IV.iii. Evenings

"The trouble with eating Italian food is that 5 or 6 days later you're hungry again."
- George Miller

My evenings are getting busier. Though the year is only a quarter over, it feels at though it is already halfway done, perhaps because the winter holidays are looming and in psychological terms this seems like a logical halfway point. The group of American girls that has befriended me has begun to invite me to dinners, which gives me a keen insight into the world of all-girl, program-sponsored living arrangements.
    The principle division among foreign students in Bologna is between those here on programs organized by specific universities and those here on independent studies abroad. My situation puts me squarely in the latter category, which has both its advantages and drawbacks. I had to deal with the bureaucracy of the Italian university system first hand, deal with convoluted residency requirements, find my own accommodation, get to know the city, and stand on my own two feet with literally no help from my home school. Most North Americans, however, are here through programs directed by Brown University, Indiana University, and a variety of other coddling institutions; Most Europeans are not. I am therefore in a strange category, non-European and non-program, and understanding is not always forthcoming when the inevitable question, "Erasmus?" comes up. Still, I would rather have gone through all the effort to register here myself than have these things handed to me on a silver plate. If one had asked me my opinion a few months ago, however, I would likely have answered otherwise. Still, the expense of my entire year here is comparable to a year in Toronto, while most other North American students end up spending far more.
    "Basically, we pay to have friends," one of the American girls tells me at dinner. The apartment to which I was invited, one of seven owned by Brown, is adequate but somewhat dingy, beyond the coveted cento storico, and definitely short on privacy. I heard complaints all evening about meddling program directors who intervened to impose order and discipline on the colony of girls. To them, these sorts of infringements seemed normal; their place wasn't as much a private apartment as a residence hall. I have never been used to this sort of oversight, since my high school was essentially student-run and my residence years in Toronto were anarchical and don-free. At this point I wouldn't trade my two room, private, whitewashed, stuccoed, Ikea-furnished paradise for anything else.