headed over to the train station to catch my train up to Verona. Luckily this train wasn’t delayed or anything, I found my seat and a couple hours later I was in Verona! I had no idea where or how to get to my hostel, I knew the name and kinda the address but that was about it.I got out of the station and had no idea where I was going so I decided to just grab a cab, I couldn’t remember the exact address of the hostel so I just gave the guy the street name, turns out it was one of the longest streets in the city so he asked for the name of the hostel and used his GPS, thank god for that, the hotel was number like 87 which was a longggg way down the street. Had fun dealing with the slightly disorganized guy at the desk, got my key which was one of those long, old fashioned ones which was kind of cool. Finally I got into my room and walked in to find only an older Italian man in the 4-bed room, awkwarddd. We sat silently on our beds for a while just using our laptops until he started talking to me in Italian, we had a decent conversation but eventually I had exhausted my Italian and we spoke in broken English/broken Italian. I was a little weirded out, he seemed like a nice enough guy but he was definitely old enough to be my dad. Eventually I decided I needed to go find some sort of dinner so I made my excuses to leave, before I left he told me that him and his friend were going out for drinks/clubbing later that night if I wanted to join them and then asked for my number. I gave it to him but figured I wouldn’t hear from him anyways.

I started my wander through the city, I have to say I tend to like cities better at night than during the day, there’s just something so enchanting about them. I wandered down through the city, past a bunch of beautiful old apartment buildings and stores, down into the centre of the city into the main square that was full of life. There was a bunch of little vendor booths set up around the square with a large fountain in the centre, the buildings around the outside were just lined with restaurants, cafes, and little boutique shops, instant love. It was cold so I wandered back towards the area where some of the smaller shops and food places were and stopped in a little pizzeria restaurant. Got some delicious pizza to go and then began to wander some more, in different directions. I soon came upon the famous House of Juliet and wandered into the courtyard, it was kinda late so it was empty minus a small group of girls around my age, as cliché as the whole concept of it was, there was something kinda cheesy and beautiful about it. The walls were all covered in graffiti love notes, there was a large iron door with thousands of locks hanging on it, some engraved with names and messages, and of course the lit up balcony. I wandered through the courtyard for a bit then continued on the wander through the city. I came across a few more little courtyards and cute side streets but the night was getting pretty cold so I headed back towards the hostel.

Courtyard and Balcony of Juliet's House

When I got back to the hostel I ran into the older guy from my room just outside the building, he was heading out to meet his friend for drinks and asked if I wanted to join but I said I was tired and cold and was going to head back inside. When I got to the room, the other 2 beds were now occupied, the one next to mine was a Belgian guy in his late 20's who was moving to Verona for a job for 10 months and still hadn't find an apartment. He was a nice enough guy and spoke decent English, the other guy was a Brazilian guy who was studying in Bologna but mostly had come to Italy to get into professional motorcycle racing. He had been doing a ton of races both in Brazil and Italy for the past 6 or 7 years trying to make it into the big leagues. He spoke good italian, decent English, and fluent Portuguese, sometimes it mostly just sounded like he was speaking Portuguese to me even though I don't think he was aha.

The Brazilian got a phone call and started talking Portuguese at full speed, that was the first time I had really heard it and it honestly kind of sounded like slurred Russian, it was interesting. Anyways, so he hadn't had dinner or anything since he had just gotten in and asked me if I wanted to join him, I said sure and we headed back out into the city. We stopped at another little pizzeria place and he got a few slices of pizza with some interesting toppings. After that we just continued to wander the city, it was around 11pm so the city was getting pretty quite, which was kind of odd since it was a Saturday night but then again it is quite a small town and you probably have to know where to go to find the good places on weekends. It was pretty quiet so when we bumped into a small group of people who looked like university students we asked them if there was anywhere good to go for a drink near by (all in Italian) and they told us to head towards the university. We followed signs towards the University of Verona area and eventually found a street where there were a few bars and a few large crowds of 20-somethings.

We went into one of the bars, it was pretty crowded so we just grabbed a couple glasses of wine at the bar then went back outside and grabbed a table, it was a cute little side street and even tho it was cold we were kinda protected from the wind and such so it wasn't too bad, plus they had one of those outdoor fire-heater things that was sorta-helpful. We sat close at the table and just talked for quite awhile, at one point we were interrupted my a drunken group of italians walking/falling out of the door and starting a hilarious argument in the street, a couple of them had definitely had a little too much to drink and were arguing about what kind of wine is better, I didn't totally understand all of it since it was in drunken Italian but it was rather entertaining all the same, eventually their other friends just grabbed them and began pulling them down the street towards wherever their next destination was.

