Having just had my second weekend in Bologna, I'm surprised how differently they do things compared to at home, where everyone carries on much the same as normal. The Italian word for weekend is 'finesettimana', and the emphasis on the verb 'finire' seems apt, as everything does seem to stop. Being a Catholic country, they take their Sundays in particular quite seriously, and many shops don't open at all, even supermarkets. The main roads of the centro storico are closed to traffic, so the city centre becomes pedestrianised, and the whole pace of life seems to slow right down.
The uncharacteristic peace and quiet takes a bit of getting used to, but I do enjoy the novelty of crossing the road without fearing for my life. In the absence of the drivers with a deathwish who usually dominate the streets, markets spring up in many of the piazzas, selling everything from the usual rubbishy clothes to antiques to locally sourced food.
Of these, the food markets are definitely my favourite. Bologna is Italy's food capital, and one thing I've learnt is just how seriously they take their cuisine; one of the Italian students who works for Erasmus gave me a 5-minute lecture on how to cook pasta as soon as he heard my accent, because the English apparently never do it right. Something else we get wrong is spaghetti bolognese. To us, the epitome of Italian cuisine, but no - the Italians eat ragu with tagliatelle instead, because the flatter surface is better at catching the meat. I'd already been told that on my last visit to Italy, but hadn't realised the true extent of the pasta regulation; it doesn't seem at all uncommon for an Italian home to have twenty or so different varieties of pasta in the kitchen, each to be used with certain sauces only, and never ever with ketchup (like, ever). This weekend, there was a tent in Piazza Maggiore with chefs giving demonstrations of how to make tagliatelle al ragu from scratch. Seriously impressive stuff, and the smell was amazing.
Although I'm pretty sure I'll never reach their dizzy heights of pasta success, I'm hoping to pick up a bit of Italian culinary expertise, and living with a host family has proved to be a great way of doing this. My host mum, Cristiana, showed me how to make risotto, and although the method wasn't actually that different to how I'd do it England, it tasted so much better! I think it must be down to the Italian ingredients; at the farmers' markets, there's nothing GM in sight, and Cristiana says she always asks for the ugliest vegetables because they're 'brutte ma buone'. Even in the greengrocers and supermarkets, seemingly innocuous veg like onions and carrots appear in shapes and colours I've never seen in England, definitely begging the question of what they're putting into our food.
On Saturday, I went to a barbecue with a few other foreign students as well as some Italians. Other than an awkward culture clash between the Italian host and a German guest who objected to everyone's food being shared around communally, it was a really nice start to an evening which later took a bit of an odd direction - we ended up in a very Italian, very out of the way warehouse club, in which we were definitely the only foreigners. I've also never seen a club serving kebabs before...but it's all part of the experience!
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