Prague, Days 2 and 3

Yesterday I crossed the river and went up to the castle.  I didn't get there as early as my guidebook recommended, but I also took a different tram and ended up coming in the back entrance - luckily this meant there was no line to go through security.  The castle itself is amazing, but the best feature is the St. Vitrus cathedral.  Part of it is incredibly old, but part of it was finished in the beginning of the 1900's, so there is some amazing stained glass windows in a modern style.

Near the castle is an old monastery, which had an incredible library.  Unsurprisingly, I visited the library.  You can only view the rooms from the door, unless you book a private tour ahead of time.  If/when I come back to Prague in the future, I will make sure to do that!  Also, I bought some monastery-made herbal tea at the library gift shop...  I am very proud of myself every time that I do not buy tea somewhere, but eventually I give in.  And Prague is an amazing city for tea!

Today was my last day in Prague - I had a few major sights left, but had to battle with things being closed on Sunday.  I had 3 major things on my to-do list for today: first up, an Alchemy museum.  Interestingly, this wasn't mentioned in my guidebook, but it was praised by the guide to my Jewish Museum tour.  Basically, there was an old (circa 800) house in the Jewish quarter that had somehow survived... and then during the flood in 2002, a huge hole opened up in the road in front of it.  Inside was an alchemy lab, along with tunnels leading all over the city.  The rest of the stories told would be hard to believe, if I wasn't standing underground... in an alchemy lab.  The museum only opened in 2012, and was really so awesome that it is difficult for me to believe it.  

Returning to the Day 1 theme of "history shows everything is terrible", I then went to a museum dedicated to the Heros of the Heydrich Terror.  This is in a crypt of an Orthodox cathedral, further away from the tourist area.  The museum traces out a little bit of WWII history, focusing on the mission of two Czech paratroopers (trained by the British) who came to Prague to assassinate Reinhard Heydrich.  They were successful, but thousands of Czechs - including an entire town - were subsequently executed.  The paratroopers, and other Czech resistance fighters, had been hiding in the crypt of this church.  They were betrayed and a major gun fight occured here - they either died from Nazi bullets or their own.  The church wall is one of many places in Prague where you can see where an oppressive government murdered people.

I then headed to the Charles Bridge, which has a variety of lovely statues and many, many tourists.  This put me into the Little Quarter, on the other side of the river - and I realized why 3 days is the minimum to "do Prague".  I had skipped a number of major sights in the parts of the city I had been in already, and here was another huge chunk of the historic/tourist city I hadn't seen yet!  I wandered a bit and found a watchtower to climb.  The lower floors were used as living quarters for the watchman, and there were nice historical displays set up there.  I thought I had reached the "top" a few times, but then there kept being more stairs.  Not only did the actual top level provide beautiful views, but it was used for communist spying.    

Compared to my usual travel style, I've seen the inside of very few churches in Prague.  They have typically either been closed, or in the process of religious services.  Luckily, The Chuch of St Nicholas (next to the tower) was open.  This church was incredible - especially the marble.  My brain struggles to except that stone can actually look like that, and that the walls are not just covered in some sort of laminate.  I'm finally starting to pick up on some architectural terms and styles.  This church was definitely Baroque - Prague has many Baroque churches, which I rarely see in Italy.

At this point, my "to do" list was wrapped up.  I tried, once more, to get into the Tyn church... but it was closed.  I stopped in the ticket office next to it and bought a ticket for a music concert.  Many of the churches and historic buildings have classical music concerts - there probably half a dozen every day.  I picked the concert that involved a pipe organ and Bach's Tocatta and Fugue in D minor.  The concert was in a church I hadn't found yet, and I had a little over an hour to get there.  I swung by St. James' church and found it open for the first time (it was also Baroque), and then started weaving through some very touristy streets until I got to St. Giles' cathedral.

The concert was lovely, and I'm very glad I did it.  Half of the songs were on pipe organ, the other were string quartet.  All of the musicians were very talented, and the program was the "Classical Music Greatest Hits" type of program that is frequently done here.  I don't need to be a hipster when it comes to classical music, I enjoy Mozart and Bach.  The church was a bit smaller than some of the others, also Baroque, and was used in scenes in the movie Amadeus.  Luckily, they were aware of how cold the church is and provided blankets and heated pads on the pews (which date from the 1600s).

Prague has been incredible.  Much of the touristy parts feel like Disney Land - there are lines, and too many people, and a feeling that one must see/do/eat all there is.  I've heard tours given in French, Italian, Spanish, English, and many Slavic languages that I cannot distinguish.  As ridiculous as the crowds are (and it is freezing out!), it is hard to fathom it being any other way.  Even beyond the castles and churches, every single building is beautiful.  I'm not particularly into architecture (and know nothing about it), but I could spend days simply wandering around and looking up at the buildings.