Eventually our toes and fingers started to feel numb so we began to walk around again, we stumbled upon one of the big cathedrals, Romeo's house (very unexciting and closed off), and an old little church, it started getting really cold though so headed back in the direction of the hostel, stopping here and there to admire the beauty of the city.

Verona at night from the old bridge

We got back to the room, the Belgian guy was watching tv, some cop show by the looks of it and we all went to bed shortly after that except for the older Italian guy who came in an hour or two later, slightly stumbling. The next morning the Brazilian and both had to be checked out by 10am, we dropped off our keys and caught a bus into the centre. We grabbed some coffee and pastries for a quick breakfast and then he had to head off to catch a train, my train wasn't until around midnight so I had all day in the city. I headed back towards the old centre of town where the little market area was, it was pretty busy already, tourists everywhere. It was still pretty cold so spent the afternoon wandering in and out of shops, I had my backpack with my since I had checked out of the hostel which was a little annoying so I stopped into cafés and things more or often to escape the cold and back pain. I was suppose to meet up with Nat again because she was over in Venice which wasn't too far away, unfortunately she got really delayed because of transportation so we never did actually meet up, c'est la vie. 

We were supposed to meet by Juliet's house, while I waited around her Nat, I went back into the courtyard, it was now full of tourists, taking pictures and doing the tour of the house, you could actually go up and stand on the balcony and all that jazz. There was also a signing wall that looked pretty new near the entrance of the courtyard where you could leave messages and whatnot instead of graffitiing the inner walls of the courtyard. I may have been lame enough to sign the wall aha. After 2 or 3 hours of waiting around Nat still hadn't shown up so I gave up and began to wander they city again. 

I explored more of the city for awhile, came across lots of kool buildings and areas of town, it wasn't that big of a town so eventually I always ended up near the centre. I started heading back towards the edge of the city where the train station was, there was another big plaza not too far from there and I spent the remainder of my day around here. It was a big piazza area where there was a small colosseum which was turned into a play theatre, a bunch of shops, both popular chains and boutiques and a large number of restaurants and cafés with souvenir shops in between. By 8pm I was pretty bored and didn't know what to do with myself since my train wasn't till 12:45am so I found a movie theatre in the mall area of the big piazza and bought a ticket to see Django Unchained in Italian, that was an interest experience lol there was lot of people in the theatre that night, there was 4 different movies playing and seemingly everyone else had the same idea as I did, maybe it was because of the cold. 

After standing around forever with my stupid backpack on my back to get into the theatre, they finally opened the doors and we all seated ourselves in this small theatre, we all had assigned seating which was odd but whatever. So there I was, by myself in a random theatre in Verona watching an American movie dubbed in Italian, most of the people there were Italian minus a few german families by the sounds of it. My Italian wasn't great but I could get enough to watch the movie and enjoy it, and there's some things that are funny in all languages. Christoph Waltz did his own dubbing in the Italian version which I thought was pretty awesome. 

After the movie I just wandered my way towards the train station, I stopped in a little café to get a cappuccino and to try and kill some time. I still had a few hours till my train. They eventually started closing up so I ended up wandering into the McDee's down the street and stayed there till they started kicking people out around 11:30, after that I just hung around in the train station, time stretched on so slowly. My phone was dying, not that I could find any wifi anyways, and around 12:15 everything in the station started closing, which sucked. After that the group of us were who were catching the late night trains headed up towards the platforms, it was freezing outside again, luckily they had closed areas up on the platforms kind of like the glass sitting areas at the GO stations here. It still wasn't overly warm but it was warmer than outside, I ended up sitting in one with an older albanian guy, young guy from Pakistan, and an Italian woman. I conversed with the albanian as well as I could in Italian, he had been living Italy for 15 years or something like that, he was a nice enough guy. The guy from Pakistan was only 18 and was heading for Austria, I spoke to him in English was kind of nice since no one else I'd come across that day spoke English, the woman didn't say much. Finally around 12:50 the train pulled up, the conductors were trying to speak to us in German which none of us understood and eventually talked to me in broken English which I converted into broken Italian to tell the others. I ended up in this tiny sleeping car with the Italian woman, we were both getting off at the same stop so we were kinda sticking together. We got into the tiny sleeping cabin and there was two African women on the two bottom bunks so we both had to sleep on the tiny bunks, uncomfortably close to the ceiling of the car. It definitely wasn't the most comfortable place to sleep but at least it was warm and I could lie down, although even I felt cramped up there, don't know how the Italian woman did it. 

The conductor came by to check our tickets, the African women were kind of angry from the disturbance but whatever, pretty soon after that I just passed out.