Genuine Human Reactions.

I frequently find myself thinking about how I behave in public. I like to ponder over my reactions and why is it so damn difficult for me to not make faces and laugh at my own horrible puns.

Sometimes I find myself trying to fit into this grown-up world and attempt contact with human females like myself. I butt into a typical female conversation and then stand there. Smiling. Wondering whether I can make an input. After a while of standing and grinning awkwardly, agreeing and nodding I retreat back to my all-male company and wonder WHY.

Why?

Because, I always wanted to get in touch with that girlie girl that once lived in my head but eventually migrated to my kidneys or something, and I went on building tree houses, reading goosebumps and getting into fights with bullies, then fishing, video games and target practice took over the schedule and I haven't spoken to her since. I'm sure she used to wonder how I'm doing, but it's been so long... It would be silent and awkward.
So, on a rare and exotic occasion I find myself exclusively in a group of girls and they start trying to include me into their conversation.
Next thing I know the alpha female of this pack is talking to me and then she starts sharing her ideas of a dress. Grandma can buy a dress for Christmas. A knitted dress, but like, with a zip on the back? And pockets? Yeah. Tight, knitted dress with pockets.
At which point my mind caves in and I just nod away.
Weeks later, I can sit reading historical war fiction, and sometimes I ponder over what the hell are these female interactions really about... Surely not dresses? It's got to be code.

Back to University.

Being back in Coventry after Italy is strange. It's hard to believe this is the same planet and the same species of human that roam around here.

Look, well-dressed Italians out and about! (image from article on Bologna flea markets https://decoratorsnotebook.wordpress.com/tag/flea-market-bologna/)

And then we have... these.

Yeeaaaah, girl!

Wonder where my inspiration is gone?

Budapest is da beeeest

I feel like whenever we visit new destinations we habitually try to relate them to something we know or have already seen before. Something we can relate to, that way we do not lose our ground and venture forth with more confidence than, let's say, you would on the moon.
Budapest fell into a twisted recognition because it reminded me of my hometown, Kiev. The pre-war French architecture and wide streets and the huge river splitting the city into two parts, the deep green hills and proud monuments. It was what Kiev would have been had it been under Austrian or French influence, instead of Soviet. That being said, Communists had their time in Hungary and it is prominent in some parts of the city. Same as Bologna.

We arrived at the Budapest airport on Saturday and went straight to a touristy information booth where we were very pleasantly surprised by tourist travel cards. Wonderful little things that allow you free travel on any public transport and give you free admission to a number of the popular museums and galleries and thermal baths in town and discounts on practically everything else.
Recommended!

After getting to our hotel and being informed that our room isn't ready for check in, mother and I ventured to find food.
Hungary is famous for a lot of food, most of which is meat-based, giving my delusional pescetarian-inclined nature a hard time... for about 5 minutes. After that I ordered a goulash soup and returned to the predator state which I fight like the good-natured monster I am.
The Goulash is a thick, fatty, soup with chunks of meat (normally beef, sometimes venison) and veg and a good load of paprika. Very hearty medieval meal.
Another popular dish from the Austria-Hungarian ages is the famous Strudel.

Here's my very tired mother enjoying one of the various cherry strudels I ordered everywhere I went.

 Sadly by the time we checked into our hotel room and made a rush for the National Gallery it was already closing time for most cultural sites. So we wondered around the old castle area and admired the elevated view of the Pest side of Budapest.
Quick information fill:

Budapest is split by the Danube river into primarily two districts Buda and Pest, which were originally two separate cities.
Buda is the landscape-y historical district, apparently more expensive and as I heard someone say "where the blue-bloods reside". For us, tourists: this is where the Castle is and the central galleries and museums are.
Pest is the city district, here lies the glorious Parliament building, it is more busy with locals and shops, and somehow on an absolutely flat terrain.
The areas have been united in the late 1800s.

View from the Buda Castle stairs. I'm not always blocking it, mind you.

Mom at the Matthias Fountain.

The main figure in the fountain's composition is King Matthias, an interesting historical figure who brought the Italian renaissance to Hungary. Except he's actually interesting because he also happened to be a lavishly-living, alcoholic playboy who gained popularity for allegedly dressing in "commoner" disguises and mingling with locals to stay aware of current social situations. Something modern politicians should try once in a while, IMHO.

