Day 15

Day 15 was our first full day in Ravenna.

Class was in a nice air conditioned conference room in our hotel, which was nice after Florence. We started off with a seminar on Aristophanes’ Lysistrata (Λυσιστράτη). Aristophanes is the playwright that I said was the dirty one, the one that wrote about the clouds. Well, this play is much worse, thanks to this play, I know that βαδίζειν means ‘prick’ in ancient Greek. To quote, “Absolutely, by the Two Goddesses. If we sat around at home all made up, and walked past them wearing our diaphanous underwear, with our pubes plucked in a neat triangle, and our husbands got hard and hankered to ball us, but we didn’t go near them and kept away, they’d sue for peace, and pretty quick, you can count on that!”  I had never before realized that such humour was popular as long as 2500 years ago, but evidently it was. We then learned about the Roman Republic and its fall, with Sulla taking the dictatorship, then Crassus and Pompey ruling the republic alone, then with Caesar, then Caesar alone, then Cassius and Brutus warring with Octavian and Marc Antony, then Octavian attacking Marc Antony and Cleopatra, leaving Octavian (Augustus) in complete charge. It was really a tumultuous, busy time, but we didn’t go into too much detail due to time restraints. After this we had a seminar on Plato’s Phaedo (Φαιων) which was very dry and kind of boring, then we had another on Aristotle’s Poetics which was both dry and very difficult to understand.

Because we were on our own for dinner the hotel gave us free lunch which was pasta with pesto, then 2 blocks of deep fried mozzarella (like slabs of mozza sticks) for the main course.

After lunch I went over to the single computer in the town and checked email for a few minutes. I grabbed some juice and water at the grocery store and headed back to the hotel. I decided to use my free time to catch up on blogs and wrote days 10-14 that afternoon. I made myself a sandwich for dinner and then watched Citizen Kane which is argued to be the best movie ever made. I am no expert but I can say that it was an excellent movie in my opinion. After that it had cooled down outside and the sun had just set so I walked down the beach reading (for those that care, I am improving my reading while walking skill) until it got too dark to read any more. In the evening I wasn’t interested in the party going on on the beach and later on the roof/balconies so I watched Don Juan DiMarco which came with The Astronaut’s Wife in a Johnny Depp pack. It was a very funny movie, Johnny Depp plays a guy who thinks he is the “Legendary Don Juan, the greatest lover the world has ever known” except he walks through New York with his mask, cape and sword, Zorro style. He meets an aging psychiatrist (Marlon Brando) and they bond. Very funny movie, Johnny Depp and Marlon Brando, how can you go wrong?

I should also mention that I drank 2L of juice, 1L of the orange, carrot and lemon one and 1L of pear juice, 30% and 50% fruit respectively. Also 1.5L of water.