Sky Dylan-Robbins' Blog
Program: Bologna Consortial Studies Program (BCSP), Full Year 2009-10
Majors: Radio/Television/Film and Italian; Minor: Sociology
Class: Communication 2011
Photo: Sky Dylan-Robbins in New York, preparing to leave for Italy
Check out Sky's videos:
- "Cupcakes (Torte di Tazze) in Italia!": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3fKRlgoBkGc
- "THINK OUTSIDE THE BOX: La Pasta Fresca": http://www.youtube.com/skydylanrobbins
October 16, 2009
Ciao! Just a quick check-in. Nothing extremely new has
happened since my last entry. Am just really beginning to settle into the
Bologna groove. (And loving it, of course.)
So. I've been here for about a month now. Daily routine (weekday): Wake up,
drink an espresso and eat a "brioche" (fresh pastry filled with
nutella or marmellata - YUM) at a cafe on my way to university, and then
classes, and then a delicious hot panino on my way to the library (striving to
maintain the Northwestern studiousness), and THEN aperitivos with friends
before dinner!
Have you HEARD about the Italian pre-dinner "aperitivo" tradition?
Every night before dinner (almost every night, that is), everyone goes out to
wine bars/cafes in the city center for a few hours of talking and drinking
together. It's beginning to be too cold to sit outside on the piazza, so
aperitivos are usually done in the toasty warmth of small cafes. You pay for a
drink (wine, prosecco, beer, you name it) and then you get free and unlimited
access to a buffet of faaaaaabulous finger foods. Imagine: sitting around a
small table with your friends inside a dimly-lit, cozy cafe, talking and drink
fabulous wine and eating sophisticated snacks (as in prosciutto and cheeses and
crostini and whatnot)...and then being too full for dinner.
Going to Amsterdam in two weeks....will meet an NU friend (who's studying
abroad in London) there. Very excited. SO great that all the countries in
Europe and the UK are so close!
Stay warm!
Sky
September 23, 2009
I open my
eyes. Rays of sunlight stream in through the window, casting bright golden
streaks across the marble floor of my bedroom. It's silent...so different from
the daily morning cacophony of New York City. I get up and, after putting on my
slippers, shuffle over to the window. I open the shutters and look out at a
magnificent sea of red roofs that sparkle in the morning light. Workers on
their way to work, students on their way to school, Italian nonnas on their way
to the market...all walk along the cobblestone streets below. The bell in the
giant bell tower gloriously rings out. It's nine o'clock! Twenty minutes later
I'm out the door...the air is so fresh! I breathe in deeply and leisurely walk down the street ... because
here in Italia, one does not rush. One savors every moment. One LIVES in the
moment.
I walk along the marble streets, under the ancient porticos, and finally arrive
at my favorite cafè. I stand at the bar and say "Un caffè, per
favore" to the barista. The cafè is filled with a magical aroma that's so
intense yet so sweet. "Chhhhhhhhhh," goes the espresso machine.
Within seconds, the barista places a tiny teacup - filled with three or four
sips of deliciousness and pure energy - in front of me. I savor every
sip. And then, two minutes later, I'm on the street again, slowly walking to
class...
And so commences each morning here in Bologna. It's ridiculous. Like, truly.
And before lunch each day, I wander out to the fruit and vegetable markets and
decide what I'm in the mood to eat. A kilo (about two pounds) of sweet,
beyond-juicy cherry tomatoes for only 2 euros? Yes. And a gigantic cestino
(basket) of plump, as-sweet-as-pure-sugar, velvety figs for only 3 euros? Oh
yes. Yesterday I bought a large piece of salmon from the pescheria and grilled
it for dinner - I have never had salmon so good. Oh my gosh.
I'm still going strong on eating homemade pasta amap (as much as possible).
Pictured is handmade tortelloni al ragù. With every bite, the world turns
upside down and my eyes roll up in my head because it tastes so good. (Half
joking. But not really.) Also pictured is prosciutto....a cured meat that
Bologna's famous for. You think prosciutto in the States tastes good? You have
no idea.
A typical "antipasto" (first course) is a gigantic plate of cheeses
(buffalo mozzarella, parmeggiano, etc etc) accompanied by an equally gigantic
plate of prosciutto and mortadella and salumi and others. Those, with some
fresh bread from the bread basket that's always on the table, AND some fabulous
red local wine, is IT. Like, a PEAK experience.
And don't get me started on the dolci. Biscotti, torte, gelati, blah blah blah
blah blah. It's all amazing. ALL of it. One of my current favorites is
marzapane: almond paste infused with A LOT of sugar and often shaped into
little pieces of fruit (see the picture of me holding a marzapane fig? I was
excited). So creamy, so buttery, so sweet, so goooooood.
I should probably stop talking about food now. Sounds like I'm obese, right?
Well, I bought a scale and I joined a gym....so I'm actively trying to combat
the junior-fifteen thing.
Official university classes begin on Monday! (So far have just been taking
grammar classes with the other American students on my program) I'm very
excited. Have met a bunch of Italian university students, and all seem
fabulous. Have been doing lots of traveling, lots of shooting (with my video
camera), and lots of eating. And lots of speaking in Italian, of course. I can
already feel my Italian improving tremendously! Yipeeee. 
Anyway, hope you have a fabulous start to the new Northwestern year! Happy
studying.