Second day we wandered around town, finally getting to the galleries. Then we got lost in the rain and hunted wild strudels. Yum!

Monday (the last day), museums were closed and our card was expiring after lunch, so we took a morning walking tour of the Castle District led by a fantastic guide named Tom. Mom and I both loved the tour, but my mother wanted to go shopping and I couldn't join because my transport card expired minutes before and although the tours are free the evening tours involve some use of public transport... So I couldn't continue the journey with our lovely group and Tom the Tour Guide.

But hey, I got me some shoes.

Last but not least we ventured forth into a sweet little place called Sir Lancelot Knights' Restaurant, a mediaeval themed place where each portion is a feast and there's a jester and live music going on... First impression is a bit iffy, but when the belly is full and the atmosphere sinks in, you might as well be a Game of Thrones character at a wedding-feast............. y'know? The NON-Red kind of wedding?

Moving forward.

I can't believe I'm no longer in Italy. My mind has been so occupied with the move and getting a new job, quitting the new job, yoga and attempts in gardening, that only while packing a suitcase and sorting iPhone photos was it that I realised that I lived in Italy. People visit it, tourist about and leave, I had a deep and meaningful relationship with Italy.

Today I'm leaving for Budapest, Hungary with my mother. Let's see how that goes! Honestly, I can't wait to see a new location.

Arte Fiera

Living in Bologna makes it seem that Italy is obsessed with fairs, exhibitions and expos. All for good reason, it's the most aesthetic country through and through.
Every February Bologna holds one of the biggest modern art fairs in Europe featuring all types of contemporary works from classical paint-on-canvas to dynamic installations with ferrofluid.

The tickets are expensive but provide a weekend pass for every museum in town.

The exhibition has overwhelming numbers of artists, many of which are internationally renown, and a large number of Italian names. Some of the artists linger amidst the crowd hearing into the comments and feedback.

First installation in the lobby.

One of my favourite pieces.

 At first glance you don't even notice the minature projection, you are attracted by the whispering coming from the installation.

One of the most shocking pieces to catch the corner of your eye.

Creative.

I was invited to lunch by one of my Erasmus friends - Onyee. She did somehow forget to mention that it was a home-made lunch at her Chinese friends' apartment with another seven guests!
At first, I felt a little bit awkward amongst so many strangers, walking to the other side of town, not knowing who to start a conversation with and what about...
The awkwardness lasted until we arrived to this girl's house, then we saw this in the kitchen.

We are very hungry students.

Lucia was still making more and more of these beautiful, meat-stuffed breads (they didn't let me refer to them as dumplings, because "it's different dough"), she also kindly taught all the volunteers how to make them.

An explanation about stuffing types.

 All eight of us helped where we could.

After boisterously eating at least half of the contents on the table, getting a pepsi induced sugar rush and laughing ourselves to tears the group cleared the table and lunch turned into a crafting group.

Uncannily looking like a bunch of terrorists at work with Pepsi.

Melding thin wires to make puppet faces!

It turned out that most of the students there are studying illustration and comics and working on an online magazine. They invited me to participate the making of puppets for their upcoming stop motion animation. Based on a Chinese play called The Injustice to Dou E, or Snow in Midsummer. About a woman framed for murder by an evil man, who was originally seeking to marry her (logic). After the woman is executed there is heavy snowfall in the midst of a hot summer.

Their magazine and examples of some of their breathtaking work can be found here.
I'm proud to say I've contributed a puppet head to their noble cause before going home to work on some sketches of my own!

Milan Milano

I usually travel through Milano when going to Bergamo airport, but I have never explored the city. Mother and I arrived in the morning, and successfully got into a fight again because she thought I was getting us lost. After harassing a couple of stranger, mom once again admitted defeat and we found our bus.
After checking in at Timbucktu Inn (Just kidding! It was "Hotel Majorca" which is a bus ride away from the centre) we decided to check out the biggest Cathedral in Italy and have a cappuccino while doing so.
We took a bus back to the town centre and oh just so happened to stumble into Guess and try on half of their collection... Since we were planning on going Outlet Shopping the next day, we didn't buy anything. Neither me nor my mom had a sufficient meal that day so we started searching for a decent bar (local word for coffee bar) with fresh pasteries and cappuccinos without extraterrestrial prices.
It was harder than we imaged after we wasted another 40-something minutes on it and succumbed to one that turned out pretty decent. We ran into a similar problem when we were looking for breakfast around the main bus station. Hard to beat Bologna with that, really. More about that in the Bar post.

