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Today the plan was to wake up at 7, be down at breakfast by its start at 730, and be all ready to get onto the bus to leave for downtown Ravenna at 830. What happened in actuality, however, was completely different. Tosh here thought that her new cell phone was in 24hour mode since most things in Europe are. Well, she was wrong. Apparently just setting your alarm for 7 means that you have a 50/50 chance that its either AM or PM. This time it ended up being PM. I wake up at 725 to 3 sleeping roommates (since I, of course, told them I'd make sure they were awake at 7) and jump up and get in the shower. I made it downstairs around 745 to have a delicious breakfast of some kind of cooked meat slice, a few miscellaneous pastries, and a glass of some juice I've never had the experience of trying before; and will not try again. Natalie and I were the only ones down there until a little past 8 when Cassady and Pat showed up. By the time we were supposed to get onto the bus at 830 Adam was nowhere to be seen. I went up to his room to find him awake but toothpaste-less. We ran up to my room, grabbed my sweater and toothpaste and ran back downstairs.
We ended up being in Ravenna after a less than 15-minute ride which was a change from the usual multiple hour excursions we normally participate in. I was completely unsure about what we were going to be seeing since the town seemed small and quaint. What I didn't know was that Ravenna was the center of the Byzantine Empire and it ended up having some beautiful sights to see. We started out at the first church which had amazing mosaics. Our tour guide was not only knowledgeable about historical events but she also seemed to be a pretty astute theologian; which basically meant that every mosaic had about a 10-15 minute explanation. She certainly made it interesting but after yesterday's amazing trip to Assisi and all of the walking and tour-giving that I experienced over there my brain was on overload and I could feel the knowledge just oozing out of my ears. We were able to see two churches and were told about how after Ravenna was losing its popularity with the people the current ruler decided to have three "emperor's" tombs erected and placed in a specific area to attempt to draw attention. The result was a ornately decorated room with three completely empty, but still impressive looking, tombs (pictures).
We returned to the hotel for lunch at around noon. We were served around 130. We were supposed to leave for the beach at 145. Although we are always late at leaving for places and coming back from places I still didn't think this was going to work out. We finished lunch around 2 and were told that even though it had started to sprinkle out a bit we were still going to go to the Adriatic sea and man up for the 45 minute ride to the beach. On the way to the beach it started to rain a bit more but we weren't too worried because why would the SLA's take us somewhere that wasn't going to work out? :lwe drive for a little over 50 minutes and stop on a tiny street with Jurassic park ferns and scenery to our right and an actual treehouse on our left (pictures). After sitting there for 15-20 minutes and watching the drivers and chaperones run back and forth past our bus in the rain we were told that the weather wasn't nice (very intuitive) and that we were just going to turn around and go back to Ravenna if we wanted to or we could just stay on the bus and go back to the hotel. The group, even though we ended up getting split up into a few different buses, all ended up getting off and meeting up. We are apparently very efficient that way, or we all just didn't want to go back to the hotel and take a nap with our bedmates. It ended up being pretty chilly so Pat, Adam, and Cassady decided to wear their towels as various items of clothing (pictures). Needless to say, we blended right in with the Italian culture in our Hawaiian print bathing suits and flip-flops. We stopped at a coffee shop Cassady and Megan got hot chocolate that ended up being just warm cups of chocolate. Not my kind of food item. I ended up getting a cappuccino with some Baileys in it. First time having that, didn't hate it. I've never had Kahlua in a cappuccino ever but I think I might like that better. I have yet to see kahlua in Italy, however, so that may have to wait for the states. We ended up walking around the different parts of Ravenna we weren't able to see before including Dante's tomb (picture). I honestly didn't know that it was there which apparently was something unfathomable by some people. Sorry I didn't do research on places where everything is all planned up for me!!
We explored until about 6 when we stopped in a grocery store and bought 2 bottles of wine as something to do at night when we returned to the hotel; most of the other kids bought Jagermeister and/or vodka and rum. Really looking forward to that 6 hour bus ride tomorrow with kids being all hung-over and sick. We got back, listened to a few speeches given by important people at the JFRC and were then allowed to go to the dining room and begin our squid pasta and slightly overcooked swordfish dinner. After dinner, Natalie and I got the bottles of wine and a deck of cards and we played bulls*** again with our new friend Lauren who, for some reason, had the courage to sit in the one empty seat at our table. We played card games for about an hour and a half or so until they needed to clean the tables to Pat, Natalie, Adam, and I went up to Adam's room to watch some Japanese TV shows that were 1/5 in Japanese 2/5 in English and 2/5 in Italian I'm pretty sure.
When the guys got tired Natalie and I went down into the lobby, called some people through google voice (which WILL become my favorite program very soon) and headed off to bed around 230. An interesting day for sure.
- comments
Kelly Shikany i am so glad you didn't buy vodka and bought wine.....
Aunt Aud Thanks for doing this. It is so much fun to read.