Ultimate Survival Italian

Today pre-term officially ended after my economics final. As such that also means I am on my own as far as Italian goes (no more survival Italian!). I cannot say that my Italian is really all that great, but it allows me to do a few things like introduce myself and say a bit about myself, order at a restaurant (assuming they do not ask too many complicated questions), and say all the great little words like please, thank you, and your welcome!

So while my academic endeavors with Italian are officially over, I will now use the non-academic Ultimate Fields of Bologna to try and rev up on my Italian. I mean literally the Ultimate Fields of Bologna, as in the sport! There is a Ultimate team here in Bologna and it is one of the best in Europe. I am planning to practice with them occasionally and hopefully play in a tournament they are hosting in upcoming weeks! No doubt I will learn great new words such as throw it here, huck, up, and all those other great Ultimate words! At any rate it should be fun.

Biking Italy: Bologna & Ferrara

Well it took almost no time at all for me to take advantage of having a bike here. As biking places provides good and cheap entertainment (and positive externalities for one's health), I decided to go on several bike trips this weekend after taking my exam on Saturday.

Saturday Evening I biked around Bologna, checked out their soccer stadium, and then headed off into the foothills and found a nice overlook of the town. In total I probably only biked about 20 km, but with the foothills it felt like more.

Overlook of Bologna from the foothills

On Sunday I got a bit more adventurous and biked from Bologna to the town of Ferrara (50 km or 31 miles). A small town known for its biking culture, it also had a cool variety of old medieval buildings. Tired from the ride there I decided to pay the couple Euro and take the train home.

Castello Estense

Duomo San Romano

As much as I like to bike back home, it is really cool to be able to bike a ways and end up in some cool European Town you have never visited, it adds a little extra little motivation!

Happy Saturday....here is your Exam

Living in Europe does have several differences from the US and one is very evident today, a test! So instead of spending my Saturday visiting old Roman Ruins or in a vineyard in Tuscany I will instead focus on the invisible hand theory and other great Economic theories.

Bologna Bike Trade

So one of the things I have wanted to get since I arrived here is a bike. Normally this would seem quite simple, but is just so happens that bikes are a much desired commodity in Bologna! In fact when getting a bike it is best to make sure it is not that flashy of a bike. This is because stealing bikes is treasured past time here in Bologna. Once they are stolen, they are then spray painted a new color and sold at the weekend flea market (at which point the buyer better get a good lock or else the bike is likely to be back at the market the following week sporting another new paint job!).

Even Johns Hopkins has a special part to play in this story. After 9/11 it was originally required that all US institutions abroad needed to have protection at all times by the local authorities. So the school had a Bologna Police Officer who was always stationed outside of the school. Well one would certainly think that with a police officer right outside of the school, bike theft would not be a problem at all. But would you believe it bikes still disappeared from the bike racks right in front of the school! Rumor is that the police officer out front was actually in on the local bike trade and allowed the theft to occur as long as he got a cut! (as post 9/11 regulations were relaxed the school was able to let the officer go).

At any rate the main point of this post is just to say, I bought a bike! I went in search of bikes many a times and I was a bit afraid that I would not find what I was looking for. I wanted to get an old road bike that could serve as a commuter bike and allow me to go on some bike trips here in Italy! Finally on my third trip to the various bike stores one bike stood out and screamed my name, a yellow road bike. It is perhaps a bit small and the gears are by no means perfect, but I am very happy with it! (and I have two excellent locks for it!) Since I bought the bike on Tuesday I have already mapped out a few possible bike trips one in Tuscany and one in Northern Italy (Alps?). No doubt this blog will have a few posts in the future about my bike trips!

Florence

I have talked a lot in my last few posts, so this time I will just leave you with some pictures from my day-trip to Florence, enjoy!

Medieval Medical School

Today I went on a free guided tour of Bologna offered by Johns Hopkins. We went to many really neat places around the city, but one place that really stuck out to my was the University of Bologna. The school is over 1,000 years old and considered the oldest university in the Western World. While the school was originally best known for its law school, they also dabbled in medicine!

