What Bologna, Italy is like today - a report from my daughter Augusta Caroline Arader

Dear Family !!

Well I'm here and the trip is off to a great start. Italy is just what I imagined it to be and more. My roommate Sarah is incredible, she is from Australia but her father is from Manchester and her mother is from Tokyo, she's been all over the world and has hilarious stories to tell. After we both got settled and unpacked we went to the market and got cheese, wine, bread, fruit and lots and lots and lots of salami and prosciutto - disgusting amounts of the aforementioned... really. 

Once our refrigerator was fully stocked we walked into town and got an incredible dinner - the traditional pasta of Bologna is this creamy herbed pasta with fresh parmesan and these stout 4" 2' nonas with flour caked aprons  bring you endless amounts of homemade pasta, wine, bread, cheese, and then the kicker... this insane mascarpone gelato with hazelnut chocolate sauce at the bottom...  afterwards we were both delirious and terrified to get the bill - as we had eaten AT LEAST 100€ of food between the two of us - until this ancient women pulled out of her apron a piece of wax paper and wrote 30€ !! 

Drunk on both food and wine we walked deeper into town and stumbled upon an itialian film festival that was projecting the films of Ingmar Bergman on a giant screen in the middle of the Piazza Majore - so we bought another bottle of wine and an big hunk of bread and sat on the warm cobble stones and watched this rather dark Swedish movie ... well, really I laid back on the ground and drank, falling in an out of sleep. It was an amazing start to what I assume will be an eqaully incredible tirp. 

oh yea - school starts tomorrow ! haha!!!!! ( more on that later) 

Here are some pictures that I snapped on the first day and wanted to share with you guys (look at the one I took in the plane !!! ) 

I love you all and miss you already, 

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