At some point I will post some pictures, and likely reflect a little more on Prague.  I'm not going to assume I "know" Eastern Europe after seeing only one city, but this has (in part) satisfied my desire to see Eastern Europe.  I've seen evidence and history from WWII in France and Italy, but not like here.  I've gone in churches from Christian denominations that I've never heard of before, sometimes the same church being passed through different religious groups.  I still can't quite understand how Prague can be what it is right now, when 3 decades ago communist tanks rolled through the streets.

This was a very good trip, but it is time to return to Milan and get back to work.  While being here, I've felt a bit disconnected from everything in Italy (maybe due to the language change) and have thought a lot about what the months after my leave will bring.  I'm halfway through my time in Europe, but Prague feels like the grand finale.  I will certainly do a little more traveling, but I don't know if I can do another city. 

Prague, Day 1: The Holocaust and Communism

My goal for today was to see the Jewish Quarter, including touring the Synagogues.  This included doing my first "tour" with a guide, offered through the Jewish Museum.  The tour started at 10:30... and went until 2 PM.  I'm very glad that I did the tour, as I learned a lot of history.  It actually felt like we went very fast through each of the Synagogues - some of which are converted to museums, some of which are still active (and very beautiful).  Had I been on my own, I probably would have spent much more time in the first one or two and then not gotten much out of the later ones.  The tour also included the Jewish Cemetery, which was amazing.

Obviously, any discussion of Jews in the Czech Republic will include a lot of discussion about the Holocaust.  But the emotional impact of it goes much deeper than reading Anne Frank's Diary or anything we do in the US.  At one of the Synagogues, the walls have the names of the Czech Jews who died in the concentration camps.  Tens of thousands of names, covering the entire Synagogue.  They play an audio recording of the names being read and prayers sung.  In the part of the second floor where there aren't names, there is an exhibit of pictures drawn by children in one of the concentration camps.

Outside of the Holocaust, Jewish history in Prague isn't very happy.  Much as I don't know any European history (other than the wars that the US was part of), I didn't know how limited the rights of Jews were in Europe, long before the Nazis existed.  Over the past few hundred years there were multiple stories of the Jews in Prague being massacred.  Occasionally the king would be unhappy about it, but that was because the Jews were considered property (ie, slaves) of the king.  And after the Holocaust, the Communists had many horrible policies.  Jewish gravestones were cut into pieces to be used as cobblestones, for instance.

After the tour, I was emotionally drained and very hungry.  I managed to find a pizza place - ironically, my breakfast had also been at an Italian restaurant.   I have now had more sit-down Italian meals in Prague than I have in Milan!  After lunch, I headed to the Old Town Square, which is tourist-central.  The touristy parts of Prague are like Disney World on a busy day.  And it is winter and a weekday here!  I cannot fathom how crowded it gets here during peak season.  I took in a few of the Tourist sights and then wandered back to the hotel to charge my phone and have a cup of tea.

Later in the afternoon I headed out to Wenceslas Square and went to the Museum of Communism.  Again, I don't know any European History.  I had read a bit (in the guide book) about the Velvet Revolution, but I hadn't fully appreciated the arc of Communism in Czeckloslovakia.  It is jarring to understand the timeline - I was alive for parts of it.  There is video footage (shown there) of most of it.  Most of the protests - and police beatings of the protestors - took place in Wenceslas Square.  The videos showed Russian tanks rolling through the streets I had just walked on.

Throughout the museum, I couldn't help but compare the propaganda and political discourse to what is currently happening in the US.  In particular, the focus on the celebrating the worker and vilifying those who traditionally held power (including academics and artists).  It is strange to see similarities between Communist propaganda and the campaign discourse of a "billionaire" capitalist.  However, there were plenty of instances where the Communists did really terrible things that are not happening in the US.  Watching the video of the protests - and violent policy and military crackdown - my first thought was that it isn't like that in the US.  Certainly there were not tanks at the Women's Marches!  But, I then thought of the protests (usually reported as "riots") on inauguration day and that have been occuring throughout the country for the past few years related to the police murders of unarmed black men.  Quick privilege check: which protests you think of first changes the amount of freedom (...from violent police retaliation) you feel in the US.

After that, I headed to a lovely tea shop.  On the way, it started precipitating a bit - I'm willing to call it snow, though it may have been "ice pellets" or some such silliness.  I got snowed on in Prague!  I've been in many lovely tea cafes, but I think this is the best one I've ever been in.  It was exceedingly challenging to pick which tea to drink.  I reflected on whether a tea shop like this could possibly exist somewhere in the metro-Atlanta area and that I've just never found it.  After the day of touring I had, it was wonderful to just sit and think for some time (with an amazing oolong tea).  I also dug in to my guide book a bit more...     

