Day 12: Bologna

It was our final day at Liceo Malpighi so we opted to immerse ourselves fully in the experience by attending some English lessons. It was interesting to see how additional languages are taught here compared to how we learn Italian for example back home. It gave us a boost to be experts in the classroom as mothertongue English speakers, even if we found the technical language describing English grammar to be quite foreign. In a first year liceo class we helped the class of 14 year olds with their interview questions which reminded us of our own celebrity interview project we did in Year 7 Italian. Perhaps this school and these students weren't so different to us after all! For the second hour of the day, we returned to Malpighi Lab with Erica who teaches English here at Malpighi for a lesson on English and Italian idioms. We started off with a matching activity, working together to figure out how Italians would express some of the typical phrases we use frequently in English such as "better late than never" (meglio tardi che mai) and "once in a blue moon" (ogni morte di papa - literally every time a pope dies). There were also some entirely new expressions that we don't really have a cool English equivalent for, a favourite of which was "conosco i miei polli" (I know who I'm dealing with - literally I know my chickens). Erica then explained some of the reasoning behind certain Italian idioms, including fun historical facts along the way. We had a wonderful time and can't wait to try out some of these new idiomatic expressions in conversation.

A quick snack break later, we set off on foot for Torre Prendiparte, led through the streets of Bologna by a helpful guide from Malpighi named Lorenzo. The streets were full of life with people out shopping both in traditional stores and outdoor markets. We hardly realised we had arrived at the tower until we looked up. There we were greeted by Matteo whose family has owned the tower for centuries and who in fact lived there for 7 years. We struggled to comprehend what life must have been like in a tower, especially when we entered and saw how tight the spaces were and how steep the stairs were. On each landing, we discovered a new story and piece of history about the place. One level was once a prison and we could still see religious symbols and tally marks counting down the days etched into the walls. There were also more beautiful drawn images of biblical characters created from the red clay hidden underneath the stone floors. As we climbed higher up the tower we compared what we could see now with the scale model of the tower as it once had been with medieval military personnel defending the structure. The higher up we went, the creakier the stairs became. We finally made it to the top where the picturesque views over the city of Bologna were well worth our hike up the narrow staircases. We were truly awestruck by the colours and forms of buildings we could see from so high up.

Descending the stairs of the tower was even more terrifying than the ascent as we had to go down some sets of particularly narrow stairs backwards. Thankfully, by now we have built such a strong sense of community that we were able to encourage and help each other through the ordeal. We were all so happy to finally arrive at the bottom where we could enjoy a quick lunch before catching the bus to Carpigiani: Gelato University. Only in Italy could you imagine having a university specifically for making gelato. Here, we cooled ourselves down with a gelato before being led on a tour of the museum dedicated to the invention of ice-cream. We learned that the soft serve machines we see at McDonald's (yes, the ones that are seemingly always broken) actually originated here and Carpigiani supplies restaurants of the fast food chain around the world. After the tour, it was time to return to Liceo Malpighi for the final time to meet our host families who would take us home for our final night and day in Bologna.