Jason in Bologna

I've been really spoilt with visitors over the past few weeks, with Jason arriving on my parents' last day in Bologna. I spent the morning at work worrying that something would go horribly wrong and he'd end up miles away - a fear not entirely unjustified as our last trip to France involved a ticket mix-up, pleading with Eurostar staff on both sides of the channel and very nearly being refused re-entry to England, so I was relieved to see him get off the airport shuttle bus, and even more relieved to find out he'd brought me a stash of Cadbury's. Milka, you're OK, but it's just not the same.

I was able to introduce him to a few of my friends here, as well as to all our favourite gelaterias, restaurants and apperitivo spots - visitors are the perfect excuse for over-indulgence in the local cuisine - and naturally I took him on the obligatory tour of Bologna's sights. First port of call was the Sala Borsa, the public library just off Piazza Maggiore, which was built on top of some of the earliest remains of the original Roman city, Bononia. You can see these remains through glass panels in the floor of the library's entrance hall, and if you go downstairs you can walk round them too; the foundations of the Roman basilica, an ancient street and some of the city's first water wells, some of it dating back to the 1st century BC.

Jason was also lucky enough to experience an Italian clubnight, Kinki; an interesting experience as the Italians are several years behind the rest of the world when it comes to music (and several other things actually - public transport and payment by card being two of the most tedious, but I'll save those rants for another, no doubt scintillating, blog post). There were none of the awkward head-bobbing feet-shuffling dance moves that dominate English dancefloors; Italians aren't afraid to bring out classic routines such as the sprinkler and running man. This makes for a few personal space issues, in that you have none, but is entertaining nonetheless.

One added bonus of Jason being here was that I felt really good at Italian by comparison. Not quite a fair test, seeing as he's never actually learnt it, but it makes a nice change to be the translator rather than the translatee, and to feel like I might be getting somewhere with this language-learning thing. Not that he didn't make a valiant effort to converse with the natives, but his first attempt at ordering food came out in a strong Geordie accent, which is odd, as he's from Cornwall. Having said that, he blended in a lot better than my parents (not a difficult task) and my landlord even asked if he was Italian!

But the week was over all too soon and after goodbyes at the airport it was back to the real world - the one in which I think all couples are gross (they're not hard to spot here, the Italians invented PDA) and accept that my Italian still needs a fair bit of work. I went back to visit my host family the day Jason went home, only to be greeted with a cheery 'Ma saiiii Cat, il tuo italiano è veramente peggiorato! Come hai regredito! ('But you know Cat, your Italian's actually got worse! You've regressed so much!) and ordered not to speak to any more English people, least of all Jason, who got the blame for this deterioration, until my use of the imperfect subjunctive becomes second nature. So that will be never, then.