I roamed the city a bit more, thinking about dinner.  I wasn't particularly hungry, but it was 8:30 PM.  I wasn't up for something as overwhelming as a pub or a fancy sit-down meal, so I got a take-out quesadilla and went back to my hotel.  I thought I might head back out for a beer... but the warmth of my room and the joy of not being on my feet has gotten to me.  I think I had an excellent, if intense, day and I am glad I have two more full days to see Prague!

In Prague!

I just arrived to Prague!  While my past trips involved staying at super fancy hotels, I went with something cheaper this time since it was a few days.  I'm very pleased - it is an "apartment" style hotel, so there is a kitchenette and a lot of space.  I had a little bit of an adventure getting here - I had planned to take a specific airport bus.  The internet had said it ran until 10, but it stopped at 9 PM... which I found out about at 9:05 PM.  I went with plan B - take a city bus.  Unfortunately, I had less information written down on the needed transfer, but it worked out.  I couldn't find the tram I had planned to take, so I hopped on the subway.  Luckily, I had saved "offline" Google maps of the area so I could plan a new path to the hotel.  I think my phone company charges by the day, when I used it in foreign countries, so I planned to not turn on the mobile data today. 

So far, everything is going well.  I have wifi, my Italian-style electrical plug work in the sockets here, and there is a hot water kettle for tea.  I haven't gotten to see/do anything yet, but the language barrier is shockingly noticeable.  It is one step up from when I was in Israel, since I at least know the characters they use.  I hope to practice a few words (please, sorry, thank you) to use while I am here. 

I do know one word of the Czech language already - the word for "hi" sounds like "ahoy".  This is easy to remember, because a joke is made about it in the Tom Stoppard play "Rock'n'Roll", which is about the Velvet Revolution.  A British character makes a remark along the lines of, "It is a nation of sailors, or at least sounds like it".  Hopefully I find ways to remember a few more words, or otherwise I will probably (accidentally) end up speaking Italian.  It is at least a European language, right?  I hate to be the American who walks up to people in a foreign country and immediately speaks English.  Somehow speaking Italian seems better...

Thoughts on being a student

I've frequently thought that everyone becomes a better student after they have had to teach something.  Now I am thinking that the converse is true - being a student might help me be a better teacher.  Unfortunately, I'm not sure how much my students will want to hear about my Italian lessons this fall.

I started a new batch of Italian lessons this week, which will continue through March for 30 hours total.  This is much more structured than my previous lessons, with daily homework!  Not only am I committing quite a bit of money to this, but I am also getting up at 6:15 in order to make it to the 7:30 AM lessons.

While I am only a few days in, a number of aspects of the learning process are very clear to me:

A teacher is needed to organize the knowledge.
Part of why I started with short term lessons was that I thought I could learn Italian on my own.  I had a pile of books and some baseline knowledge - I spent time every day reviewing flashcards, completing some exercises, and/or learning new words.  But this clearly wasn't working - these bits and pieces weren't helping me go out and actually talk to people.

Sure, I can memorize things on my own.  But I wasn't necessarily memorizing the most important things.  I could work on exercises that are "deeper practice" than simple memorization, but I was jumping around in the book.  I was picking and choosing what seemed interesting and skipping ahead, rather than ensuring my foundation was strong before moving on.

A teacher is needed to provide feedback
As a Novice, I am not capable of distinguishing what is the most important things to work on.  I couldn't necessarily recognize all of my own mistakes.  This is obviously a big challenge in language, where my ear cannot even hear the difference between some of the sounds.  But even when I could recognize my errors, I was not able to distinguish between major errors (that changed the meaning) versus the small errors that many people might make in normal speech.

The learning process is primarily based on the student doing things.
This was something I already deeply knew, but this experience continues to reinforce how fundamental this is.  In my current lessons, I am spending the majority of my time reading aloud and speaking.  This is hard!  It is fairly easy to listen to the instructor - but that doesn't make the knowledge stick.  There are a number of grammatical topics that I think I "know", but I make mistakes constantly in them when I speak (which goes back to the previous two points).  Without speaking, these mistakes (and subsequent corrections) wouldn't be obvious.

Learning requires more work than the student wants to do.
I did my homework for today, of course.  But, my instructor also told me I should be watching Italina TV.  I, of course, insisted (in Italian!) that I don't have free time to watch TV - I work at home in the evenings.  However, I did turn in the TV and set it to the news channel.  I ended up hearing about the NASA discovery announcement in Italian!  It is true that more exposure to Italian - and really focusing on it - would help me improve.  Of course, I'd have to put more time into it.

