10[ish] days of summer...

So before embarking upon the blogging journey of my time in South Africa, I wanted to give a brief recount of my summer. Exams for first semester were officially over July 8, but honestly my summer started before that. One of my best friends, who is living in Florence and who I’ve had the good fortune of being able to see quite a lot over the past few months, came to see me the weekend before exams so that we could enjoy my last weekend in Bologna together and partake in the beginning of the infamous July sales. So I spent my last weekend in Bologna with a dear friend enjoying my dear city, eating lots of Bolognese cuisine, and not actually buying much of anything since I lack funds, but still loving life. Then during exam week, I managed to hop over to Parma and Modena for the day to enjoy my region of Emilia Romagna a bit (and do a little bit of shopping outside the city…). In Parma we saw some strikingly beautiful churches, the kind that make your heart drop and your soul ache for something more. Then instead of staying and melting away in the humid hell that is summer weather in Bologna, two friends and I escaped to Ancona to enjoy a little 2-day seaside vacation. We went to the Riviera del Conero and swam in turquoise sea and ate an awesome dinner of seafood pasta and friend sea creatures and wandered around the old port city scattered with Roman ruins and even observed (but did not partake in…) some drunken chaos in an aptly named Piazza del Papa (the Pope’s Piazza). After a final whirlwind day in Bologna, during which I was sick with a nasty cold and felt like dying in the humidity as I packed up my Italian life for good, I hopped on a 6 hour Intercity train bound for Frosinone to spend my final days in Italy with my dear dear crazy friend Carlotta whom I may not see again for a long while. After a few lovely days enjoying the mozzarella di Bufala of the region (if you have never tried this amazing version of Mozzarella, you really must because it is to die for…) and taking in some sun and sea on the Lazio coastline, I boarded a Turkish Airlines flight in Rome bound for Istanbul. Now Istanbul in the summer is just about my favorite thing ever, so to only have 3 days to spend enjoying it was kind of painful, but I made the most of it. I only saw one friend, but my family friends were in town and we enjoyed the Bosphorus, the mall, and a nice long day out on a boat at the Prince’s Islands just off the coast in the Marmara Sea. I may have only had 10 days of summer, but I must have spent at least half of that swimming in the sea. And then, at 7pm on the evening of July 19, a “tan” Giovanna boarded a final plane on her way to South Africa. And thus a new adventure began…