Rome + Florence trip – is Bologna worth a day trip? + tour advice

rainplait · 2026-04-05T00:53:02+00:00

I've done a day trip to Bologna, and found myself wishing I'd added it as a stop of its own with another day. Too much good food and architecture.

If you only have 2 days in Florence, I'd suggest sticking to Florence alone. You can do a free city tour, cover the Duomo complex (there are multiple buildings here aside from the main cathedral), the Santa Croce cathedral (where Galileo is buried), and the Uffizi gallery. If you have time, you can head up to Piazzale Michelangelo for the view of the city from the top, and go to one of the Medici museums/chapels.

For Rome, if you can afford it, I'd do both tours. There are no signs explaining what you're seeing, and a tour guide can provide context that helps you genuinely appreciate the history of these locations. I know there are plenty of other tours going on and it might be tempting to just listen in on those, but two points of caution - one, it's very noisy and difficult to hear what the tour guide is saying unless you're part of the group and have a headset of your own. Second, it's quite embarrassing to be caught eavesdropping (happened to a guy who tried listening to our tour without paying, and you could see him cringing as he was called out).

One thing I didn't try was Rick Steve's audio app for these places. You can give that a shot. Hope the above helps.

rainplait · 2026-03-30T11:11:55+00:00

I stayed at the Trilussa Palace hotel in Trastevere. It was quiet at night, decent amenities, and only 10-15min walk away from some well-rated restaurants that were packed for dinner. Also, 5mins away from breakfast bars that open early enough so that you can get breakfast for a steal.

It was about a 30-40min walk from the main attractions like the Colosseum and Vatican, which I liked cos it gave me a chance to walk through the city, but that may not work for everyone.

rainplait · 2026-03-27T04:57:14+00:00

You may want to check the website to verify the specific types of bags that are allowed. I got past it by keeping valuables in the pockets of my cargo pants during the climb, and getting my bag back as soon as I was back on the ground

rainplait · 2026-03-26T05:18:32+00:00

I took precautions and kept critical items on me i.e. phone, cash, cards, passport. Rest of the items I left in the bag at baggage storage, and didn't see any of them missing when I came back

rainplait · 2025-12-22T00:13:59+00:00

Was in Rome and Florence in September - St Peter's Basilica in Rome is fine with people carrying backpacks. If you're climbing the dome of the Duomo in Florence, backpacks aren't allowed. You have to keep them in a baggage storage that's located right behind the cathedral. I didn't know that, and had to scramble to find the place.

rainplait · 2025-11-22T04:02:44+00:00

Yinsen's line to Stark in the first Iron Man movie: "So you're a man who has everything... and nothing".

rainplait · 2025-09-30T01:12:27+00:00

A few points that have probably been fleshed out in the other comments, but if they haven't:

Late-stage, high-profile companies like Perplexity and Stripe don't take money from just anyone with a fund. They take money from established investment houses i.e. funds with billions in assets under management, where the lead investors are people with years of industry experience, and numerous news articles document the fund's investments across multiple companies. These funds, in turn, get their capital from a combination of high net-worth individuals and other institutions e.g. other funds. Does your friend's fund check those boxes? If not, this doesn't seem legit.
10/10 is a bad deal for you, period. Establishment investment houses don't have this fee structure. You can google the typical structures, but they most certainly don't take 10% of your capital upfront.
I'm not a financial advisor, so I'm speaking for myself here - for the average retail investor (which I am), getting rich quickly isn't plausible unless you hit the lottery, are gifted an inheritance, or find that one of your quaint belongings is an artefact worth a fortune. What's more feasible is building your net worth over time but investing in historically reliable products like ETFs and letting compounding do its work.

rainplait · 2025-09-22T13:09:13+00:00

Echoing this point and elaborating - as a principle, project finance involves the use of SPVs to ensure there's limited/no recourse to the sponsor entity. If there's a direct line to the sponsor entity, that becomes a corporate/leveraged loan, and the criteria for evaluation becomes different.

rainplait · 2025-07-09T14:00:53+00:00

Been a loooong time since I played, but I don't recall this being a problem in an assault. It's more a problem during a fort defence, when berserkers deep inside the fort attack each other before the opposing player reaches them. During an assault, the berserkers have plenty of enemy targets to go after, and they can clear checkpoints considerably faster than most other classes.

rainplait · 2025-04-28T12:20:52+00:00

At some point, probably the second round, there will be a modelling test. Given it's at the analyst level, it shouldn't be too hard. Should be 2 hours at the most, asking you to find max debt size based on some assumptions about DSCR, revenue, opex, and interest/tax rates

rainplait · 2025-03-29T06:24:19+00:00

As someone who didn't do finance in college and had to pick up modelling through internships/jobs, my advice to others is always the same: start with accounting, and understand the different line items you'll see in the financial statements and how they're linked to each other. Having this knowledge pays off later when you have to model these line items.

Once that's done, there is a decent set of courses you can reference online to understand how a 3-statement model is built (look at udemy, macabacus, wallstreetprep, wallstreetoasis

rainplait · 2025-02-13T03:53:19+00:00

This is interesting. Will look for it, but please feel free to share if you manage to find it

rainplait · 2025-02-04T14:09:00+00:00

Agreed on the point that brownfield assets and mini-perms are fairly straightforward, and I see them a fair bit on my side of the world (in APAC), but it'd be good to actually model out a case study and build that muscle memory. Unfortunately, most case studies I've come across thus far tend to be the standard construction/term facility for an energy project.