Being a novice is awkward and frustrating and learning does not happen as fast as one wants.
I knew that my Italian wasn't great before I arrived, but I think I envisioned going home semi-fluent.  This is nowhere near reasonable!  I have made excellent progress on vocabulary and becoming familiar with a variety of new grammatical rules (and additional conjugations).  However, my ability to quickly form sentences is about as good as it was when I took Italian about 6 years ago.  I really want to wake up and be fluent in Italian, but it just is not going to happen.  I can see that I am making progress, but I also see how slow I am when speaking and how few things I can easily say.

In the end, I don't know how this experience will change my teaching.  Much of this agrees with the pedagogical principles that i have already used to guide my teaching.  Will it help to share this experience with my students?  It seems like some of them think they will master physics if I just say the right words to them in the right way - but this is of course not true.  I'm sure that they will quickly get sick of hearing me talk about Italy and my leave, but maybe my class atmosphere can be a bit different if they know that my teaching techniques are influenced from my own experiences - and challenges! - as a student.

Some pictures from Bergamo

I'm getting very behind in showing off pictures from my travels - of course, this is because I am spending so much time traveling!  During a day trip to Bergamo, I walked a lot and saw many churches.  That is basically what I always do in Italy, but this was the first time a church actually took my breath away: Santa Maria Maggiore.

Sant'Alessandro della Croce - I didn't know rocks came in these colors

This used to be a convent - and now it is an academic building of the University of Bergamo.  

One of the original gates to the upper city.  Note that the road gets used for 2-way traffic!  Traffic flow is controlled by stoplights, and one must hope no one cheats the light.

Bergamo is made of the upper city (its old!) and the lower city (its fancy in a modern banking sortof way)

Santa Maria Maggiore - this was the breathtaking one.

In addition to every inch of the ceiling being decorated, there were also some huge tapestries.

I climbed a tower, from which I could see other towers.  

In Bergamo there were many shrines and memorial and signs about Pope John XXIII - he was born in the area and had studied/lived here.  

Further adjustments to local life (a superposition of fail and win)

I received a piece of mail today!  At one point, when buying train tickets, I signed up for their "club card" or something like that.  I wasn't sure if something physical would arrive - and it did!  But, it is a credit card?  I possibly accidentally signed up for an Italian credit card.  This is the CartaFreccia that I intended to sign up for, but I clearly need to do some translation of the fine print to understand why it is also a Visa prepaid card.

I went to retrieve my dry cleaning, and thought to look up some helpful words beforehand.  It seemed like it wasn't ready yet, so I guess I will go back later this afternoon.  My original plan had been to head to OSR after picking up my laundry, but not it looks like I will be working entirely from home today.  I hadn't had internet access at home from the weekend until last night, but it is back today.  Hence, working from home is entirely possible.

On the way back from the cleaners I saw that the "market" was happening.  My Airbnb host had told me there was a market on Wednesdays - this was the first time that I was there for it.  I was pretty excited - there were two stands with a variety of produce, a meat stand, a cheese stand, and then a variety of non-food tables.  I bought a chunk of cheese, a melon, and some fava beans.  I love fava beans, but I failed to correctly convert from kg to lb.  At the grocery store I typically buy 0.5-1 lb of favas for me... so here I asked for 1 kg.  That was the wrong conversion!  I now have a lot of fava beans to cook and eat.

It turns out that wasn't the market... that was just the first chunk.  It actually went back along another street, with many other booths and tables.  Most of the produce stands had close to everything - these aren't "farmers markets" at all, but more like an outdoor grocery store.  There was even one truck selling pet supplies and songbirds!  About half of the stands were selling clothes, craft supplies, and housewares.  While I was tempted by the fish vendor, I figured that (1) I would have difficulty cooking the fish with the oven/cooking supplies here (2) I have no idea how to describe how I want the fish cleaned in Italian.  I had a hard enough time buying the right type of onions at one of the booths!

Now it is time to get back to work... I spent most of the morning trying to plan travel.  I'm having a difficult time finding convenient/fast/affordable (pick 2?) ways to get to the Eastern European cities I hoped to visit.  It doesn't help that I'm trying to plan trips 3-10 days ahead of time.  I've reached the conclusion that transit will be $300, and I might as well prioritize accordingly.  I'm considering taking a night train to Vienna (and flying back).  I haven't taken a sleeper train before - not only would it satisfy my "take a different type of train each trip" pattern, but it has the greatest odds of me completely failing at doing it correctly!

Bologna: Amazing!

I traveled to Bologna since someone at work said it was nice and because it was easy to get to on the (high speed) train.  My "Northern Italy" guidebook didn't include it, so I didn't have an at-hand method for planning my trip.  I tried the "visitacity" app/website, which theoretically builds and adjusts itineraries for a variety of cities.  This is the first time I've made such a "detailed" plan for a trip, but it was helpful for thinking about the locations of sights and their hours.

