My Bologna has a first name...

Greetings to all, I have just returned from a weekend trip to Bologna Italy with the rest of the Catholic Studies students, an annual trip that Sr. Helen does for the fall semester students. Most of you know that I was actually in Bologna a couple of months ago when I was traveling with the Cathedral's pilgrimage group prior to WYD (yeah, I know, some of you now reading were actually there with me! :) - so I am not going to go into tons of details about the town or sites. If you want, you can go through the archives of this blog to read about the last time I was there and see the photos I took then.

Overall, however, the experience I had this weekend was totally different from my other visit to Bologna! First, the hotel we stayed at in Bologna was way different from the one the pilgrimage group stayed at, because of its location. Rather than being outside the city center, this hotel was smack dab in the heart of the town, just down the street from my favorite church of S. Domenico!! Everything was only minutes away by foot, and the hotel itself was awesome. If anyone is planning on going to Bologna anytime soon, I highly recommend the Hotel Touring (click the Enter Site link)! Secondly, there is no comparison between going to the heart of the Domenican order with a Dominican and going without one. Sr. Helen was an amazing "spiritual tour" guide, with both a wonderful knowledge of Bologna itself and of Domenic and the Bologna Domenican communities and history.

Oh, and before I begin posting photos and more information about Bologna, I should also mention that on Friday night (as a "celebration" of the conclusion of our most intensive Italian language course, two weeks of classes four hours a day!) our Italian professor Giovanni took us all out to a wonderful restaurant (trattoria actually, a family-run "real" Italian place) in the Trastevere district of Rome. Getting there was an adventure in itself, as Italy has been going through a very wet spell lately and it was later in the night when we were trying to tackle the Roman bus system to get us there. Anyway, we got there and had a wonderful evening meal with some delicious panna cotta - if anyone decides to come visit me I will take you there too!

Next, photos!