Dreaming In Italian

So now I’m back in Bologna. This time for only 6 weeks – the shortest stay here. Why so short? Partly because the lovely K did not come with me this time and I don’t want to leave her alone that long. I’m here partly as a scouting party since we are planning to come here next January for 6 months. That should be interesting but there are lot of hurdles to jump through for such a long stay. If one stays in Europe for 90 days of less there’s absolutely no problem. A longer stay requires a residence permit (permesso di soggiorno). That’s where things get messy. I hope that a personal connection will help me. My friend Vittorio said that perhaps his best friend, in fact the “best man” (testimone) at his wedding, was the head of the department in Bologna that grants these residence permits. So I hope to talk to that guy next week. The process of getting this permit has always been described to me as very onerous but maybe this will smooth the process. One real sticking point is finding an apartment. We stayed in a nice apartment (not perfect, but what place is) last spring that we liked a lot. Well furnished including good kitchen utensils, near the very center of Bologna (really a prestigious neighborhood), relatively inexpensive … I could go on but needless to say we’d like to be there again if possible. Now the bureaucracy kicks in. I believe that to get the permit we need to have a defined residence. In fact a policeman will likely come around at some point to verify that we are actually living there. This could enmesh the owner of the place in an Italian bureaucratic mess. So I’m busily looking for a solution and hope that the guy at the questura (that’s the central police station where the head of approving such permits works) can shed some light on this. Since we’ll be staying only 3 months more than the standard allowable term I’m keeping my fingers crossed that it will simply things.

Now with that out of the way there are other developments. First I bought a bicycle. Since we plan to be here all of that time and near the center a bicycle can be very useful. I do volunteer work every time now at the central library (Biblioteca Sala Borsa) and it would be a pleasant ride to go there and also go the gym that I’ve found. By the way, Sala Borsa has nothing to do with the centrality of the library. It was once a financial center (borsa in this case means stock market). So I’m now riding the bicycle some days if the weather is nice and I don’t need to go more than a kilometer or two. Since I don’t regularly ride a bicycle in the U.S. I get the condition called “sore butt” if I ride a long distance. Still it’s good for going grocery shopping, to the gym and to the very center of town. The bike has two “portapacchi” – luggage racks is the best translation. The “copertoni” (tires) are in good shape and my friend Gianluca helped me install a “cestino” (basket) on the front rack.

The bike the day I bought it – note the lock that I bought used and brought from the U.S.

The basket and seat cushion that I bought here

Basket attached in front

Backpack and lock in the basket 

In another development I have plans to have dental implant. I started the process in the U.S. and the bad tooth has been pulled but the future expenses there are rather breathtaking. My oldest friend here is a dentist, an orthodontist to be exact. He doesn’t do this kind of work but referred me to a colleague of of his who does. I went his office (called a studio here) for a consultation. He did an x-ray (which cost nothing!) and said it would not be a problem to do. Then I received an estimate which was less than half! of the estimated cost in the U.S. In my judgment this dentist  has lots of experience in this are and knows what he’s doing so I’m schedule for the procedure on November 3^rd. I’ll have to wait 2 or 3 months before the crown (the toothy looking thing) will be made and attached but since I will be here it was a relatively easy decision after I talked more to the dentist and did more research on the web.

Of course one interesting thing is that when I’m here, almost anything that comes up teaches me new words. An estimate, for example, is called a “preventivo”. I already knew that a prescription is called a “ricetta” – the same word for recipe interestingly enough. I already have the ricetta for antibiotics (antibiotici – that one’s easy). There will be an update on the outcome at the end of the first week of November. Wish me luck.

Every country has comic books of a variety of types and of course Italy is no exception. In addition to those that originate from other countries (Calvin and Hobbes, Andy Capp are good examples) they have some that are particular to Italy.

Before I ever went to Italy, I had Skype conversations with my friend Massimiliano who lives in Torino (Turin). We exchanged some things through the mail. He sent me a couple of comic books (among other things) so I found out the names for Mickey Mouse (Topolino) and Donald Duck (Paperino) and introduced me to Dylan Dog. Dylan Dog is an investigator of weird phenomena who lives in London. How this relates to Italy is a mystery but it is very popular in Italy. The comic originated in 1986 and at flea markets they sell back issues along with those of Tex (another out of country experience – Arizona) that debuted in 1948 (!).

Topolini e Paperino

Dylan Dog – “Raining Frogs”

But my favorite is Ratman. It’s a little hard to describe. I suppose that you could say Ratman is a VERY flawed and sometimes goofy superhero (well, maybe mini-hero). Very irreverent with little gags thrown in every few frames. I found that when asking for the latest edition at an edicola (newstand) I need to roll the “R” or they don’t understand what I’m saying. Another little life language lesson in Italy.