I loved taking the fast train (frecciarossa) - our trip paralleled an expressway, and it looked as if the cars were sitting the still.  The max speed was near 200 mph!   Departing the station, I found a lovely park and the remains of a castle - I wasn't even to the main/historic part of the city yet!  On the other side of a park there was a market underway - mostly jewerly, clothes, etc.  I didn't see signs to know whether the market was every Saturday, or if this was a special occasion.  However, there was a stand with a variety of lovely bags.  I bought a leather bag that is large enough to use as an overnight bag, but small enough to use as a purse - which I've been wanting since I arrived.

At this point, I had already abandoned my itinerary.  As I walked into the city, I passed a beautiful church that wasn't even on the list - and there was a sign about a belltower tour later that day, so I decided to fully abandon my itinerary in order to return.  I then ended up at the main square, where there is a very large church.  I'm glad I chose to see it then, as it was still light on tourists in the morning.  I knew that a number of churches were closed for an hour or two in the early afternoon, so I was trying to see as many as possible beforehand.

One of the itinerary items had been a library.  I wasn't really sure why the library was a suggested sight, but I love books.  The library was right in the main square (where there is a famous fountain, currently closed for repairs) and has two reasons for being famous.  First, the building only recently became a library - and the building s gorgeous.  Second, the location has housed a variety of buildings, going back 2000 years.  In the basement they have a walkway through the ruins, with signs explaining the items (wells, roads, cistern) and which century they are from.  The main lobby of the library has glass panels in the floor so you can look down into the ruins.

I had a quick lunch, saw another church, and then found my hotel.  Just like Goa, I had booked a fairly fancy hotel right in the center of the tourist area.  After dropping my things in my room and charging the electronics, I headed back out for the belltower tour.  The church itself was beautiful, and I am very glad that I took the opportunity to go up to the bell tower. 

This is the "official" church of the Bishop of Bologna, and has been for however-many hundreds of years.  In that time the church was destroyed, rebuilt, etc.  At one point, it was decided to build a new belltower.  It was not explained why the decision was made to put the new belltower on top/around the old belltower.  So, going up the belltower is actually climbing a ramp that spirals between the inner wall of the new tower and the outer wall of the old tower.  The path was about as wide as my shoulders - I am very glad I had left my backpack at the hotel already.

The view from the top was amazing!  I'll post pictures later, in a different post.  This is the second tallest tower in Bologna, a city with a very large number of towers.  The tower houses 4 bells, which are run in "Bolognese-style."  This apparently involves the bells rotating a full 360 degrees one way, then returning 360 degrees back.  Given that the largest bell is over 3000kg, rotating the bells around makes the entire tower sway.  It also takes over 6+ people to ring it, since it is all done by hand.

After the bell tower, I headed to yet another church.  This one seemed to have a religious service going on (maybe they were just practicing?) so I left and planned to come back later.  However, every time I went back it was filled with people for mass, so I never saw that one.  However, next to it there was Santa Caterina's Orataory - this is a small chapel, but most importantly, there are music performances there.  I planned to come back for one at 6 PM.

After this, I grabbed a snack and saw more churches.  One "church" is actually a rather old church complex, called "New Jerusalem".  There was an antique market out front - I managed to not buy any of the antique books.  The church complex itself does manage to look like things I saw in Jerusalem, and in the back there is a monastery shop.  Here that involved a number of herbal products - unsurprisingly, I bought an herbal tea.  I had been very proud of myself for passing a number of tea shops earlier in the day without buying tea, but monastic tea was too exciting to pass on.

I went back for the concert.  I didn't know if it was possible to buy a ticket at the door, or how much tickets were.  I knew I was running low on cash, but hoped they could take card if the tickets were pricey.  At the door I successfully navigated the first part of the conversation in Italian - but then they told me 68.  Wow, much more expensive than I expected!  Seeing my confusion, they switched to English and said that was the seat number - the ticket price was by donation. 

Music: The concert was amazing, and that wasn't the only music I enjoyed in Bologna.  What I thought the advert for the concert said was that fugues by Bach were being performed.  I hadn't quite understood the instrument - harpsichord!   The harpsichord is one of my favorite instruments, and I love Bach's fugues, so this was absolutely a dream for me.  I also see now why they are so hard for me to play on piano - this concert was two harpsichordists (both women!) playing together.  Besides the concert, I also had heard the pipe organs played in two of the churches I had visited.  In one case it appeared as if the normal organ player was practicing, but another time it seemed like a visitor (who was being shown the organ) played.  In any case, it was amazing to hear.  There was also some very excellent street music in the major squares in the city.