The great Milano Duomo

Eventually this glorious thing appeared. The pointy Gothic architecture is intricately decorated with lacy, marble statues of saints, angels and demons on every corner and protrusion.
Entrance is free (as it is most churches in Italy, but places like Pisa may charge), excluding a swift security scan. When we went in there was a service being preformed, since I'm from the Godless Communist State I know little about religions in general and less so about Catholicism. It wasn't Sunday mass because it was small and after lunch and it was not Sunday.

Smoke from a service that was happening at the time.

The most mesmerising thing about the building is the gigantic stained glass installation and white-marble sarcophagi built into the floor annotating every date and owner. This is common in many places in Italy.
The smell of myrrh and all the pretty glass had me distracted...

One of the many stained glass windows.

Until my mother pointed out this fella...

preserved archbishop 1

At first glance you don't even realise these are actual corpses. Italian Catholic love of the macabre sure send the point home when you see the withered skin on the statues' hands and loose, wisps of white hair on grey-brown skin under the silver death mask. As I was leaning in to take some photos I overheard some American tourist complaining that such things should not be displayed to the public and smiled to myself thinking they're new here.

preserved archbishop 2... See the hands?

Milan is a city well-balanced in it's Italian-ism and International-ism. It's very modern, but very aesthetic in it's Italian ways. Fashion models roam the streets like safari animals and business men argue over espressos during coffee breaks. It's an inspiring environment.

Verona

Oh Verona...
Some will recognise the name from Shakespeare's play "Romeo and Juliet", "Taming of the Shrew" or "Two Gentlemen from VERONA", others might recall it thanks to that terribly sappy film Letters to Juliet, some might not remember where the hell they've heard the name before.

Although the city holds Italy's third largest amphitheatre and is generally an absolutely gorgeous place Verona somehow generally rides on the attention it got from Shakespeare's description and adopts a romantic façade to all its landmarks. In contrast to Bologna's medieval red brick structures she flaunts one of the biggest white marble piazzas in the country and sports beautiful white arches.

My mother and I arrived at our Bed and Breakfast after squabbling at the train station about which bus to take. The Bed and Breakfast was very easy to find (had my topographically handicapped mother initially accepted to follow my lead) sitting right next to Piazza Bra. We headed upstairs to find a lovely lady who didn't speak any English introduce us to our room. We left our bags in the room and I immediately went to enquire about a restaurant the hostess could suggest for us to attend for lunch. I made a strong emphasis on how it shouldn't be too touristy and perhaps know their wine.

Tourist restaurants are the worst. They count on one time visits so they don't try to impress anyone with quality of food. The staff is generally friendly and welcoming, but ingredients are terrible and the dishes are generally over-priced.

She nodded understandingly and went to fetch a map for us. She then pointed out Osteria Casa Vino
which is situated across the road from the Castelvecchio. After a beautiful lunch and great wine we were so impressed we reserved a table for dinner and headed out to the castle!

Gold in Castelvecchio's museum

We then went on to look for Juliet's alleged house. Apparently, it was once an inn that the Italian's have turned into a museum. The balcony of the museum is the famous balcony Romeo climbs to steal a kiss and ladies from all over the world crowd to pay for a photo on it. I don't understand the appeal, since the characters are not only fictional, but reach a very tragic end. Nonetheless... My mom and I went into the courtyard and I had her pose with the Juliet statue. Apparently groping her breast is supposed to bring you all sorts of love and luck.

My mommy looking like a psychopath. <3

We then walked around Verona some more, browsing Piazza delle Erbe, Piazza Signori, but soon it started to rain so I had to stop taking photos and find shelter because mom is still recovering from a virus and sinusitis. Mom insisted we find refuge in the shops and try on all possible clothes. It was then that we realised eating all that pasta didn't do us much good. So when returning back to dinner I got experimental and ordered the seasonal Italian dish of zucchini flowers.

