A few days ago, I had a dream that I was at home for Christmas. It was a dream entirely in English, I’m afraid to say. I shall always feel guilty for dreams that are not in one of the languages I’m learning; the final great linguistic hurdle that I can’t control at all. I’ll just keep telling myself it’s because people don’t talk much in my dreams anyway.
The details of said dream are quite blurry, luckily for you, because really, nobody likes hearing about other people’s dreams. They’re pretty dull in the cold light of day. In this particular one, I had forgotten to bring home any presents, but it didn’t seem to matter: I was home, surrounded by love and food and warmth, and there were even Christmas bells jingling merrily in the background… oh, that was just my alarm.
Still, Christmas spirit seems to have well and truly arrived in Bologna and it’s infectious. I am already meticulously planning my Love Actually style return home, even if it is strictly speaking at Stansted and not Heathrow, and saving my best turtleneck for the occasion.
Hoping we can skip the part with the insults
It’s also the first time I’ll be returning home close enough to Christmas to really be able to claim that I’m driving home for Christmas, or at least being driven home for Christmas (although that doesn’t have quite the same ring to it!). In previous years my terms have finished ludicrously early, so that I’m more being driven home for the start of December- and that’s got even less of a ring to it. So it is with great joy that this year I will almost be able to sing along truthfully to my very favourite Christmas song.
It’s definitely what Christmas is about- not the driving, or the traffic jams, as real as they are- but everyone returning home to their families and friends. And having been away from mine for so long, I’m more excited than ever. Not to mention that my return home means mince pies, which, try as I might, I just cannot find in Italy- if anyone wants to post me a jar of mincemeat, I would be delighted to offer you my address. It is impossible to try to search for something with such a weird, untranslatable name that doesn’t reflect its ingredients in any way. It’s the number one thing on my to-eat list when I get home. (I don’t actually have a to-eat list. Yet.)
Back in Bologna, I have been embracing the Christmas spirit (so, Christmas food) early, stocking up on panettone and buying myself an advent calendar. When I showed the calendar to my Spanish flatmate, I was shocked to discover he’d never had one. ‘No, I don’t think we have those in Spain,’ he said, only to be corrected when another flatmate, also Spanish, came in and said, ‘Um, yes we do, I had one every year when I was a child.’ His poor face dropped, and not being able to bear the idea of an advent-calendar-less existence, I picked one up for him at the Christmas market a couple of days later. Christmas joy all around.
The Christmas market is a European tradition that hasn’t quite crossed the Channel, and more’s the pity, because they are just so much FUN. Whilst it fails to reach the heights of some truly traditional Christmas markets, especially in Germany, Bologna has a couple; the Antica Fiera di Santa Lucia on Strada Maggiore, and one on Via Altabella that has not yet opened. Here’s a little film I made earlier of the delights of the first. Watch out for the model of Bolognese man cutting the traditional meat, mortadella!
Ellie's Year Abroad Blog 