As most academic disciplines, medicine was closely watched by the church in the early days. All in an effort to ensure that academic teachings were in-line with the accepted church views of the day. Opening a dead body up for science was considered an extremely sinful thing to do. So the only time the University of Bologna was allowed to have an anatomy class with a cadaver was during the period of carnival, this is because it was more acceptable to be sinful during this period of the year. So at the time of carnival every year the University would conduct classes with cadavers.

marble slab for the cadaver in the middle of an ornately carved wood paneled room

Cadaver slab with teaching pulpit in the background

While the University was able to teach anatomy with actual examples during this period it did not mean that the Church turned a complete blind eye to what occurred in the classroom. On the wall opposing the teaching pulpit there is a scripture verse carved into the woodwork. This part of the wall is actually shudders with another small room behind them. Inside the room at all times would be a priest or other church official would listen to all the lecturing in the classroom and if anything went against the acceptable religious beliefs the shudders would be thrown open and the church official would immediately engage in debate to correct the professor and ensure that the holy truth prevailed.

Obviously church-science relations have come a long way since (and I have great respect for both religion and science), but I still find it intriguing to see some of the things that were done in order to maintain the order of the church.

Rimini

So yes it is almost the following weekend, but I am finally getting around to reporting about my travels from the previous weekend. (It is easy to get behind with limited Internet access and this thing called Homework...)

Last Sunday five other students and I decided to go and visit Rimini. While I have traveled to many cities throughout Europe to explore their amazing architecture, unique culture, and other various qualities, the trip to Rimini was aimed at doing one thing.....bumming on their beautiful sandy beaches.

Arial view of Rimini

During the Summer, almost no one is in Bologna due to the heat. This is because all the locals pack up shop (literally, because easily over half the places were closed in town until later this fall when I arrived in Bologna), and headed to the beach. I now very much understand why as the first two weeks here the temperatures were in the 80s and mid to upper 90s almost everyday with a great amount of humidity. One can easily sweat just lying in bed.

So last Sunday we did as the Italians do and went to the beach to cool off. Rimini has perfect sandy beaches and huge waves. In addition the Adriatic sea is a really nice temperature to swim in.

The beach in Rimini

I have not decided where I may go this weekend, but I am considering either the Lake District or Tuscany. Feel free to give me any suggestions, my only condition is that they be relatively close to Bologna (thus saving time and money).

Speakers

Coming to Johns Hopkins SAIS one can expect excellent courses and professors, but another equally exciting opportunity is the impressive list of speakers the school brings in throughout the year to talk about relevant international issues.

The first speaker of the year came last Friday, and was of particular interest to me. In my undergrad studies I wrote a paper on the Expansion Policies of the European Union and many of the challenges that would be associated with incorporating new members. I was originally inspired to write the paper from a visit to the Czech Republic in 2003 where I had the chance to talk with friends and family there about their impending accession to the Union. While membership was viewed as an overall positive, there were still many concerns with protective politics coming from the more western countries in the Union that made the new Union members feel like second class citizens in some ways. Social, Cultural, and especially Economic differences between many of the old and new member states (at the time) motivated the protective policies. The paper focused on this transition period and the challenges it and future additions to the Union could bring. The paper caught the attention of my professor and he nominated me to present it at a regional Political Science Conference.

The speaker last Friday was Michael Leigh, Director-General of the European Commission on Enlargement. I must admit that it was a really cool academic experience to hear a distinguished speaker talk about an issue I had spent a great deal of time and effort researching in the past. While some of the issues of enlargement have changed over the past few years many similar issues still exist on old and new fronts. Much of the talk focused on the Financial Crisis's effect on the Union and Enlargement, Iceland's recent application to join the Union, and the ever complicated Issue of Turkey pending accession to the Union.

Since the Director-General we have had a speaker who spoke on the Kosovo Independence. Tomorrow we have a speaker on the Stability of the Euro (I personally hope it will start depreciating!!!). I must say in general I am excited for many of the upcoming speakers as they will cover a variety of different international subjects, no doubt a few more may work their way onto my blog in the future.