La Dolce Vita, otherwise titled I MISS BOLOGNA!!!

Over the last week I have been torturing myself in making mental notes of what I love so much about being in Bologna that I will really really miss once I leave. Not too deep, just a lot of really happy memories.

• Being able to say "Bologna" in every other sentence! It is such a beautiful and fun word to say, especially compared with Krakow (but "Utrecht" is also really fun to say too!)
• Cioccolatte gelato. E fraggola, frutto de bosco, inferno, e menthe. Enough said. (P.S.: my spelling sucks no matter which language it's in!)
  
• Being able to communicate--kind of. I could finally use all the basic words in most of the right places. I have become so accustomed to hearing and using the language that I can understand and read Italian in specific contexts, until I have to respond and resort to "no para italiano" and smile and nod like a crazy person. But at least I can order gelato perfectly using two or three word incomplete sentences!
• The Italian keyboard, because once I got used to the punctuation marks I am having a hard time typing on my American laptop! The apostrophe on an Italian keyboard is where the hyphen is on my keyboard, so I always type every contraction with a hyphen. I don-t even want to imagine what a Polish keyboard will be like!
• Pasta and pizza! Heaven for me is a place where I can eat my weight in pasta and pizza. So I guess Bologna must be heaven!
  
• The amazing Italian weather! Never to hot, never to cool, and never as humid as Indiana! My body temperature was above that of a dead person's for sixteen straight days--amazing!
• Being able to fit in walking down the street. I feel I must preface this by saying that throughout my life people have felt compelled to tell me that I don't "look American," whatever that's supposed to mean. I guess "Americans" don't have dark brown hair, dark brown eyes, and weird albino-olive skin. Weird. I supposedly "look Italian." I knew I ate like an Italian but didn't know that if you ate enough pasta you ended up by looking Italian. And to think that none of my ancestors came from Italy!
• J-walking! Saying to heck with the traffic that is barreling down via Irnerio and at the Porto Mascarella where I most felt that I was taking my life into my own hands just crossing the street. Why should I be scared of motorbikes and Fiats?!
• The really laid back pace of life. I will miss leisurely sipping my cioccolate in tazza at breakfast, meandering through the streets in no particular hurry, not paying for buses, and more or less living in the moment, which is something I admittedly forget to do most of the time.
• Being lulled to sleep by the noise of Bologna every night, and wanting to just stand at my window and listen to the symphony of the streets.

Actually, I will miss everything!!!!! (except the vicious mosquitoes)