Stuffed with ricotta.

We head to Milan next morning.

My Mother's arrival...

If you are receiving guests - expect bad weather.
After living in Bologna for almost 8 months on an Erasmus exchange program, my mother calls me up and announces she has booked Ryanair tickets to come visit me. For the 7 of the 8 months that I have been here it had rained, snowed, hailed and the the wind had given me rashes and breakouts on dried skin. Until a few weeks ago when the skies turned blue and beautiful and the sun allowed the cold-whipped trees to dress up in green again. I am overwhelmed to receive my guest in the new lovely city who's beauty I'm discovering in a new light, so when it starts pouring buckets from the sky, I get pretty disappointed.

Most of the city's pedestrian paths are large marble walkways built into the buildings, harbouring cafés, bars and shops, therefore you're mostly avoiding rain under these arcs and window-shopping as you do so. But to see the architecture and appreciate the city you have to emerge and look up and all around you which can prove difficult in certain weather for technical reasons. This doesn't apply to every city but I feel this way about Bologna.

Mother arrives at Bologna Centrale at a little past midnight, which means she gets to witness the homeless and the drunk students camping out around the station in all their glory, her first impression is a little hazy because she's tired and confused by hitting up three locations in one day.
We take her to her hotel and check her in. The one star Pansione Marconi for a wooping €50 per person a night, breakfast not included. The man at the night reception desk is reluctant to greet us and doesn't bother speaking English until we check her in, then he warns me in perfect English that I'm only allowed fifteen minutes up in the room. That is how you learn Italian. The room is tiny, minimally clean with two single beds and an ashtray by each, the bathroom is closet-sized with no soap.
Fair enough. It's only for one night.
The next morning I come to check my mother out and I'm greeted by a much more cheerful and polite individual who calls to her room and is generally more excited to help out with the check out. The morning is sunny and we decide to head to the next destination, leave my mother's luggage and find a cosy café for the classic Italian breakfast consisting of a cappuccino and brioche. My mother's next lodgings are located in a much more central part of town next to one of Bologna's best gelaterias "Gelateriagianni".
I have discovered this particular Bed and Breakfast in a serendipitous occasion of arriving to the city months earlier with very heavy bags, subsequently having the wheels break off and not knowing where to stay. I then walked into a random travel agency (literally the first door I saw) to find an English speaking lady with a cousin who owned a B&B. Cristina Rossi is one of the most pleasant hostesses I have ever encountered, with well priced, clean and antique stacked rooms she proved to be very helpful then and now. My mother being a hard-to-impress Russian lady was very pleased with Cristina's hospitality. She charged €40 per night in high season, breakfast included, free wifi, bathroom necessities and central location.
Unfortunately the room is available for only two days and it just doesn't seem fair wasting so much money on Bologna when there is so much to see in North Italy.
Thus my Cross-Italy-Adventuring begins...

Look what I've found!

Tips For Surviving Your Year Abroad (painfully tried and tested)

Three started out on this journey, one escaped because survival is a battle and the heart wasn't in it. Many people I know escaped in the first month of being on the Year Abroad program. There are many reasons behind it. By all means, I've had my fair share of tearfully crying about wanting to go home to mommy and so on. Except, my mommy is Russian and doesn't put up with the whole charade. So I stayed and powered through and now I don't think I want to go home yet! I've thought about all my mistakes and all things that helped me along the way and I will share with you my very summarized wisdom.

Are You Really Ready?

Are you ready to let the rest of your course graduate without you? Will you miss your friends? Can they come visit? Is it the first time away from home? Are you ready to meet new people? To boast about the best adventure of your life?

If all of the answers are yes, you will have a jolly old time! It will be hard at times, but thankfully we have the glorious internet to keep us all attached at the hip. Not many people enjoy their first couple of months/weeks because everything is strange and new. Only through Facebook did it really sink in that most of my coursemates are completing their studies and moving on with their life, while I'm being left behind! Then I turned around and realised they are writing dissertations and I'm drinking cappuccinos and stuffing my face with fresh brioches before laid back lectures/classes/workshops with my new professors. As an art student I get a break from the curriculum and get to try new things guilt free, because IT'S ALL A PART OF MY INTERNATIONAL EXPERIENCE.