A dopo,
Sky
September 1, 2009
Ciao a tutti!
FINALMENTE I'm settled into my apartment. It's officially been a whole
week since my arrival in glorious Italia. Already, I feel SOOOO at
home. It's all so fabulous.
The process of actually finding an apartment, however, was unfathomably
grueling. I saw at least twenty apartments in about three and a half
days.....from little hole-in-the-wall attics to a ridiculously amazing
Renaissance-style appartamento (owned and inhabited by a young Italian
playboy named Giovanni - I am NOT kidding). The city is small enough
to walk through, but big enough so that when you reach the opposite
end, you're sweaty and stancissima (so tired). However, the apartment
search was fabulous in that it forced me to become familiar with all
the main streets and little vicoli, and thus, I now know Bologna all
the better. AND my Italian vocabulary and ability to conjugate verbs on
the spot skyrocketed tremendously.....speaking with Italian students
(who speak velocissimi) on the phone when setting up appointments is
HARD. But anyway. On the last day of this seemingly wretched apartment
search, I was shown a spacious loft with high ceilings and white-washed
walls by an oh-so-nice and beautiful Italian named Paola (a student at
l'universita'). I then met Marco, another wonderful Italian who lives
there. Then, Paola brought me into a truly fabulous single room with a
queen-size bed, an enormous dresser, closet, and a desk, all made of
dark wood. I walked over to the window and opened the shutters, looking
down onto the piazza below me and the little yellow buildings with
green shutters all around me, and I gave a sigh of relief. I was HOME.
(...and now am aaaaaaaall moved in!)
I started classes yesterday, and they're great. The official Universita' di Bologna classes begin in October - right now am just taking the Indiana University grammar/vocab/competency classes with the other studenti on my program. We were assigned to prepare for a ten-minute oral presentation on any topic that involves the culture of Bologna. I'm presenting on Friday. My topic? The History of Gelato. Oh yes.
Just imagine. Homemade pasta every night. Gelato almost every day. Beautiful Italians all around you. Un'espresso in the morning. The warm, sweet Italian sun caressing your every move as you walk down the streets and across the piazzas to class every day. If you're considering this program, all I can say is two words: DO IT.
A dopo!
Sky
August 18, 2009
Ciao tutti! My name is Sky
Dylan-Robbins and I'm a Radio/TV/Film and Italian double major, and Sociology
minor, at our beloved Northwestern University. It's currently well past
midnight and I'm sitting in my bedroom in New York City, typing away at my desk.
Georgio, one of my cats, is purring on my lap. The apartment is quiet,
save for the hum of the air conditioner and the continuous clicking of my
fingertips against the keyboard of my laptop. In exactly 142 hours, I will be
in Italia. And let me tell you: every particle, every blood cell, every ATOM of
my being is SO EXCITED. I'm going to live in Bologna, Italy, for ten
months.....starting in less than ONE WEEK!
My program is through Indiana University....there are seventeen of us on the
program: four guys and thirteen girls (how typical). I know no one...and I'm
the only NU student! Once we arrive, we're staying in a hotel for two weeks,
during which we'll each be searching for an apartment. My ideal situation is
this: my own room, living with Italian roommates in an apartment nel centro (in
the center of the city), extremely close to a vegetable market and a fabulous
gym. Hmmmmm. We'll see how it unfolds.
I couldn't be more excited. And when I say excited, I am NOT using this as a
code word for nervousness. However. The one thing I'm a tid bit nervous about is the clothing situation. And yea,
I know, I know. I'm supposed to barely take anything because I'll be buying
everything there, right? No. Because, you know, I LIKE my clothes. So why not
bring them with me, right?
But...can you imagine? Clothing for all four seasons, packed into TWO measly
suitcases? Oh MY.
But whatever. That's so superficial. I shouldn't be thinking about that. I
should be concentrating on more important things....
Actually, that's not entirely true. Isn't Italy the fashion central of the
WORLD, basically? You gotta look good when you're in Italy. I guess I'll give
this some thought and get back to you.
Anyway, it all works out in the end. Everything happens for a reason. Or,
as they say in Italy, c'e' sempre un motivo. Sempre.
But on to more important things. So. I will be taking film classes and
sociology classes with ITALIAN students, taught by ITALIAN professors, in big,
beautiful, old lecture halls. Can you imagine? I already see it clearly: I'm
sitting in an amphitheater-like lecture hall, surrounded by beautiful, young
Italians who are furiously and dutifully scribbling in their notebooks as a
wise, gray-bearded professor standing on the ground below shares his thoughts
with the class..... And then, when class is over, I'll meander over to il
mercato and buy a few fresh figs from an old Italian mama at her fruit stand.
I'll walk over to the main square and sit on the stone steps of the gigantic,
bubbling fountain as I eat my figs and study my Italian homework.
And then, of course, I'll hear the whinnying of a horse and look up and - lo
and behold! There he'll be: my Italian prince on his white horse! He'll sweep
me off my feet and I'll leave my half-eaten figs behind (but I'm taking my
homework with me, being the studious Northwestern student that I am) and
together, we'll gallop away into the Italian sunset...through lush, rolling
hills and fields of magnificent sunflowers, until we arrive at his castle,
where we'll live happily ever after.
Or something like that. Hmmmm. We'll see.
