First Weekend in Bologna

Basilica di San Petronio. I guess whoever was working on the project made a higher authority angry, funding was cut, and the top half of the basilica is not as pretty.
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After a long, uncomfortable bus ride from Milan's airport to the central train station and a 2 hr train ride, I finally made it to Bologna! (None of this would've been that bad if I didn't still have my dads stomach flu. I couldn't even enjoy the fact that on my KLM flight they gave us a sandwich of chocolate and jam!) :(

Getting my luggage up 4 flights was a struggle, but after unpacking I made up for a terribly long travel day by going to bed at 9:30 and sleeping for 14 hrs :) The mission of day 2 was to get a cell phone, a modem for internet, a trip to ikea, and a walk around the city. I also happened to stumble upon some limoncello on my way home!

steps of the basilica
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My trip out to suburbia in search of Ikea was crazy. I only paid for one of the five buses I took (bc they dont require it when you get on - and no one else was!!) and I took one in the wrong direction :( but I made friends with some random people/bus drivers and other than racing thru ikea with only an hour to shop, it was a rather relaxing journey.

Getting it all back to the apartment was also a trip. But I learned how to take a bus, how to ask others what bus I should be taking, and that buses go everwhere here so there is really no reason I should carry a comforter, sheets, hangers, pillowcase, phones, laptops, and limoncello half-way across town all on my own.

east end of the piazza. Also, this piazza used to be the location of a roman forum and has existed since 1200ish.. pretty amazing.
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.. and the adventures continued as my housemate, Federica, took me out to the bars near the university to meet some of her friends. They are mostly pub-like bars... and I did find one of those "shot" bars where every shot costs only 1 euro... Nish told me about them in Barcelona and I thought it was a mythical place.. but no! they're real! And the floors are stickier than a frat house the day after a beer pong tournament. Actually, the whole place just reminded me of being around a frat house bar with plastic shot cups and random liquor. To my gin lovers- I had some gin & curacao shots just for you. They were actually really good.

Palazzo del Podesta (north side of piazza) so pretty, yet when I walked inside some italian man decided to pee in the outdoor walkway running thru the building.
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Today I did nothing and it was beautiful. And then I walked down the street, ordered one of my FAVORITE pizzas (capricciosa), brought the steamy deliciousness back to my house and enjoyed it with 30 Rock and the Office.

by the way - attached are some pics that I took during my 8 hr stroll thru the city. There was no time for ikea pictures, but it was exactly the same as the one in Canton... except all the familys/kids were speaking italian so it was wayyyy more adorable.