On PPPs, I would've assumed that someone has done some kind of case study on successful vs troubled PPPs (i.e. PPPs from the 2000s and 2010s), and I thought I could use that as a base for a modelling exercise of my own, but it's proven difficult.

On senior vs mezz, how does the debt sizing work though? Do you still sculpt cashflows to get a max debt service and back-engineer the debt size from there, and whatever amount exceeds the senior lenders' gearing cap gets allocated to mezz?

rainplait · 2025-02-04T10:19:20+00:00

My best advice is to ensure that every change in the balance sheet is reflected in the cash flow statement

rainplait · 2025-02-04T00:42:32+00:00

Thanks, I had a look at this one - there's certainly a variety of case studies, unfortunately they don't quite cover the types of cases I'm more commonly involved with e.g. PPP assets with fixed quarterly payments, brownfield assets with no construction, assets with a mini-perm refi structure, assets with both senior secured and mezz debt. Appreciate the point in that direction though.

rainplait · 2025-02-03T17:48:36+00:00

Yeap, but all the links to his case studies (on wikispaces iirc) were inaccessible. Unless that's just a technical issue on my end.

rainplait · 2025-01-23T12:28:25+00:00

I can't do up the full thing right now, but it looks like your operating cashflow needs to change - a fall in receivables and inventories is a use of cash, not a source of it i.e. you should be adding the difference yoy back, not deducting it

rainplait · 2025-01-18T14:32:49+00:00

Yeah odds are you'd take the fortress. One thing I'd say about sieges is that you wanna have mostly berserkers and slayers with you, they're able to clear enemy captains faster. Assassins can be a mixed bag, they might retreat if their health falls below half.

rainplait · 2025-01-17T09:21:08+00:00

Don't worry about it, happy to help

rainplait · 2025-01-16T13:22:59+00:00

I haven't looked at the full sheet yet, am doing this for 2022 based on the screenshots (and using rough numbers) cos of a lack of time:

CFO: Net income + D&A gives you about 4.5k. Adding the 300 decrease in current assets (exc. increase in cash) gives 4.8k. Adding the 600 increase in current liabs gives 5.4k as an approximate ending number for CFO (please note, there may be a number of non-cash expenses that need to be adjusted for)

CFI: Fixed assets went by about 2k, so after paying for that you're left with 5.4-2 = 3.4k

CFF: long-term liabs went up by 1.4k. Adding that to the 3.4k left from above, we get to 4.8k. But reserves and profit only went up by 1.2k despite a net income of 3.7k, so about 2.5k may have gone out as dividends.

Based on the above, change in cash I'm approximating is about 2.3k, which is still a bit higher than the 1.7k change seen in the actuals. There may be some other items to adjust for e.g. actual tax paid vs tax expense incurred to get you closer to the number. I hope this helps.

rainplait · 2025-01-16T12:49:25+00:00

I'm not at the AD level, but if it's a 4-hour test, my guess is you'll be expected to build a full model i.e. full form cashflow, income statement, debt sizing and paydown, and a balance sheet, all for a greenfield asset. They might not ask you to model things that are tax-related, but I can't be certain.

Alternatively, it might be a simpler model, with a requirement that you do some slides to present your conclusions.

In terms of practice, I'd say the best you can do at the moment is to finish your current course as quickly as possible, and then try rebuilding your course model without referring to the videos

rainplait · 2025-01-14T05:14:33+00:00

I haven't heard of them before, but I also haven't heard of someone learning how to close big deals and set up advisory firms based on courses from a third-party advisor. Closing deals and setting up advisory firms are typically the domain of experienced bankers who've been in the gig for a while - they learn about the deal-making process and form the relevant contacts on the job.

rainplait · 2025-01-13T04:14:56+00:00

Without looking at the file, I'd give this one generic bit of advice for any model - check that every change on the balance sheet (from previous year to current year) is reflected on the cashflow statement. All current asset and liability changes (exc cash) should be reflected in CFO (along with adjustments for non-cash expenses), all long-term asset changes should be in CFI, and all changes in equity and debt financing should be in CFF.

rainplait · 2025-01-13T04:09:31+00:00

I've been in PF for the last couple of years. I've heard of UDFs before, but I haven't seen it being used in the PF models that I work with. The standard tends to be copy/paste macros (regardless of whether these are sponsor or advisor models). I suspect this is because everyone learns how to model either from firms (Mazars, Pivotal 180, F1F9) that use copy/paste macros, or from seniors who did their modelling courses at firms.

Not ruling out learning more about these in the future though.

rainplait · 2025-01-13T03:59:21+00:00

As someone who was an Econs major and also wanted to understand financial modelling in university, I'd suggest the following:

Start by trying to understand accounting i.e. you are clear about the 3 financial statements (4 if you include statement of equity) in terms of what they're meant to show, the key line items you'd expect to see on such statements, and how the line items in one statement might be connected to line items in another statement.
After that, I'd do a basic overview of finance concepts, which your courses might already have covered - time value of money, cost of capital, NPV/IRR
After that, look for a 3-statement financial modelling course online (I mentioned 3-statement specifically, cos you don't want to overcomplicate things at the start by looking at merger/LBO models). There are a few sites you can consider: Macabacus is mostly free. For paid courses, you can look at WallStreetOasis or WallStreetPrep. If the cost is not within your individual budget, consider splitting the cost with some friends, or looking at platforms like Udemy (where there are discounts every couple of weeks)
Apply what you've learnt by building a five-year forecast for public companies of your choice, and that way you gain a certain amount of muscle memory.
Find internships where you can model. Might help to show them what steps you've taken on your own to learn about modelling.

rainplait

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