Paris/Italy - Day 4

Seems we stayed at the Buddha Bar a little too long as the 7:00am alarm this morning came way too early. We were to catch an 11:00 flight to Bologna, Italy so that we could attend the Formula 1 race at Imola. Julie had told us horror stories about the inefficiency of the French airport. And when we got there, I was more than glad we arrived with plenty of time to navigate the mass chaos that was the check-in line.

Boarding the Air France flight, we were greeted by a group of ~15 American high school students on some sort of field-trip. Even in Europe we can't escape the stupidity of Americans. My favorite part is when the teacher/group leader asked the flight attendants if should could walk down the aisle while we were taxing to the runway so that she could take a count of the students. Why not do that before we're ready to go screaming down the runway in an attempt to deify gravity? Suppose one had been missing? I'll tell you right now... I wasn't going to let them go back to the gate to pick them up; I've got me some F1 to see!

We arrived in Bologna and hitched a taxi to our hotel. We stayed at the uber-modern UNA Hotel. We chose this place because it looked like a lot of fun and also because it was right across the street from the train station.

Bologna is a short 20 minute train ride from Imola where the race was being held. After checking in and scoping out the room, we made our way to the station to catch a ride to the track to go and watch qualifying for tomorrow's race. Without knowing any Italian, we managed to buy two round-trip train tickets to Imola and find which track (there were 11) our train was supposed to be on. We actually boarded the right train and were on our way. Kyle managed to grab some great shots of the Italian countryside out the window of the train.

Stepping off the train into Imola was like going through a timewarp. Narrow streets were lined with brick buildings. Elderly couples fully dressed up were milling about enjoying their favorite passtime of people watching. The bicycle was the main mode of transportation as bike zipped around the swarming visitors.

We managed to make the mile+ walk from the train station to the track. Unfortunately, qualifying had already begun and we were on the wrong side of the track from our seats. We found a GA section and sat down to watch the final session. After quali had ended we made our way to where are seats were so that we could watch some of the GP2 race.

Unfortunately all of the GP2 drivers that I knew had graduated to F1 this season, so we decided to go do some shopping at the team trailers. On the way we walked along the front straight to catch some pictures. It was surprising to me how much closer to the action one is able to get at this track compared to Indy. If I had to guess, I'd say we were 9 or 10 feet from the cars. Amazing.

A couple of the teams, including the home team Ferrari, had demo cars setup in the village, so we were able to get a closer look at the new areo packages for this year:

We made our way back to the Imola train station and headed back to Bologna to shower up and hit the town for dinner. The town square provided us with a nice restaurant where we ordered some wine and had a nice Italian dinner. An older gentlemen at the table next to us tried to say good evening and when we responded in horrible, butchered Italian, he asked us where we were from (in English no less). We responded that we were American and his eyes lit up. He began a long - hard to understand - story of a Polish invasion and how America helped by doing something-or-another. He then demonstrated how to make his favorite drink, a mixture of beer and "lemonade." Turns out that lemonade translates to 7-Up and when combined with beer, it tastes well. And makes a huge fizzy mess all over the table. Bidding our new friend a good night, we returned back to the hotel for some much needed sleep.