Darby Girl's Perspective

  Day Five: As we start the next leg of our journey (Rome, here we come), I want to share our joy at window shopping in Bologna. Once a popular and common American activity, one I shared with my Mom and sisters beginning as a baby in the stroller. We’d walk Main Street in Darby, 69th Street in Upper Darby and Chestnut Street in Philadelphia on a regular basis. We didnt buy much, we couldnt, but we enjoyed looking. It was beautiful fantasy. Window shopping barely exists nowadays. Big box stores don’t have windows. Marshall’s and TJ Maxx are more like a walk through the storeroom. Malls are scarce and those that exist, such as KOP, have pretty basic window displays, clean and neat but not necessarily inspirational. To me, merchandising a product through a storefront is magical and Bologna was throwing pixie dust everywhere.

  Day Three: Soccer match. Bologna vs. Cagliari. This is Caesar’s itinerary item and I’m going along for the fun (?). I owe it to him for all the televised soccer matches I’ve ruined with vacuuming during the single goal of the match, which seems to happen with relative frequency.  The night before the match, he tries to get tickets, which are available but the firewall on the site is blocking the final payment. We spend an hour on different devices but just can’t get the tickets. No worries, we’ll buy at the stadium, which is about three miles away. Then we learn that there is a marathon taking place in the city and we can’t get the car out. No worries, we’ll get a bus.  Morning comes and we start out to get the bus but the marathon route changes the bus route. No worries, we’ll walk. Forty five minutes later we are at the  Stadio Dall’ara but can’t find the ticket office. No worries, we’ll ask some fans. Caesar Caramanico approaches a large group of them outside a ...

  Day Two: Trying to recall when we learned about the great European cities and I’m thinking it was fourth grade with Sr. Immaculata. What I do remember is all of us kids calling Balogna,  “Baloney” and this thought came to my head as we were served mortadella on a table covered in starched , white linens.  The world’s oldest university, established in 1088,  is located here, so the city feels young, especially late evenings when students clog the portico covered sidewalks outside the bars and restaurants, eating pizza, drinking beer, smoking cigarettes and having thoughtful conversation.  This too, reminds me of my youth as I remind Caesar Caramanico that there is Advil in the bag for his hip pain and that I really need to get some sleep.