Day 27 - San MIchele in Bosco

# Campari & Soda: 1, # Gelati: 0

Today was another lovely day, weatherwise at least.  In class we went over our homework on prepositions.  Then our teacher, Arianna, emailed us copies of a book just on Italian prepositions.  It is a 110 pages long.  Because our brains weren't completely fried by then, we moved onto pronouns.  We were given an article to read.  We had to identify all the pronouns in the text and what type each was - subject, direct object, stressed direct object, indirect object, reflexive, possessive, relative, indefinite, demonstrative or,  finally, combined.  After all this, we only got to have coffee in our break!

After the break, in our conversation class, we were organised into groups of three.  We were given a situation and we had to role play.  I was with Suzanna and Paolo.  We had to pretend we were tourists to Italy and wanted to buy souvenirs.  So not much of a stretch.  Suzanna is my age but Paolo is 78 (although I would have guessed early 60s).  Anyway, Suzanna pretended she was looking to buy something for a female friend.  She had found a scarf, some drinking glasses, some bowls and a small statue of Neptune.  There is a famous fountain here with a very large, very naked figure of Neptune in it.  That statue is on lots of souvenirs.  Paolo (pretended?) to be horrified that she would give someone a gift of a naked man.  I told her she should buy a bigger one.  Suzanna, and Donatella our teacher, fell about laughing and agreed with me.

For lunch Kim and I went to the Osteria Buca delle Campane.  This trattoria again had some tables in a (very pretty this time) courtyard but the bulk of the restaurant was actually downstairs in the cellar.  Apparently, in the evenings it attracts the university student crowd as they have a DJ and sometimes live music.  For lunch it was very pleasant and much more our scene.

After lunch we went a school excursion to San Michele in Bosco.  This is an old monastery just outside the city centre, surrounded by woods.  It was perhaps a 30 minute walk there from the centre.  The church is still a church but the monastery has been converted into an orthopaedic hospital.  If I had to have orthopaedic surgery I would want it done there.  The views from your hospital bed as you were recuperating would be fabulous.  The views from the courtyard were lovely.  The ancient monastery has a very, very long (500 feet) corridor (now part of the hospital) with a very odd optical illusion.  When you are right at the window overlooking Bologna, the Asinelli Tower looks small and far away.  However, when you are at the far end it looks much bigger and much closer.  Almost close enough to touch.  I don't know how they did it.

View of the tower from the window.

 View of the tower from the far end of the corridor.

 

As we were leaving a group of tourists road up on vespas.  They were part of a tour group immaginatively called La Bella Italia in Vespa.  It looked like a fun way to travel, but there must have been at least 40 people in the group which was just too many.

When then walked back into the city centre and settled in for an aperitivo and some people watching.  By 7pm we started to get chilled and finally had to admit it was time to call it a day.  We all headed our separate ways to have dinner and do homework - for the last time!