Exchange Blog

There was a pillow fight in the main piazza on Friday. A few friends had organised it on facebook and before anyone knew it, a few hundred people had turned up and the whole square was a snowstorm of goose feathers. After everyone had worn themselves out, save for a few over-enthuastic Spanish boys, they sat down in the afternoon sun and listened to a few student musicians who seemed to have magically procured a few guitars and harmonicas out of thin air. I was sitting in the square with my friend Anna, complaining about my new life as an academic when a bus went by with a nun on it. The sighting seemed so odd that I broke off my rant mid sentence to watch the nun maintaining her serenity as the bus hurtled around the corner. “Nun on a bus” I remarked, somewhat stupidly. Anna nodded in agreement and we lapsed into a quiet mediation on the event. As we got up to leave, another nun walked past us, chatting on her mobile phone. “Nun on a mobile” we both said wisely and burst out laughing. Strangely, the holy sightings had made me forget my thesis woes and we went to celebrate by buying a gelato. If you’re looking for a heavenly experience in Bologna, nuns are a rare sighting but the Gassati Gelato house is a dead certainty every time. We figured life is too short to not buy the waffle cones which meant we could choose up to four flavours. I got a pistachio and caramel, the chocolatiest chocolate I’ve ever seen in my life with nutella through it and a peanut and mascarpone creation. I was about a third of the way through it when I realised I was full but I reminded myself that I am no quitter. I don’t think I’ve ever enjoyed something so much whilst at the same time being so sure that I was about to have a stroke.