  June 7 Off to Bologna Caght the train from Venice to Bologna on Saturday morning thinking wow what agreat little trup to bologna this is going to be.  peaceful,  i dont even have to put my pack up on the rack,  calm,  tranquil,  i can even hear the birds in the trees as we pass them by.
 and as we approached mestre,  i could spend a few seconds trying to recognise the strange noise which was getting louder it sounds like.  hmm.  i dont know.  oh yes i do.  It sounds like about 1,
000 soccer fans making the trip to bologna for the last of the serie A games for the season,  1, 000 hot and sweaty,  smoking,  horn blowing fans,  most of which chose my carriage from which to abuse the anto smoking policy that the italian train system had in place.
 The horror quickly subsided however,  they were young and raucous but by and large a good bunch of people.  chanting,  waving flags,  comparing flares ( of the non panteloon variety)
 and generally being a good way to pass the time whilst travelling through the otherwise flat and relatively uninteresting countryside between venezia and bologna.  The other bonus was that the girls who frequent soccer matches have taken to imitating brazilian soccer fans,  the yellow brasil t shirt tied just below the jubblies,  whistles,  hot pants and dancing queens.  yes one wasnt game to get the camera out in the confines of the carriage im sorry to say sports fans,
 but i am happy to give those interested a minute by minute description.  I brought the weather with me to Bologna,  arrived at around 2: 30 to 35 degree heat and figured the 2km walk to my hotel wasnt going to be a good introduction to the town,  a quick tour of the bustilng and apparently very dodgy train station and i taxied my ass off to 4 star luxury.  Was greeted by an indian receptionist who spoke lovely italiam amd better english than most of the english i have met,
 she was a pom of course and laughed when i suggested that she had never been back to india.  she wasnt into banghra so we quickly ran out of things to discuss until she asked me what i did for a living.  i dont remember the batch oif lies i extracted from my ass but they began with me asking ''which name i had booked my room under'' This seemed like a good idea at the time,  smalltalk with the staff and all,  but i recalled my encounter with the carabinieri in venezia,  i dont think i was game to mention it here but suffice to say that the piazza san marco was subject to a ''credible'' terrorist threat.
 i didnt ask whether the terrorists or their threat was the credible bit,  i uess both.  But the urlLink carabinieri were interested in speaking with solo non italian travellers who had changed hotels within venice on or about monday June 2.  o yes on the thursday evening my time had come and the nice carabinieri types sat me down in the bar of my hotel with a few other stranieri to have a chat.  i was the only one who asked for an espresso,  i foolishly thought this would impress them.
 some german kid started to cry.  they asked me what i was doing in italy,  i told them i was here to meet chicks.  they said.  no seriously.  i said,
 yes seriously .  i didnt say i was going to be succesful.  They have some fabulous uniforms them carabinieri,  once again i didnt think this was a photo opportunity,  but they did take the chance to have a look at the holiday snapshots i had taken,  i guess passing up the chance to take a few snapshots of the guy selling mussolini posters and cufflinks was a good call after all.
