IV.viii. A Second Wave of Gothic Invasions

"The true barbarian is he who thinks everything barbarous but his own tastes and prejudices."
- William Hazlitt

Wednesday night, or more precisely early Thursday morning, a good friend of mine arrived in Bologna. For the next few days I was double booked with visitors, as Alex was leaving only on Friday. This didn't matter, however, as we all get along extremely well. Alaric, studying in Toronto, was home in Paris for the holidays. I suggested he take the train south for a few days, and he put up little resistance.
    Alaric is a European searching for a Canadian identity and I am a Canadian searching for a European one. Perhaps surprisingly, we get along well. He is one of the best friends I have made during my Trinity College years, more exotic than my crop of irreplaceable Toronto stand-bys but able to match them in intellect and whit any day. I took him on my tour of Bologna, stopping to admire the requisite sites; the Saint Cecilia Chapel, the fresco of Mohammed burning in hell at San Petronio, the food markets in the Quadrilatero district, the Christmas fairs. Alaric seemed impressed. He too doubted why he had spent so much of his life in Toronto.
    At the crack of dawn the next morning Alaric was off to Siena. He too went to see Ditmira, our mutual friend to whom I had sent Alex not two weeks prior. Unbeknownst to me until I bumped into her at a tie shop in that city, Ditmira lives in a university residence and can book an extremely cheap room for visitors. This is where Alaric was to stay, though he underwent trials similar to those Alex had experienced, namely difficulty in finding Ditmira and close encounters with the local youth hostel staff. In both cases, however, all was well in the end.


Traditional Italian nativity scene figures for sale at a Bolognese marlket