Due to my Mac incompetence, I won't be able to post pictures just yet, but I'm working on it.

The Bologna Art First! Fair on Friday was pretty interesting. It was enormous and after a few hours we decided to head out to the center of town. I brought a tour book, but it wasn't too helpful. We ended up wandering and stumbled upon a restaurant that prided itself in serving Bolongnese specialites, which was just what our tummies were asking for. The fixed price meal was just right and now I can officially claim to have eaten tortellini bolognese (aka with a ragu or meat sauce). I don't know how to say yum in Italian yet so I'll say it in French: Miammmm

We made it back to Florence just in time to enjoy yet another downpour. Mi piace molto il mio impermeabile. :) Dinner was great at our homestay, yet again. We learned how to say a "loose woman." I have no idea how that came up...but in case you wanted to know, it's "una donnita allegra."

Yesterday I bought train tickets to visit Olevano. (Dear other relatives, I'm working on visiting as many of you as soon as I can. A presto!) I went to the studio with Sylva and blasted Italian radio as I continued an exercise in "visual mining." Since dinner isn't included on the weekends, Anna, Leah, Sylva and I brought food over to an apartment kitchen and made dinner. The courses included Gnocchi with a mushroom cream and parmgian sauce, a fresh salad, and some lovely tartini (little tarts) adorned with poached pears (with a side of gelato....of course). Everything tasted great, but somehow the pears ended up looking like canadian bacon after soaking up the secret sauce.

After dinner with putzed around for a while until we left to go to a discobar. There was no cover charge, and it was a cool experience. It was sort of like a high school dance, except the would be chaperones were sort of creepy. Maybe it was more like that Jimmy Buffet song: "fins to the left, fins to the right..." Anyhoo, I would go again. The trick is to stick with at least one other person (whose name you know). Vespa means wasp in Italian and Papparazzi means Mosquitoes. I'm surprised Pirahna doesn't mean single male. Luckily on the walk home, the weather was actually kind of nice (for 2:30 in the morning). No rain (for a change).

Today I'm going running in the hills around Florence with Anna and then I'll try to figure out the photo conundrum...