Ravenna

I've been delinquent for the last week as I've been settling in. Between 6 hours of lecture and discussion every day, nightly readings, socializing, and minimal internet access, I haven't had much time to provide updates. As you can imagine, I've been busy!

I'll start with my weekend, since that spares you the academic, conflict stuff. I went to Ravenna with my roommate, a small town about 75 km east of Bologna. It is famous for its mosaics, and it certainly lives up to the reputation.

To back up for a minute, though, I want to say how amazing my roommate is. Her name is Sophie, she's from Australia and is currently at "uni." I LOVE her. I've never had such a good roommate on these shorter-term programs that I've done. My internship at the RAC in DC was a disaster initially - my roommate would smoke pot in our bathroom every night so everything in our room wreaked. It worked out in the end because she was kicked out of the program, but initially it really sucked. I guess things were ok when I was in Jordan, but my roommate slept all the time and took ridiculously long showers despite the severe water shortage facing the country (to the point that water trucks came around weekly to deliver additional water as we would run out otherwise). Israel made for another interesting experience because my roommate was so obviously miserable sharing a room that it was just really awkward. Ultimately, I suppose that also worked out because she moved into a different unit and I got the room to myself. But, in this case, I really like Sophie, we have similar living styles (she goes to sleep early, too!) and interests.

And since I'm talking about Australians, I may as well run with it. There are 7 Aussies here and I seem to be spending most of my time with them. At this point I think I have learned more about Australian culture than Italian. Obviously an overstatement, but I certainly know a lot more about their political system - they have a new Prime Minister, the first female ever, and she has red hair - and have learned about their education system and have picked up on some of their lingo. For example, they say "op. shop" (short for opportunity) instead of consignment shop or thrift shop. They say "do you reckon?" The lobby of the hotel is "the reception," something my roommate has commented on because she has started calling it a lobby. "How are you going?" means "How's it going?" or "How are you?" Something is rubbish if it's ridiculous or weird, and so is a trash can. There are many others that I have noticed, but can't recall at the moment...more to come.

Back to Ravenna. It was absolutely beautiful. It's a quaint little town - we decided quaint was the most apt word to describe it - and we went specifically to look at these famed mosaics, which were naturally all in churches. It really hit home to me while I was there how surrounded I was by churches and all things Catholic. It clearly should be no surprise that I would encounter churches wherever I turn, or the fact that I have seen numerous nuns, and even a monk wearing flowing white garments (while talking on a hands-free phone, mind you), but I was just struck at how omnipresent it is.

So these mosaics were amazing - I took pictures but have yet to upload them so they'll come in a later post. A lot of them had gold leaf so the sun reflecting off of them were fantastic. And the other colors were so vibrant. All of them depicted Jesus and the apostles in some form, but one of them depicted the binding of Isaac and another Christ's baptism. All of them were built between the 4th and 6th centuries AD. The buildings are surprisingly modest on the outside, and one would never guess that such intricate and painstaking work was inside. Since I don't have pictures, here is a link to the Ravenna Tourist site: http://www.turismo.ra.it/contenuti/index.php?t=arte&lang=2
. It doesn't do justice to its beauty, but hopefully I'll have pictures uploaded by tomorrow.

A few other interesting facts about Ravenna: Dante's tomb is there. Unfortunately I didn't get to see it, but that's kind of cool. It has been the capital three times: for a period of the Western Roman Empire, of King Theodoric of the Goths and of the Byzantine Empire in Europe. And, as can be expected, the gelatto is delicious.