Also, the Ciao Italia group arrived yesterday, so I got to go out to dinner with them and learn some of their names, which is very important. Some of them are ridiculously good at Italian, so I hope my halfway decent Italian measures up.
Moving on. Yes, we woke up today pretty early (6:30 am) to catch our very early bus (7:30 am). Then we rode on the bus (for 2 and a half hours) and finally arrived in Bologna! Which isn't anything like any other Italian city we've been to. All the other ones were obviously very old and Bologna...wasn't. I mean, it kind of was, but it was also very modern.
Our first stop was the Museo di Palazzo Poggi, which is comprised of all these natural history collections that various guys put together in the 17th and 18th centuries. And they had a lot of stuff.
So a lot of stuff. It was all rather amazing and our tour guide was a girl who was interning there to further her language skills, as that is her area of study at university. So she was cool.
After that we got to have an hour and a half lunch break where I had some rather 'meh' ravioli and some very rich gelato. Good stuff.
Then we got to go to the Anatomical Theatre where they used to do public dissections and vivisections. And in case you were wondering, a vivisection is when the animal is still alive as they dissect it. So disturbing.
We partied there for a while and then broke up to go see other things. We, the professors, and their son went to go look at the Church of San Domenica in Bologna, where Saint Dominic is buried. And on his tomb is an angel that was carved by Michelangelo.
So instead, we walked over to the botanical gardens, originally put together by one of the guys whose collection is located at the Museo di Palazzo Poggi. And that was beautiful and super nice.
Then we walked back to the bus station, hopped on board, and headed back to Arezzo. (It took a very long time.)
After getting back, we immediately went to go get some food (pizza) and then came back for showers. So it was a good day.
Interesting Stories of the Day:
- At the Palazzo Poggi, there was this suit of samurai armor that was extremely cool. So I took a picture.
The facial hair comes with the armor.
- Shout out to little brother Jack! We also learned about battle tactics and how medieval fortresses were not as effective later because cannons were unable to move. Instead, they started building star shaped fortress with shorter walls, so that the cannons could have wider range and cannon shots wouldn't destroy huge portions of the wall.
Like this one.
- While we were walking as a group to our meet up place, some Italian guys started yelling and hollering at us and then broke into song. They were also wearing really odd clothes. I'm pretty sure they were the Italian equivalent of frat boys.
- We also saw this huge tent market by the park (the majority of tents were manned by Jamaicans. Which is weird) and one of the sellers sold dresses. Including wedding gowns.
"For you! Only 20 Euro!"
So tomorrow is the joust and I'll be sure to take a ton of pictures and let you know how it was. A dopo!
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