Bologna & Reggio Emilia

Phase 3 of my holidays: from Sicily to Bologna.

Right on the 1st of January in the evening Marco and I had our flight back to Bologna. In the late afternoon his parents drove us all the way to Palermo, about 2 hours by car.

This evening flight arrives nearly at midnight in Bologna. Therefore we hadn't booked it for the day after, because on Monday January 3 Marco has to go back to work.

December 2, the Sunday we had in Bologna, passed quite unspectacularly. We just enjoyed being together without having his parents around. In the evening we wanted to meet a friend of mine that I still know from my time of the internship at Bologna Congressi in 2004/2005. Giulia lives in London now for some years, but happened to still be home in Bologna on this Sunday.

Marco, I and wanted to go out with her for a pizza in our favourite Pizzeria Belle Arti. Unfortunatley, at last minute, Giulia had to cancel our dinner. Marco and I were already downtown a bit earlier and so we stopped at an Irish Pub to get an aperitif to drink.

Although Giulia couldn't come anymore, we still hold on to our pizza plan and went anyways. Giulia and I would meet the next day.

Well, and that was already the end of the weekend and for Marco the time off from work. From today, Monday January 3, he had to go back to the office.

Marco took on a new job in October. Unfortunately it's new office is not in Bologna, but in a town called Reggio Emilia. Reggio Emilia is located between Modena and Parma, before Piacenza on the way to Milano, 80 km away from Bologna.

So Marco commutes every morning and evening, all together with local busses and walking for about 1 hour.

Since I hadn't been to Reggio Emilia before seeing where he works now, I decided to join Marco for lunch today.

However, before taking the train from Bologna's central station, I met up with  Giulia. I hadn't seen her for ages now, so it was cool to meet her again and exchange. It was interesting to listen to her experiences she made since leaving Italy and moving to London 4 years ago.

At noon we split up again. She still had to catch a flight today back to London and I had my train to Reggio Emilia scheduled at 12:26.

The train ride takes about 40 minutes and when I arrived in Reggio Emilia I still had to walk for about 10 minutes along the main street until I arrived in front of Marco's office.

Here, in a little square I met Marco and also some of his new colleagues at 13:30 for lunch. We went into a nearby bistro and had some - guess what - ... pasta!

After an hour his lunch break was unfortunately over already, but instead of travelling back to Bologna, I walked a little bit through the small city centre before then sitting down in a café. I had brought my book and laptop along in order to spend the time usefully.

Shortly after 5 p.m. Marco came and picked me up in the café and we walked back to the station and headed back to Bologna.
For dinner we had some soup and then enjoyed our last hours together in bed and watching a good movie on TV. Tomorrow I will leave again and I won't see Marco anymore before he'll be back from work; I have to be at the airport by around 6 p.m.

So this was again another saying good bye. How much I hate this. After all these years I simply haven't got used to it yet. It always sucks...

Well, soon I'm off, on my way back to Oslo. Tuesday, December 4, I have my flight from Bologna via Copenhagen to Oslo. Short transit time and late arrival in Oslo... and on the 5th back to the office.

Also my holidays are over now... :-(