Murphy’s Law
Today I went to Ravenna and Bologna. I was super excited because it didn’t rain. The excitement died, however, the moment I got off the bus. What was that? A beautiful cloudless sky? Yes. Let’s take a picture of it with the pretty fall trees!
Oh wait, let’s NOT because my camera’s dead! Woohoo. *Initiate ultra-sarcastic skipping and jumping.*
It was NOT my day. I was so very excited to see these places and foronce it wasn’t pouring down sheets of frigid rain. But as Murphy’s Law states, whatever can go wring, will go wrong. Stupid Murphy.
So first off today we ate breakfast at 6:00 am, and headed to Ravenna in a bus. I fell asleep. When I woke up we were practically there. We drove through the city and there were all kinds of very cool buildings. When we got off the bus I tried to take a picture. Fail. I shook my batteries and rubbed them together and switched them and did all sorts of other stuff. But nothing worked and I had to walk around in awe without being able to capture it. As a result, I’ll just probably have to go back someday.
First thing we went to see was the Chiesa di San Vitale. It was amazing. Our Fine Arts and Monuments professor, Erica, had told us about the amazing mosaics there. She told us how there’s a typical Byzantine mosaic portrait of Jesus in the central apse. She told us how the colors of the time were deep and vibrant. She told us about the windows of Alabaster. She forgot, however, to tell us that the place is absolutely magical.
The colors are indeed rich and wonderful, and 
mosaics are everywhere, covering the walls and ceiling as well as the floor. And the portrait of Jesus in the central apse was gorgeous. The thing I wasn’t counting on was the gold. All typical Byzantine mosaics and paintings of the time had gold backbgrounds. Just the color gold. No backdrop or detail. And the sun through the Alabaster windows throws just enough yellow light on the mosaics to make them sparkle like Christmas. I was astounded at the beauty and found myself wishing that they still made churches this way. I think if they did people would remember a bit more often that God is to be respected. Just being there made me want to be still and listen. I loved it.
Right after we left the Chiesa, we went to the 
adjoining mausoleum. It was also quite pretty, with its gold and Alabaster windows, and the starry ceiling was nice too, but it paled in comparison.
The second church we visited is called The Basillica of San Apollinare Nuovo. It was nifty. It was big and long and hall-like and reminded me of a government building. It had mosiacs also. On the left side was a long line of virgins waiting to give Mary and the Christ Child gifts, and on the left side is an equally long line of Saints holding crowns to present to Jesus.
It wasn’t nearly as impressive as the first church.
Then we went to see the burial place of Dante. That was small, but neat too.
After than, we pretty much headed back to the bus and drove about an hour away to Bologna. Once we got there we were set free to do whatever, and told to meet back at the bus a while later, as usual. There was supposed to be some big market/craft fair thing going on, so we took off to find it. We didn’t. But we did look through a couple of randomly placed tents that were selling stuff. Then we headed in the general direction of “back” and ended up needing a bathroom. We found, to our delight, a McDonalds!!! And went inside. That’s when we found some of our fellow students. Ben, Cristina, and Zuri had just ordered and were sitting down to eat. Ben offered me a bite of his hamburger and a sip of his Strawberry milkshake. YUM! And two minutes later I too was ordering some good ole American McDonalds. I got me the same as Ben: a hamburger and a strawberry milkshake. I was SO happy. I even got to eat a pickle!!! I forgot they put pickles on hamburgers. Once I discovered that, I wasn’t just happy, I was estatic! I even went to the trouble of removing my pickle so that I could save it for last. Oh, how tasty that meal was. It made my weekend.
The other thing that made my weekend was that, that Saturday, my class was invited over to our teacher, Antoinietta’s house for Sabbath dinner. She lives on the second floor of the school building, so our class headed down the hill to meet there, and I have to say that it felt a little weird being at the school on a Saturday. But, let me tell you, it was worth it because the food was fantastic. There were meatballs (real meat!), couscous, vegetable something that tasted an awful lot like amazing curry, salad, balsamic vinegar!, and some really good cheese that was, I guess, not cow cheese, but something else. We all sat in her living room with her and her husband, and she told us the story of how they met, and he told us stories from his job, and we all laughed and bonded in Italian and it was fun. Then for dessert, we had clementines and little coconut-topped balls of marscapone cheese, and two types of tortes. It was all so tasty, I thought I might die. What a wonderful way to spend a Saturday!
So really, though Murphy’s Law had to go and put a dead-battery curse on my perfectly sunny school trip, I still think I was able to beat the system by eating a nice hamburger, and having one of the most fantastic Italian Sabbath dinners ever. So take that Murphy. I win.