After the concert, I decided to have a proper dinner in a sit down restaurant.  A colleague had recommended a specific trattoria - but they were a bit far away.  This place appeared to be well-known as one of the best places in Bologna for local food, so I called to see if I could get a reservation.  The person who answered the phone didn't speak English, but I managed the situation in Italian - nope, they were full.  I asked my hotel front desk for a recommendation and they called and got me a table at the restaurant down the street.  I enjoyed some local food and an excellent Italian wine (that I was not familiar with).

Part of why I saw so many churches is that I knew they would be closed to tourists on Sunday.  My original itinerary had a variety of museums on the schedule, but I decided instead to focus on the University of Bologna - the oldest university in Europe.  I went to their Art and Science museum, which was very interesting.  They have a huge collection of model fetuses for teaching OB/GYN - so dozens of different positions, malformations, etc.  On the whole, it was creepy! 

I then wandered towards the part of the city where I hadn't been yet and where there were canals.  I also decided to go to the Modern Art museum.  The museum was very good - their permanent collection focused on Italian artists, but they had a special exhibit on a German artist that I was not familiar with.  I would describe his work as the visual equivalent of a Philip K Dick novel: very good, disturbing, and it manages to jar your faith in reality.

A few miscellaneous thoughts:
Restaurants:  This trip included my first meals at Italian restaurants in Italy, since I really needed to try the food of this region.  Both meals were excellent - though I think I failed, both times, at picking two dishes that were allowed to serve as a primo/secondo pair.   Other than those meals, I also ate a lot of sandwiches my first day - 3 different times, in fact.  They were good, though I'm unsure if any of them were regional specialties.  I don't know the names of things like that (and there are different size/types of sandwiches with different names), so ordering those at a bar usually involves me pointing and looking confused.
Italian: I think my Italian serves me fairly well this trip.  At one point I saw a sign for an interesting looking "tower tour", and sent an email inquiring if there were spots available for that afternoon (in Italian).  I'm sure my Italian wasn't great - and certainly wasn't polite enough - but they replied in Italian (saying the tour wasn't held over the winter).  I was also proud of attempting to make a reservation, over the phone, in Italian.
Walking: Unlike Genoa (and Milan, etc), Bologna doesn't have a metro system and didn't seem to have an extensive bus system.  Much of the historic district is completely closed to cars, in fact.  However, it was very compact and easy to walk everywhere.  Also, I wore my hiking shoes this time, rather than my heels.  

One Month In: A brief comparison

Over 10 years ago, I spent the summer working at CERN and living on the Swiss-French border.  That was my first time in Europe and my first time using a passport.  The experience wasn't entirely positive, and it was my benchmark for planning for this trip.  Now that I'm about one-month in, I want to reflect on my preparation and create a comparison of the two experiences.

Being able to speak the language

When I was an undergraduate, I had asked if I needed to know French to work at CERN and was told no - this wasn't the best advice.  While I could speak English with the other American physicists, I couldn't communicate at the cafeteria, buy train tickets, etc.  Showing up with no French ability meant that I left with no French ability.

I first learned Italian back in graduate school, long before this trip was planned.  However, the time that I spent practicing over the past year really paid off.  I am still trying to learn new words and phrases!  I'm also very glad I scheduled the 10 hours of tutoring when I first arrived.

Again, well-intentioned advice said I didn't need to speak Italian.  The Italian scientists would speak English and many Italians speak English.  However, I have found that there are many situations where I need to communicate with people (who speak no English) and that people only use English at OSR when speaking directly at me.  Now that many of the people at OSR know that I speak some Italian, they prefer to just speak Italian at me and switch to English when they lose me.

Traveling

While I saw a bit of Europe my first time here, I was on an undergraduate budget.  While I still need to watch my spending (paying rent in two countries is expensive!), I can now explore more freely.  It feels nice to book seats on the fast - and expensive - train, rather than booking the slow train to save a few dollars.  I haven't really mastered "planning" yet, and it turns out that train tickets are cheaper when booked more than 1 day in advance.  It has also been nice to stay in "fancy" hotels, rather than look for the cheapest accommodations possible.   It doesn't seem like hotels are expensive here as they are in the states!

So far my exploration has focused on Italy, but I look forward to heading a bit further away in the coming months.  Though, I've gotten spoiled with Italian and I am dreading going to places where I don't know the language (Prague, Croatia...).

Food

It helps that I can actually cook now.  When I was an undergraduate, I struggled with not being able to turn ingredients in to food - and I was vegetarian.  I was also surprised by the fact that the market didn't have frozen/pre-prepared food.  The local supermarket also seemed to only be open during "normal business hours", when I was expected to be at work myself.

