Echoes of Byzantium
Ravenna, the jewel of the western Adriatic and the heir to so many faded glories. It took rather longer to get here than I had anticipated, due to a delay of the trains in Florence and another one in Bologna (my bologna has a first name ...). Upon arriving, I was first struck by the heat - with a dull thwack, it hit me as I stepped out of the train station. I also managed to get myself lost ensuring that by the time I got to the hotel I was shvitzing copiously through my tshirt. This was to bode ill...
There's a sense of doom that stands over some hotel lobbies, giving you that distinct metallic tang that something pretty rotten is about to happen. In my case the rotten thing was the inability of the staff to find any record of my reservation, followed up by the bitter aftertaste: no rooms, of any kind, for any length of time, starting ... now. I stood there for all the world looking like a huge chump, and moreover a chump who was about to spend the night in the piazza. The staff, though, were extremely helpful and called around until they found me a room in a comparable hotel. It required yet another long walk through winding streets with the local gentry looking upon me as their parents and grandparents looked at gypsy caravans, but when I finally saw it, I felt like I was seeing Canaan. I dropped off my bags and armed with my guidebook, phrase book and camera I set out to see the mosaics of Ravenna.
They are quite a sight to behold. Both in terms of the art and the technical side of actually executing them. The most impressive to me were the ones in Mausoleum of Galla Placida. The detail of all the mosaics in the transepts is amazing but what really takes your breath away is the large mosaic in the central dome. It's a field of golden stars on a background of deep blue with a large gold cross in the center. What meager light gets into the room somehow wends it's way up to the ceiling and the starts glitter. It's bewitching and you can't take your eyes off it.
After my four hour tour of the city (and I did see everything there was to see in Ravenna) returned to the hotel, bathed and left for dinner, first choosing a trattoria by my hotel and trying to decipher the menu posted on the sidewalk. As I did a rather friendly woman sitting with her family asked if I needed any help, since apparently they'd also needed help figuring out the menu. Armed with my handy phrasebook, I politely said no and went back to trying to decode the menu. She came up anyway and continued trying to help, bless her, made some idle chit-chat ("oh, you're from San Francisco? We're from Germany but are actually living in Vienna ...") and then asked if I'd like to come and join them for dinner. A glance at the husband and child showed two extremely embarrassed people examining the ceramic structure of their plates intently, so I declined again, politely and perhaps a little more firmly than was necessary. She smiled and went back to her seat. I didn't find anything appetizing on the menu and walked off. As I walked away, though, I wondered if I should have said 'Yes' [D. Wallace, Yes Man, 2005]. I mean here was a person making a rather kind gesture, inviting a solitary stranger to join her family for a meal and I was rejecting it. It certainly didn't make me feel very good I'll tell you that, and gave me some pause. I could have actually used the company to be honest. The days since the wedding having been quite solitary and very quiet. In the absence of a companion I found myself completely silent for hours on end, and finally resorting to making some sort of noise just to exercise my jaws. Almost a dozen solitary meals, and "tavola per uno. Si, solo uno", had me feeling a bit sorry for myself - so why not take the nice lady up on her offer? I honestly don't know, aside from the silent panic of her companions at what may have been yet another stranger at their table. There was a sense, within me, that I just ought not to; that this offer was anything but a simple kindness. And that made me feel very ashamed of myself. What sort of person have I become that I am so mistrustful and dismissive of simple human kindness? It was certainly a revelation and not a very pleasant one, but the sort of thing that frequently comes up when one travels alone.