Work at the library – the lost post
Saturday, May 24th, 2014
This post must have been written in early April and somehow I lost track of it. I didn’t want for Marco to get lost or the photos of the military club where he’s a member –  so here it is.
Tuesday the 8th was a busy day. I went to a gym (the same one that I went to a year and a half ago) to inquire about a short term membership. It’s not too far from where I live and is inside of the soccer stadium. I don’t have a bicycle this time so it’s a bit of a trek but what the heck. It’s not very expensive by Italian standards so I plan to start my membership there next Monday. After that I did some shopping at the nearby COOP (supermarket) and trekked back home. Then I went to have coffee with Marco, another person with home I had talked via Skype.
Marco – banker and yoga master
He’s an interesting guy. By day he’s an investment adviser for Banca UniCredit in Bologna and in his parallel life he’s a yoga and tai chi teacher. An interesting combination. He took me to a private club to which he belongs. It’s one of the oldest buildings in Bologna and now a club for ex-military. He was obliged to serve in the army for a period after college so is now a member. It’s quite a place. An interesting fact is that it was Nazi headquarters in Bologna during the war.
After that I met my friend Vittorio who I have known since my first trip to Bologna and then headed over to the Biblioteca Salaborsa. It’s right in the center of Bolgona just a few steps from the Fontana Nettuno. This is an amazing library and is worth an entire blog post by itself. There I am doing volunteer work on Tuesday afternoons from 4:00 until 6:45 having english conversations with whoever wants to improve their english and reserves one of the the three time slots.
I was not done yet. Marco had told me about a Meetup for English conversation at MAMBO (Museo di Arte Moderne a Bologna) and I thought that it would be interesting to go at least once. I know that at the meetups I attend in California it’s always nice to have a native speaker there. So I went there for aperitivo and left without paying for the beer – so embarrassing. I called the bar and they said not to worry, I could just pay the next time I was there. I want to go to the museum anyway so I told them I’d pay them on Thursday.
A full day. I’m writing this on Wednesay the 9th and today is my first day for another volunteer gig. It’s an after school program where I will assist in an english class for middle school students. That should be interesting.