Ironically, my diet is largely matching the bread/cheese/fruit diet that I had in France a decade ago.  I have cooked a few things (chili!) from scratch, and I am also making a range of pasta dishes.  Luckily, the supermarket nearby has excellent hours and there are a total of (at least) 4 supermarkets that I can easily walk to.  There is also a range of small shops selling bread, fruit, etc that I pass on my way to the metro every day.  I think the main advantage here is that I'm in a city.

Work

This is the biggest difference.  I wasn't the happiest at CERN because the project was somewhat stalled and there were more people around than work to do.  I didn't seem to have anything to do.  

That is certainly not the case now!  If anything, I have too much too do.  In addition to being busy, I'm also fairly independent here - while my projects are collaborative, I'm not waiting for someone to tell me what to do.  This is the benefit of being a professor and not an undergraduate, I suppose.  The only downside is that the time is flying by - I can't believe I've been here a month already!  It also means that I have less time for everything else that I had wanted to do.

Preparing and packing

Overall, I think I judged my packing fairly well.  I remember taking my digital clock to Europe and being surprised when it didn't work - it turns out that the timing mechanism used the AC frequency, so the different frequency in Europe meant it was useless.  I'm enough of a world traveler now that I don't make those mistakes anymore, but it is especially helpful that I've been to Italy a few times before.

I was right to bring warm clothes and layers, though I didn't quite guess the business-casual environment of OSR correctly.  I worried I wasn't bringing enough clothes, and that is certainly the case for weekends/travel/evenings.  However, that gave me a reason to do some shopping!  I knew there was a major sale season in the summer, but I also arrived during a major sale season.  So, I've been able to fill the holes in my wardrobe without spending hundreds of dollars, which I had feared.

I am very glad that I brought tea and spices.  While I have been very successful in finding places to buy tea here, I am also drinking a ton of tea at home.  I brought my tea-infusing thermos with me, which has been heavily used.  The tea cups in the apartment are too small!  My spices have gotten a reasonable amount of use, and will continue to inspire me to cook from scratch.

In conclusion... relying on my past "long term" time abroad did help me preparing - both packing and expectations - for this trip.  I'm very glad that I am here, but this trip certainly would not be going as well had I not had the previous experience at CERN.

Venturing into new shops...

I finally pushed myself to get dry cleaning done.  I knew this would be difficult - and I prepared by looking up the Italian words I thought I needed.  I wasn't convinced the first place I passed was a "dry cleaners" and not a normal laundry.  Is there a difference?  I don't know.

I went to the place that clearly had a "lava secco" sign... and couldn't find the door to get in.  These Italian buildings really confuse me!  Luckily, someone was departing the shop, which helped me identify the door.  I opened the conversation by apologizing and saying I don't speak Italian well.  The conversation didn't really go uphill from there.  I understood about 20% of it - I left my clothes there, I paid her money, and I know what day to return.  We'll see what has happened to my clothes when I get back!

I had a dire need for a coffee, so I headed down the street...  I paused at the Herbalist and decided that it couldn't be harder than the dry cleaner.  Right?  They had tea in the window, so I assumed I could buy tea there.  What does an herbalist sell?  I have no idea.  But she did sell me tea.  Amazingly, this is the 5th place I have bought tea during this trip.  That is on top of the tea that I brought with me.  I expect that I will get through almost all of it though!  I am a tea-drinking, code-writing machine.

I did get my coffee, and I also stopped and bought bread.  

The Italian Day must have fewer hours

I spent most of yesterday working on my collaborative project that has nothing to do with the group in Italy.  I thought it would go quickly and I could switch to reading papers for my project here, but when I got to 12:30 AM I still wasn't done.

When I felt like I had hit a wall with the code yesterday, I took a break to get out of the apartment and go for a walk.  I went to a nearby park where there were trees and a canal.  Then, I wrote more code.  I got up this morning and worked more on the code... for hours.  Again, I hoped to wrap up and switch projects.

Around 4 PM I had fixed the code issue, but I was exhausted and there was no point in heading in to San Raffaele.  No matter what, I needed to get out of my apartment.  I looked up the hours for some of the museums I hadn't gone to, and decided to head to Mudec to see the Basquiat exhibition.

Luckily, I was on the metro before rush hour.  But when I got off, about a kilometer from Mudec, I found that the bridge to cross the railroad tracks was closed.  There was a sign about a new passover - but it wasn't open yet.  I watched other people, tried a few different ways over/under - and then gave up.  I went back one stop and got off with a much longer walk ahead of me.

The Basquiat exhibition was very informative - I've never pronounced his name right, it turns out.  I'm still sure I cannot say it right, but now I know that.  But maybe I don't say Haiti right either?  The English signage and audioguides always include some strange pronounciations (by otherwise-seeming native speakers) and a few words I don't know.  But, between this and the Warhol exhibit in Genova, I'm doing an excellent job finding art that is neither old nor Italian.

