Living in tokyo.

Bologna

Just down the train tracks about an hour is the town of Bologna. We read it is the culinary capital of Italy so we thought we would check it out. Who hasn't heard of Bolognese spaghetti sauce? It was a beautiful, sunny day but we threw in our umbrellas just in case as the weather has been very strange lately. It's a good thing we did that because it rained much of the time we were there. We got to the station. We hadn't checked on train times but assumed there would be lots of trains. There were. The next train, however, was a Eurostar which means its twice the cost. We paid 19 Euro each instead of 9 Euro each. We had 45 minutes before the
next train so w

e sat outside on the grass in front of the station watching a little
Asian boy chase the pigeons.
We were hungry when we got to Bologna. We were looking forward to the best food in Italy! Well... scroll down to the first picture and you will see what happened!

YES! Our first McDonalds in Europe and it's in Bologna! And it was 15 Euro!! One should never have expectations.

As we were walking around, we liked what we saw. We really liked the architecture with the red bricks. The buildings were painted a variety of reds and oranges. We just walked around and took it all in and then got on the 8:15 bus back to Firenze. We met a group of 4 young American travelers in our compartment. They were spread out all over the place when we opened the door. They all had hangovers. We had a very eye opening conversation with them all the way back. I learned a lot about this new generation, the drinking and drug taking. They talked about classmates who had died from strange combinations of drugs and alcohol. They talked about students who can only study if they are on certain drugs. I know this all goes on but it's shocking when you hear it from kids who do it themselves. The only drug I ever took studying in university was NO DOZE. That probably doesn't even exist anymore.
Anyway, another good day. What a joy to be able to explore like this. It's incredible how each town creates their own world. These towns were all built in different centuries so they all have a unique look. The people, as well, are a world apart from people from a town an hour away. Bologna felt more like real Italy as there weren't as many tourists. All for now. Tomorrow we are off to yet another Tuscan town with our friend Marta who works in a stationary store down the street.