Don't Expect To Be Babysat

Harsh but true. People arrive to International Programs expecting to be catered and taken care of. You will receive a certain amount of help, but don't expect to be lead by the hand. Some universities offer accommodation, some do not. Most do not. When filling in application forms for Bologna we were asked if we will require accommodation and we assumed it would be handed to us. Paperwork, documents, studies, jobs and so on are your role. You're an adult now... So go pay your adult bills for your adult apartment and get adult drunk with your new adult friends.

First thing you need to know as an adult is how to barge into any building and demand attention and acquire assistance. Then go get wasted, lectures start late anyway.

Making Friends with the Locals

You will befriend most of your Erasmus group in the University, we all realised we were on the same boat and now we have friends all over the world and within just a few months we became best buds. This happens and it's awesome. Sometimes enthusiastic Anglophiles may approach you and befriend you in hopes of practising their English, that can work into a beautiful friendship as well!

However, people come from different cultures and can respond differently. I once heard a tourguide explain to American tourists in Rome “If someone pushes in line in front of you in a shop, it's nothing personal.” and how true that is. In my case study, many of my co-adventurers are bewildered by how rude Italians can be in costumer services and how forward the men can be in flirting. The culture is different here, people generally seem to have a higher level of self-confidence and do not repress emotions. I spent a day sulking because my landlady yelled at us for taking up the internet speed, not because she's mean, she's an amazing lady who brings us cakes when she bakes, but she had just returned from work and the kids were screaming and all she wanted was some quality time with her interwebz. Now we knew.

If the lady at the counter in a supermarket is having a bad day, you'll know that too. If someone on your course can't be bothered to speak English to you... You will know. Which inadvertently leads me to my next point...

Learn the Language

I  experienced a prolonged brain fart and somehow assumed I'd download and install Italian into my brain for free upon arrival to Italy. I had some Intermediate classes and thought I was good to go throughout the Summer prior to arriving in Italy.

Don't be an idiot like me. Do not assume it will be easy, it might or it might not. In the case of “not” you are basically sabotaging your own pace of progress in your new country. It's not impossible to navigate without the language, but it sure as hell doesn't work in your favour when it comes to finding cheaper stays, making friends and general day by day life. Because not only are you a student, you're a foreigner. That means some will want to take advantage of you in your panicky moments of doubt about taking this apartment (because the landlord speaks English) or looking for better priced ones.

There are plenty of free Italian courses online, same as there are of any language. The best attitude is to live and breathe the language, get yourself obsessed. Introduce yourself to basic grammar and start watching films and picking up words and phrases. You'll have a basic understanding in no time.

Research the City

Something I never wanted to do because I didn't want to get my hopes up. I wanted to know as little as possible to be as amazed as possible! I wanted my dreadful expectations to succumb to a beautiful reality that is the city in this glorious country with such an antique history!

Sweep me off my feet, Bologna, I'm yours!

...It's not an antique city, it's very industrial, it has relatively British weather for most of the year and it looks grimy compared to Rome or Venice or Florence... It's not a tourist city aimed to please the eye! It's filled with students from all over the country because the University of Bologna and the Accademia di Belle Arti is situated bang in the centre.

I'm not saying it's a bad thing. I'm saying I expected to be in Tourist wonderland and I came to a real place with real Italian students in real Northern Italy. At first I was largely disappointed, now I realise that this is the real deal. This is how the real people live! Had I read anything about it, I wouldn't have gotten upset in the first place and wasted time moping around when I could be getting active!

Get ProActive!

It seems like the most tempting thing to do when moving somewhere new is get scared and shut yourself away for recovery. I don't know why this happened, but many of us ended up being saved by the more active attentive students who were not effected by the process of moving and demanded that we all travel and do things together and didn't take no for an answer when they were inviting large groups of people for drinks. This is how we all became more comfortable and started reaching out.

However, if such folk are nowhere to be found you can take on the role yourself. Be it by approaching those other confused and bewildered looking students in the corridor or growing a pair and taking day trips by train.