Ratman as Rambo (with angel wings?!)

Ratman in love (sort of)

Ratman enrolls in cartooning school

The dialog in the frame above: There were a lot of us enrolling, hoping one day to be published.

“Name?” (nome)

“Rat-man”

“Sex?”

” I wish!” (magari)

“Yours!” (Il tuo)

“Short” (corto)

Another random character in Ratman

The above is just a two frame gag – a series of very short ones get thrown in from time to time.

“Hey, you!, You’re looking at my girlfriend! Maybe you want to die?”

“Why, is she that ugly?”

OK, let’s face it sometimes the humor is a little, er, adolescent but I guess I still have a streak of that in me.

One day when I went with Giancluca for a pizza we went to a street that I don’t know very well, San Vitale. For the most part it was not all that interesting other than the nice pizza at Spacca Napoli. I had thought that the pizzeria opened at noon but when we arrived we were told that it didn’t open until 12:30 so we just walked around for awhile perusing the relatively sparse offerings of shops. Then we ran across this place – the one with no name. I realized that I had been in this shop the first time I had ever visited Bologna over 20 years earlier and had been fascinated by it. It is a shop that principally sells all kinds of vintage advertising, posters, calendars, point of purchase displays and that sort of thing. There were posters for travel, posters for chocolates, posters for wines and liqours and even fascist propaganda posters.

I had remembered going there and had done a Google search for posters in Bologna to no avail. What a pity that it doesn’t have the visibility that it deserves because it is a fantastic and unique store. The proprietor is Antonio Niero and he speaks almost flawless English with a bit of a British accent. In fact at first I thought that he was a British expat.

Antonio describing a poster

Pirelli Tires

Cheese and Vermouth

Everyone knows Campari, right?

A wall of images

I was really tempted by this calendar

“Gone with the Wind”, motorcycles and lots of other stuff

Anti-American fascist propaganda

More fascist political posters

Wide variety of stuff on display

And yet more

As you can see it is not only posters, there are cards, buttons, and almost every imaginable advertising medium. It’s a fascinating shop, so if in Bologna it’s worth your while to stroll down San Vitale to number 54 and say hello to Antonio for me.

I had seen this building often since I have routinely taken a bus to and from the center of town that runs along via Saragozza. At a point there is an intersection where via Saragozza and via Collegio di Spagna come together at an angle. That is exactly where the collegio is located. While I thought that the collegio was a “college”, that is post high school (liceo in italian) education, that turns out to be wrong. It was founded in 1364 by the spanish as a residence for high achieving students to study at the University of Bologna which was already about 270 years old at that point.

The entrance on via Collegio di Spagna

I had never been inside the building until this year but had a truly special opportunity to have a fantastic tour of the building due to Antonella. Antonella (or her mother) is the owner of the apartment where we stayed in Bologna and works at the collegio. She offered to give us a private tour of the magnificent building and we met her there on the Saturday morning before leaving Italy. Of course going on the tour we needed to leave Italy since the building is formally not a part of Italy. I’m not totally clear on this but it may not be considered part of Spain or the Catholic church either – it’s a completely independent entity. It houses a maximum of 22 students who now study for advanced degrees, mostly in law at the University of Bologna. Currently there are only 10 students living there but generally Antonella said that there are an average of 16 and the remaining rooms serve as guest rooms for visitors.

Just inside the portone (exterior door)

The garden in front – the curve is a distortion of the panorama view with the camera

The collegio has kept meticulous records. If you were a researcher you could find out who painted that painting in one of the rooms, say 600 years ago, and how much he was paid for the effort. Also there are complete records of every student that has ever lived there. Oh, and by the way, all of the students are male. Perhaps this is due to when it was founded and higher education was primarily reserved for men, perhaps it was because of the attitudes of the church and perhaps it was to avoid, well, distractions. I am also assuming that all of the students are spanish but perhaps Antonella will correct me. The collegio is self-supporting. I’m not certain but believe that parts of the building, perhaps added later, are not part of the collegio proper and are rented out as offices (lots of lawyers) and the rents support all of the activities.

The breakfast room

The salon for coffee and conversation

The piano and an organ in the music room

The well in the courtyard

The cistern in the same courtyard

View of the courtyard from the upper level

The chapel

The unique pipe organ in the chapel

Chapel from the balcony

That odd organ with some of the pipes horizontal rather than vertical

I think this was the room for royals.The door is almost invisible when closed

The garden in the rear

Trying to do the selfie – Antonella said she looked like a turtle craning her neck

It was quite a tour and one of those special serendipitous things that make a trip really special.