Moved In 8.31-9.2

Friday morning we took an Italian language test. . . .yeah . . . no surprise, I’m in the lowest level. Although many parts of the test I recognized from my two years of Latin. We were treated to a nice rain shower; I bought a fake Burberry umbrella. After lunch we got our roommate assignments I’m rooming with Allen, a nice guy from a small Jesuit University in Pennsylvania, he’s who I would have picked. We moved in to a large apartment covered with Mustard Yellow vermica(sp), poorly contrasting with lightly colored fake maple wood, granite floors, and enormous windows. Allen and I are the 3rd floor facing a Poe River Tributary, train tracks, and an overpass. Not great but who am I to complain. The windows are great for letting in cool air, screaming sounds of underpowered over accelerated two-stroke scooters, and the clamor of the of numerous trains. The apartment is enough European (small stand up shower, duvet, no dishwasher or oven) that I have a better understanding for their culture but not so European that I’m suffering for culture shock and feel uncomfortable. We do have an air conditioner and most other American amenities. The first decoration we put in our apartment was a little orphaned plant we found stairwell, we adopted it, showed it some love buying giving it a place by the window, some water and trimming off the dead ends. Her name is Francesca. The study and workout room is on the 8th floor making for spectacular views of Ferrara and the surrounding areas. Darsina City, it a whole master plan area, we leave on top of a small shopping mall that includes a handful or restaurants, a 10 screen movie theater, a couple of clothing stores and, the study aboard students personal favorite, the One Euro store. Living on top of a small mall is convenient but it greatly complicates the process of entering and leaving the building, as only certain elevators go down to ground leave and then you exit on the backside or others will drop you off in the mall from their you meander your way to the outside. I live on the 3rd floor in tower two, if I want to visit a friend on the 3rd but in tower one, I would have to go to floor A (between 1 and 2, includes the washing machines) or 8 and across to tower one and then go to floor 3. Between these two facts the building can be hard to navigate.

The endless sunsets were treated to every evening:

Here's pictures of the room:

Allen's bed is thier to the left, are closets are directly to the left. Off the right is dresser/cabinet space.

Off to the left is our little kitchen and off to the right is the hallway that connect to the bedroom and goes straigth into the bathroom.

Later we meet with the rest of the CIEE students living in the apartments and headed to a bar/restaurant for ordivers and meet the other program students. They had some good appetizers, punch, and wine spitzers(sp). Once the alcohol that was set out for us ran dry Dave and I headed into the bar and started drinking on CIEE’s tap, awesome. Others quickly joined in before long we were only limited to wine and beer, darn. After a stop at the gelatorita where we saw a kid about my age wearing low rise jeans allowing the pink band of his underwear to show, upon father inspection I noticed his matching pink billed trucker hat. I’m now on the lookout for a maroon billed hat to match my maroon Burberry underwear. After that we called it a night.

Saturday was our first day we didn’t have any activities planned for us we enjoyed sleeping in, buying eggs from store, scrambling them and enjoying. In the early afternoon we headed back to the center town in search of cell phones and bikes. After much walking between bike and cell phone shops, we came up empty handed. But I did send two postcards, use an Internet café, buy a calling card and talked to my parents on a pay phone, thus not making the afternoon a waste. Sami and I walked back to Darsina with a quick stop at the cheap supermarket. 5 minutes later, 1.58 Euro less I walked out with 1.5 Liter bottle of wine, fantastic. When we arrived at Darsina we dropped off a couple of items and started searching for pay phones to call our significant others. We headed back towards the city square hoping to encounter some of the students still in the hotel we didn’t find anyone for dinner at 8:30. After using the payphones to call our significant other, we took off in search of food. We stopped a wonderful pizzeria. I thought I ordered a half a liter of wine but somehow we ended up with a liter. Sami wasn’t planning on drinking, that changed. She helped me out with a couple of glasses but I made sure the pitcher was dry by the time we left. After a quick stop by a geloatorita we headed back to Carsina, it was time to try the wine I bought in afternoon. The wine was not too bad it’s a screw top, even better.


Sunday I got up hoping to go get eggs again with Sami but being unknowledgeable Americans we forgot that nearly everything is closed on Sunday, especially in the morning। Instead I went for a run in the morning, it was cool to explore some parts of town I hadn’t seen yet. I enjoyed running next to the slow old men riding their bikes, I paced off them giving me a false impression of running fast. I ran along the wall for a bit and came across a renaissance festival. In the early afternoon a couple of us headed to the Cathedral for our guided tour of Ferrara. I grabbed lunch on the way which was a large folded tortilla with sliced meat, cheese and a some basil, pretty good. The tour was long, interesting, and boring but the highlights included:



·The city was believed to be founded around 723 A.D. and it’s young by Medeierrtain standards.
·The Poe River use to run through most of the city, but it now 3 to 4 km away, the city had developed a series of canals similar to Venice.
·There are an estimated 2.2 bikes per person. Rumored to have the 2nd highest bike to person ratio in Europe, second to Copegana (sp)Denmark
·I learned some more stuff but that’s all you get to read


Following that we considered pointlessly shopping at the monthly antique market but ended up shopping at the fresh food market. I bought some peaches and great cheese, both were pretty cheap. I then had drinks and appetizers with a couple others students in celebration of one of their birthdays. When then headed to a great restaurant, where I enjoyed the specialty of the region cappellacci, an unusual dish of circular noodles stuffed with pumpkin giving it a very sweet and distinct taste. Most of use then headed back to Carsina after catching sight of a small grocery store being opened Sami and I ran in for eggs. She and Allen are a little worried that the eggs won’t be good because they were not refrigerated when I bought them. We’ll see in the morning. The eggs were very orangey(sp):



That’s another couple days in the life of Alex.