Laura had been experiencing something new and strange everyday. We had seen students walking about the city with large wreaths on their heads, drinking and being followed by friends, all singing what is rumored to be a dirty song about an old man’s unmentionables. One day she came home and told me about coming upon a scene where one person stood in the main square, nearly naked, on a slab of cardboard, chugging a bottle of wine while all around them ‘friends’ threw eggs at him/her.
Today it was my turn. …

Two days ago the day was pleasant. We found ourselves suddenly inside an amazing building and then we walked into what used to be the room where they taught anatomy at Bologna University. We were in the five hundred year old Anatomy Theater. Encased in wood, with amazing wooden statues all around, including depictions of fabled beasts attached to the ceiling, the room centered around a slab of marble where they dissected bodies.
Later we went to a park, where we came across a place where the kids could drive Go-Carts. …

Bologna Impressions at Day Five, from Laura
I feel fully at home here. Perhaps it is the ubiquitous pasta shops, gelatarias, and bakeries. These are comfort
foods to me, and we find ourselves strolling the city morning and night and stopping shop after shop and buying chocolate, bread, cookies, gelato, pasta. It’s really very dangerous.
There have been several days where we had gelato at lunch and gelato at dinner. It’s sensational, really, not at all comparable to ice cream. Yesterday was Saturday and we took a long walk to a market …

Bologna is a fantastic place. The city has a history that dates back to 3,000 BC and it shows. There are so many arches you could walk most of the city during a rain storm and remain mostly dry, and so many old buildings and wonderful places to walk… I just can’t get my head around it. We are still trying to get into a normal sleep cycle, and our inability to do so is causing us some problems. For example, Griffin – who usually goes to bed at 7:30 …

We finally made it to Italy.
We went to the Columbus airport on Saturday to find that our flight was canceled. After trying to negotiate for quite a while we found a new flight that left Monday.
The flight to Cinci and the one over the Atlantic were fine over all, although everyone got very little sleep (despite dramamine given to the kids). From Paris to Bologna took us over the Alps. Here is a picture from the window of the plane.

Our apartmento is in a building that is over four hundred …