Day 13 - Advanced Class

# Campari & Soda: 0, # Gelati: 1

Today was my first day in the more advanced, but still intermediate, class.  The teacher for the grammar section is Adrianna, who took the conversation segment in my lower intermediate class.  She is excellent so that pleased me.  What didn't please me was that I'd spent all yesterday afternoon refreshing my knowledge of the subjunctive tense, only to discover that yesterday and today were all about the impersonal tense.  I have studied that, but 2 (or more) years ago so I only vaguely remembered how it works.  Still, it put me one up on one of the other students who had been in class the day before but couldn't do it at all, so I didn't feel a complete fraud.  The only drawback with this class is that all the other students are so much more fluent.  They speak relatively slowly, with a limited grammar and in simple sentences so I can understand them, but there is no way I can add to the conversation.  How do they do it?

The conversation segment was taken by Donatella who I hadn't met before.  Yesterday and today's lessons were all about reading newspaper articles about a poor young man who had been killed by a bear while out for a jog in the hills in Trentino.  Apparently over the last few years there has been an effort to reintroduce brown bears into the forests of Italy as they were close to extinction.  It seems that the exercise has perhaps been a little too sucessful.  In today's class, Donatella read us one of the articles.  She did it clearly, with a great many gestures and explanations, where necessary, so we could follow what it was all about.  However, this took about 30 minutes and all we did was sit and listen and nod.  I think it would have been more educational if each of us had to read out a paragraph, even if it would have upset Donatella to hear us butchering her language.  After this (I think) we were supposed to pair off and come up with a short paragraph talking about bears in our home country.  Even if I'd been willing to talk about drop bears, this would have been difficult for me.  I chatted briefly my partner about any random thing I knew about bears for about 10 minutes.  Then she started writing something, while I just read the article from yesterday.  By the time everyone had finished writing, time was up, so we didn't have to read out anything.   Donatella did ask us what our favorite region in Italy was.  I said Sicily and apparently we are going to talk about it next, soon, something.  I better come up with a few things to say before class tomorrow.

I spent the afternoon doing homework before setting about for my Nightfall Food Tour run by Mattia at Delicious Bologna.   This was excellent.  In addition to the guide, there was a couple from the USA who had just retired and were taking long holiday in Europe because why not.  There were also two sisters from Melbourne.  Three other people had paid for the tour but didn't show up or respond to Mattia's text messages.  At 90€ per head it wasn't something I would skip on a whim.

Our first stop was La Salumeria Bruno e Franco where we tried 3 different balsamic vinegars and some parmigiano reggiano.  Mattia told us about how balsamic vinegar is made and how to tell a good one from a decent one and from a bad one. My apartment has some and it turns out it is the cheap & nasty stuff.  Next stop was the Osteria del Sole, which is a wine bar that has been in operation since 1465!  Apparently it is the only osteria in the city that still operates in the traditional way.  That is, they just sell wine and beer.  If you want something to eat, you can bring in your own food.  Melbourne might think it has trendy places down hard to find laneways but they have nothing on this place.  It was down a narrow street but it also has not a single sign on the door, other than a hand written sign with the opening hours.  If you didn't know it was there, you'd walk right by it.  There we had lambrusco, which which was actually drinkable, as it was quite dry.  Mattia says they export the nasty, sweet stuff.  For food we had 6 different sorts of salamis and other processed meats from La Salumeria Bruno e Franco.  These included proscuitto di parma and mortadella of course.  

After this we went to a wine bar, the Enoteca Faccioli, where we tried two different local wines - a white wine and a sangiovese.  This place specialises in natural wines, i.e. those without preservatives.   These types of wines can be horrid, but both were quite drinkable, especially the red.  By now we were more than a little tipsy so we staggered/sauntered off to get our main course.  This was three different traditional pasta dishes from La Salsamenteria - tortellini in brodo, tagliatelle al ragu and lasagne.  The tortellini in brodo was very good and it was the 2nd best ragu I've had here.  The lasagne was typical northern style, so not what I'm used to but still tasty.  Would definitely go back.  We got a class of house red (sangiovese) here too.

The second last stop was for tigelle at La Montanarina.   Tigelle are basically little flat breads which are cut in half and filled to make little sandwiches.   We tried tigelle with a filling made from the local equivalent of cottage cheese and rocket (tasty) and pesto modenese, which is a lard paste flavoured with rosemary and garlic (also tasty but very rich).  While both were good, their positioning in the evening was odd.  They would have worked better with a glass of wine before the "main" course, rather than after.

Finally, dessert was, of course, gelato.  We went to Cremeria Mascarella for that.  I had pistacchio (of course) and ricotta with lemon & orange zest (which tasted like cheesecake).  Delicious.

All in all, a very enjoyable evening.  Mattia is a great guide - friendly, cheerful and knowledgeable.  The food was all excellent and there was plenty of it.  He has also sent through a list, not just of the places we visited, but several more besides that he recommends.  In addition, he told me about a gelato museum, that is in a neighbouring town.  I have to figure out how to do a tour of it.