Thursday night and the long weekend

Thursday night:
We met up with Julia (Hungarian friend of Lucie's) and Lucie at Bar Lime and got drinks. We ended up staying there for ages rather than just half an hour due to the club not actually opening!! When we got in it was ok, there were these two spanish guys with us that I didn't really know very well. Two guys with cameras came around and took pictures. One of them of me and Lucie is actually nice! Music was crap as ever. I went home earlyish as mum was arriving tomorrow.

Friday:
I had a good mini lie in. Got up and sorted slowly and stayed online (doing my blog). She then called me and I set off. It took me alot longer than I had anticipated and I got confused at one point. Eventually though we found each other and it was great! We went to the hotel, dumped stuff then went to visit my flat. She liked it, but it didn't take long to show her around lol. We then went for lunch at this cafe along my road and discussed things and took pictures. We saw some graduates with their laurel wreaths! After that mum went to have a mini siesta as she had got up early to get here. I stayed at the flat and didn't do much. We spent the afternoon on a mini tour planned by me. We started at Piazza Maggorie, then went to Piazza St Giovanni in Monte (where my lectures are, and there were more graduates), then to the due torri (where we stopped for an ice cream) and down Via Zamboni. Once we had done that we started off towards the restaurant that I wanted to take mum to. We did get slightly confused at where it was, but once we got maps out we realised how near I was. We got a table and were sent downstairs. The last time that I had eaten at this place I had a delicious soup, so I knew this would be good. We shared a salad, which was nice, and then got tagliatelli al ragu (otherwise known as spagetti bolognese). It was amazingly delicious! We did however have quite a depressing conversation about the credit crunch and how it was going to mean a global depression 1930s style. That scared me a bit. Also I got news from home. When we left the restaurant and went upstairs to pay the bill we bumped into Lydia, Christina and Eloisa! They were getting cake lol. After that we went home/hotel to bed.

Saturday:
I actually slept over a bit on Saturday! I met mum outside the town hall and we went to the Morandi exhibition. Mum got annoyed that I kept yawning, but I was just tired. I'm pretty sure after that we went to get a drink in a cafe on Via Clavature. This was basically to kill time before lunch and to be honest I can't remember if that was saturday or sunday! I had this basically pure lemon lemonade that even like 4 packets of sugar didn't fix!! ha ha but anyway after that we went to Bar Lime and got a panini each and a drink. It was nice to chill. After that we went to the Interntational book store and I got a map of Bologna but also the surrounding area. We spent the rest of the day going around places. We went to the Basillica di San Petriono, which was cool, then to the medieval museum. Mum insisted on going down back streets. We also had a look around lots of areas and found a random canal running through. We then went back to my flat, spoke to Iz and Dad on Skype and then got a text from Lydia about meeting up for dinner. This restaurant was nice and it was only Lydia who was there when we arrived. I had Tortellini al brodo (pasta filled with meat, in broth). Lydia had bigger Tortellini with cheese in and with ragu. Mum had some cheese and grilled veg. My food was nice, but the broth was really watery. We had a selection of meats as a starter. Again we went home after dinner.

Sunday:
We met up later today than we had the day before. I still got out of Sunday morning cleaning though haha! We met up and had another drink and lunch at the same cafe as the first day. It was nice. Then we went to San Luca. This involves a nice colonaded walk for half the way then a ugly straight uphill struggle for the rest of it. The chapels along the way are all recent compared to the walkway and are mostly dull. It was tough. The views at the top are good, but not as good as in Tuscany and there are many trees in the way. We had a nice picnic that we got from the deli the day before. Mum tried to take photos of me but they all looked bad. The church on the inside was waaay OTT, in a strange way. Me and mum spoke about why there arn't really equivilents to this in England and about the reformation and all that. Then we walked back down all the way again, past lots of groups of people praying. We decided that the most sensible thing to do would be to get the bus up and then walk down hehe. That evening we went out for Pizza. The place I had been was really nice, and we had good food. I had a ham and egg Pizza and mum had one with lots of veg on. It was a nice meal but I was quite sad that she was going. We talked about alot of emotional things. When we got back to the hotel I said goodbye. I felt really sad and cried a bit on the way home. I stayed a short time online then went to bed.

Monday:
Not much happened on Monday. First thing I did when I woke up was call mum to make sure she got on the bus to the airport all ok. Then I had a shower and dragged myself to my lecture. 9am lectures on a Monday are always as hard as they sound. At 11 I went to see Lucie, but she was slightly late so I got a coke (caffine is goood) and read the newspaper to see how much I could understand. Lucie arrived and we chatted for an hour or so but then she left. I went back, got some lunch and went online. By that time it was time for my other lectures. They were dull and hard work too. Nothing much else happened the rest of the day, normal eating, online kinda stuff.

thats a long blog!! will keep you updated xxx