Markets, Markets and piu mercadi

I live in the small town of San Martino in Rio, just outside the larger city of Reggio Emilia.  Every Saturday morning here there is a market on the main street.  It does not consist of locally made products; each tent houses products you would find in a department store, but prices are very low.  For example, one tent was full of young women's clothing, another of socks and underwear and a third sold jackets.  There were also three produce stands, which were my target.  My host mom is (intelligently) conscientious of where she buys her produce to be careful of quality.  She recommended buying mine from the stands, to get to know from where the produce is coming and to meet the farmers, so I had been saving up my produce buy all week. 
[I buy most of my food at the Coop grocery store right next door, which has communist origins.  My host mom teases me that I’m shopping with the communists every time I go.]  I posted up outside the produce stand that had the most friendly looking employees (the produce among all looked identical).  I stood on the side for several minutes, preparing my speech in my head, waiting to be called on for my turn.  I saw the employees look at me a couple times, recognizing that I had been there for a while and that it should probably be my turn, but I hadn't responded to the numbers they were calling.  I came to and realized it was like being at the DMV; you pull a tab with a number on it and wait your turn.  After that, the session was a breeze: "La insalata; uno di questa e uno di questa, etc." 

San Martino's main street where the market is held every Saturday.

Get your number and get in line!

Not a bad lunch, eh?  Made from some of my market produce.

 After the market I went for a jog around town (did I mention how much pasta I eat here?).  The terrain is extremely flat, so it's a nice confidence boost to keep me exercising.  I took La Rossa to the market in the morning and road a couple miles, which is a greater quantity in kilometers so I count it as more workout.  After my pitiful exercise and a bit of washing up, I hopped on a train to Bologna.  Without stops Bologna is only thirty minutes away, so I made it there within an hour.  

I had a lot of grand, fashionable ideas of things I wanted to purchase in the reputable Bologna shopping district, but when I got there my fist tightened around my wallet and I couldn't do it.  It's nice to have some consistency at home and abroad.  There was a market of white tents going on there, too, but approximately twenty times the size of the one in San Martino.  It was overwhelming!  Aisle after aisle of 10 euro shoes, 2 euro socks, knock-off purses and people packed together like sardines. I persevered and made it out alive, and more importantly with all of my belongings.

La Via Dell'Independenzia is full of shops.  I'm not sure if it's an every Saturday occurrence, but the entire road was blocked from automobile traffic to make way for pedestrians.  The sidewalks are covered by porticoes, so Bologna makes for a friendly visit even in the winter months.  I walked through several shops, including H&M and Zara, which my host mom informed me are very in fashion now as suppliers of stylish, poorly made clothes to pair with more expensive, quality pieces.  Lucky for my wallet I am not a fashionable Italian size.  I'm not even sure if pants exist here that my legs would fit into.  The Italian size on the tags is smaller than the same number in general European sizes.  I love the look of women who can fit into these skinny jeans/thick leggings and pair them with beautiful boots.  And they can apparently do everything in heels.

I stumbled across a piazza at the end of La Via Dell'Independenzia where a group of young men were playing live music.  They were gangly, scruffy, had awkwardly high energy and were altogether captivating.  Their name is Rumba de Bodas, and they play traditional wedding music from all around the world.  They were having so much fun playing and singing that I found myself laughing out loud in the middle of the crowd, which seemed every bit as entranced as I.  They had a container set in front of them with a sign explaining how much CD's, shirts and other paraphernalia cost, then a box for onlookers to pay money to trade for said paraphernalia.  I couldn't help but walk up and drop in 5 euro in return for a CD.  The CD doesn't hold the same magic as they did on their makeshift stage, but it's a nice way to keep the memory of them jumping around and attempting to sing English songs in terrible accents.

Rumba de Bodas

I walked a bit further on before I decided it was time for a gelato break.  I've had surprisingly little of this since I've been here, which I vow to change (La Rossa may need to be taken around the block a few more turns).  I have experienced an interesting phenomena here: I do not like chocolate ice cream, but I LOVE chocolate gelato!  It is unbelievable.  Imagine the creamiest, richest chocolate you've ever tasted.  Now freeze that and make it even creamier.  UN. Believable.  The small size gets you two scoops, so I paired the chocolate with a sweet cream vanilla with balls of Nutella.  Very naughty.  Another favorite blind date for chocolate is Stracciatelli, which is vanilla with chocolate chips.  Gelato is so fresh, it blows ice cream out of the water.  I just decided; a new goal of mine is to converse with the owner of a gelato shop and figure out how they make it.

So at the end of my dreamy day of shopping in Bologna, I came away with a mediocre CD and a belly full of gelato.  Great success!