Bologna with friends!

Friends Connie and Kevin joined me and Jim for a few days in Bologna, Italy before the Children's Book Fair. We rented an Airbnb together—an incredibly well located flat on the east side of town that I had never explored before—and we hit the town! An immediate fave was La Prosciutteria that was just around the corner from our flat.You stand in line to order the most amazing charcuterie trays with wine! Kevin and Jim hit it off - I had a feeling they would. And we made more new friends right off the bat.Across from the deli(?) was a gallery with this amazing chair - wish I could have shipped it home!Bologna really comes alive at night. Some restaurants don't even open until 8:00pm. THAT is when you want to wander this beautiful city!Kevin and Connie are both amazing cooks (you may recall Stan and I met Connie through the salons she used to host), so Kevin picked out the restaurants. The first we went to was owned by a sous chef for a Michelin Star restaurant. He's trying to put himself on the map, so had some really delicious dishes...and some flat out interesting ones. Like the sorbet... and the white chocolate mousse dusted with sage accompanied by sweetened cauliflower? Yeah.We had to have gellato as well, which sadly, after multiple and massive assurances from the employees that the flavors I chose were dairy free, turned out to be all dairy. Between that and trying to eat most of Italy in one day, I got quite ill. But not before we had a chance to visit the Archiginnasio Palace. How had I never seen this before? And we had spritzes looking over the Piazzo Maggiore.Turns out that Jim was an amazing traveling companion and I returned home even more crazy about him than when we started out. He seems to simply fit wherever he is-a true natural. Happy!