Plan those trips! Explore!

I have only recently found that there are some absolutely gorgeous little streets right under my current living area. How do I know? I decided to go to a coffee bar across town and got off route by challenging myself to taking a turn into a creepy empty street called “Bocca di Lupo”. My friend Brooke was so tired of the bad weather that she booked herself a trip to Fuerteventura for a week. Alone. She met a bunch of people there and had a wonderful time. She also frequently travels alone because she's from the States and doesn't know when she'll get another chance of doing it, so she doesn't wait for volunteers. Most American students travel alone and frequently use www.couchsurfing.com for adventure accommodation.

I frequently visit historical sites in south of Italy thanks to my great-aunt and I will be doing a cross-country backpacking trip with a close friend from my home University.

Your study program offers a wide arrangement of organised events that you NEED to attend to get out there and start living!

Basically...

Be a hero of your own legend, reward your every step no matter how small it may seem, it's difficult. No doubt about it. But in the end you'll live no matter what, it's rewarding to say you did what not many others dared try!

One Trullo, Two Trulli, A Beautiful Tree.

Soon after strolling through Bari's old town my Aunt suggested to show me the Trulli (name derived from Onions). I had no idea about what they were and why we had to drive for so long for them, but the end result made me ridiculously happy.

"I wish I was on a horse."

 

Alberobello literally translates as Beautiful Tree, it is a small town situated around the phenomenal old Trulli village. They were built a while back by brilliant folks who were very heavily taxed. According to my aunt, it was the local lord that would get taxed heavily and in order to cut down his and his people's losses he had a brilliant plan. Like today, the more prosperous a location is, the higher the taxation, back then it was more along the lines of how well are the people on you plot of land doing? Lots of healthy people and animals? Food a plenty? The houses aren't falling apart? KA-CHING.

Somebody was there to save the poor folks...

So the lazy/sympathetic/tax-disliking lord asked the folks to somehow move whenever the tax collectors would swing by. Thus the structure of the Trulli was born. The roof was entirely built of pebbles/flints from the farmed land (the Italian terrain isn't naturally a gods gift for planting olives, it's actually full of rock shards from which most of the Mediterranean region builts garden and plantation walls), layed out in such a balanced manner that in needed no adhesive.

 Most importantly, when the tax collectors were spotted coming up a mountain, the removal of a single rock would cause the entire roof of the house to cave in. People would grab their prized possessions, their animals and wander off into the nearby forest, greenery, beautiful trees, etc. Meanwhile baffled tax collectors couldn't understand why such hard times had befallen the region.

Wikipedia says it looked like this.

So basically they would leave thinking there was nobody left to tax. Nowadays they know better.
As we hiked up the hills, streets and pathways I fell in love.

However most of the pedestrian paths are steep flat marble steps. Italians have excessive amounts of marble which the use everywhere giving off a refreshing chill for hot summer and causing the walkways to become slippery hazards in any other weather. After tackling that we got to some of the most gorgeous views of the streets and shops. Most of the trulli are used today as houses, restaurants and tourist attractions. The famously painted symbols of various origins can be found on some of the roofs. The best known row of such branded huts on via Monte Pertica hide the most endearing shop.

The shop is owned by a lovely lady named Maria. She started the small business by selling handmade linen goods and expanded to general craft work from the region. Because of my relation to my aunt and my overly enthusiastic reaction to her shop she ended up giving me an adorable green sparkly travel bag for delicates and pjs.

The owner Maria Claudia and her work behind her.

She is so popular with Japanese tourists that they often invite her to Japan and the front part of the shop is decorated with photos of her own travel achievements and such gorgeous ceramic

Uncle and the owner Maria lovingly waving their hands around.

If you're in the South of Italy, Alberobello is definitely worth seeing. The history of the place is brilliant, people are friendly (as we see above), there is an absolutely fantastic restaurant that serves authentic Puglia-nese cuisine (my favourite cuisine thus far) which will make your socks explode. "Ristorante Trullo D'Oro". Warning: It's Delicious. Life will never be the same again.

More about food and a post travel tips in next episodes of Advanced Heroics.