I found a different way to walk back to the metro, along a nice canal.  It is difficult to tell the difference between "old, scenic walkway" and "sketchy back alley" here in Italy, but I always use the presence of joggers to decide something is safe.  I then headed to a talk on Buddhism.  The primary teacher spoke Tibetan, but it was translated into Italian.  I could follow the Italian fairly well, and could recognize many Tibetan words.  However, my brain really struggled at switching back and forth.

The week has gone by so fast!  It appears as if my project here is splitting into two, and I'm struggling with how much time I should be spending doing background reading, vs trying to jump in and make progress.  It was important that I spent these two days on my other project, but I need to make more time for it in the immediate future.  While it is nice to have a glut of research to do, I am getting very tired from 12+ hour days!  I also want to keep traveling on the weekend, since that opportunity is the most limited.

I also need to limit my research time so I can make progress on a few non-research projects that I committed to over the next few months.  I have two big commitments (not teaching/Agnes-related) that need some of my time, and I will soon have meetings where I should have made some progress.  Finally, I'm not making as much progress as I had hoped in Italian - and I need to start ramping up my Tibetan before I leave.

So far I have preserved 7-8 hours of sleep a night, but I could really use more hours in the day here!  These metric days just don't work for me...

From England to Milan

I'm in the London Heathrow airport, drinking a cup of tea and preparing to board my flight back to Milan.  I really enjoyed this trip to Oxford, though I was correct that my brain would be confused by people actually speaking English.  Also, I struggled with the money and determining which side the cars would come from.

After I arrived on Thursday I had a whirlwind tour of Oxford from a former student who did a Masters at Oxford.  The "university" is made up of a number of different colleges, which are more independent than I had previously understood - each has their own facilities, including chapels, libraries, dining halls, and croquet lawns.  I saw a few of the dining halls and the Christchurch Cathedral.  Everything was very fancy and unbelievably old.  We met up for dinner with the faculty leader of the collaboration I've been working in, and then I got another tour of Oxford - from a very experienced tour guide!  It is very strange to hear how much college history occured between 500 and 1000 years ago.  Additionally, much of the history is ridiculous - public executions, mobs murdering students,  dissections of living people... While the college has many ghosts, we did not see any of them.

The next morning I had a lovely breakfast and then met up with the science group I've been working with.  We discussed where we are in the work and what we will do next and had lunch at the hospital cafeteria - fish and chips were an option, which I enjoyed.  A bit later I gave my talk, which I was fairly happy with.  It has been a long time since I've given a talk to a biomedical audience - I ended up having a very helpful chat with one of the senior researchers in attendance.

After a bit more science, including a video chat with our collaborators in Brazil, we headed to a "formal dinner" at the New College (which is hundreds of years old).  The food was incredible, but the main reason to go is to see "traditional Oxford".  Each college has its own dinner traditions - the Latin spoke at the beginning, etc.  After dinner, we headed to a local pub and had a pint of cider.  This morning I checked out of my room (which was at St. Hilda's College) and we had (incorrectly timed) high tea at the first tea house in England.  No big deal.  I then did a spot of shopping, saw some more sights, and then we went to an INCREDIBLE museum with historic science equipment - and a preserved blackboard from a lecture given by Einstein.

Off to Oxford (tomorrow)

Tomorrow morning I head to the Milan Malpensa Airport to fly to London Heathrow.  The Malpensa airport is quite a bit outside the city, so I'm taking a train there.  I purchased the ticket ahead of time - hopefully showing the PDF or my phone or Tablet will work (like it is supposed to!).

I get to London in the early afternoon and then get on a bus for Oxford.  At least that portion of the trip will be in English - though the currency will be different.  I expect to have a bit of a culture shock, switching back to a country where I actually know what people around me are saying.  I expect that I will mess up and speak Italian at least once.  Or at a minimum, have the same slow and uncertain speech that I have in Italian - though in English.

It has been foggy here in Milan for the past few days - today the mist became more rain-like.  On the bright side, it was a few degrees warmer!  In Oxford the whether will be similarly wet, but even warmer still.  I'm going to take my umbrella with me, but I've never tried to take a full size umbrella on a plane before.

I'm flying British Airways, who look to be quite serious about their baggage limitations.  Sadly, my laptop-backpack doesn't quite match their "under seat" size, which I am worried they may strongly enforce.  My current plan is to do the trip with my laptop backpack and messenger bag - which both only work if they are on my back.  I'm sure this is a terrible plan, but checking a bag costs $40 - one way!

I'm looking forward to seeing Oxford, giving my talk, and hopefully making some progress on a paper.  I'll get back to Milan fairly late on Saturday, so I plan to sleep in and relax on Sunday.