When Spain and Poland Invade

Ciao a tutti!

This past weekend I was lucky enough to have two great friends, Natalia Olbinski and Lauren Engelmyer, come to BOLOGNA to visit me! Natalia is currently studying in Krakow, Poland, and she and I are friends from our CCD classes and junior high school. Meanwhile Lauren and I met through our sorority at Cornell, and she is studying this semester in Barcelona, Spain. Both of them arrived on Friday, ready to eat, drink, and experience la vita Bolognese!

From left to right: Lauren, Natalia, and Rachel - out for aperitivi in Bologna on Friday night

We spent Friday walking around Bologna, and then met up with Rachel for aperitivi around dinner time. After eating, we joined some other friends from my program and took Natalia and Lauren out for a night on the town in Bologna!

Saturday, while Natalia headed up to Venice to meet some friends from her university, Carnegie Mellon, Lauren, Rachel, and myself headed to FERRARA, a nearby city in the region of Emilia-Romagna and the home of my (and Rachel's) Italian professor at Cornell! After an incredible lunch at l'Osteria al Brindisi, the oldest osteria in the world (and where Copernicus used to sip wine after classes!) we spent the day exploring Ferrara's Gothic Duomo and il Castello Estense, a 14th century fortress with a moat and dungeons! Click below to check out the webalbum from FERRARA:

Ferrara

On Sunday we reunited with Natalia and celebrated La Festa Delle Donne, national women's day (which is apparently as big a deal as Mother's Day or Father's Day)! Many bars and restaurants around Bologna were offering ladies' specials in honor of the holiday, so we took advantage as much as possible!

It was definitely refreshing to spend a weekend at home in Bologna, and really great to see some familiar faces from home. I thoroughly enjoyed showing Lauren and Natalia my city and introducing them to my new roommates and friends...so I am now searching for cheap flights to Barcelona and Krakow so that they can show me their respective cities before the semester is over!

Check out the webalbum to see more photos from Natalia and Lauren's weekend in Bologna:

Lauren and Natalia's Weekend in Bologna

Enjoy!