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timerippleYes, I'm on a non-horse-icon kick.
My paper is SO not getting done. Oh well. I knew there was a reason Julius Caesar was cool. On How to Deal with Pirates:
"Caesar treated the cutthroats holding him as if they were a personal bodyguard: he would order them to keep quiet whenever he was ready for his siesta, commandeer an audience whenever he wanted to practice his oratory, and dress them down whenever he felt they failed to appreciate the finer points of his style and delivery. The pirates were amused no end by all this, and made the slip of staying amused when Caesar good-humoredly promised that he would come back after his release and hang them all."
Casson, Lionel. The Ancient Mariners, p. 181. Forgive the sloppy citation. I love this book!
And now, on to
March 24, 2004
Kalambaka
Somehow or other the bus made it down the slope of Mount Parnassos this morning, only to reascend, descend yet again, and barrel on across the Plain of Thessaly. Oh, how I hate buses. In a partially successful attempt to ward off hairpin-curve stress, I chose to ignore the intermittent rain that plagued the bus's windshield and added to the fun of the mountain road.
Passing through a small village somewhere in Thessaly, a lone stork stared down at us from its nest atop a church dome. Farther on, we passed a dried-up riverbank that housed, not cascading sheets of water or rushing brown torrents, but a series of pitiful dwellings consisting of clear plastic sheets stretched over dome-like frames. A few sheep were penned nearby, adjacent to a gravel pit. Even the scruffiest, most run-down house with the most thickly trash-strewn yard, many of which had been seen in other towns, seemed luxurious in comparison.
Far beyond, the startling rocks of the Meteora jutted above the plain. It is said that 50,000 years ago the entire area was a lake or small sea. A river washed gravel and sand down, which formed a cone in the midst of the lake. Seismic activity broke the cone apart into gargantuan fragments, which were then shaped by wind and rain erosion into the Meteora. Some rocks lean against one another like mammoth grinding stones; others resemble a giant's or dinosaur's toes planted in the earth, the body gradually washed away until only the bones remain. High on the peaks there are monasteries perched like gull' nests, and the roads leading up to them are even more precarious than the one at Delphi. As the bus ascended, it started raining harder. Naturally. Steadfast, we climbed the 140 steps up to the Varlaam Monastery, admired the frescoes and the view, and zipped off to St. Stephen's Monastery. As impressive as its icons were, however, I was far more moved by the vast panorama that revealed itself as the rain slackened. With the green plain below, the natural pillars all around glowing with moss, wildflowers, and wind-and-rain markings, it was breathtaking. If I'd been a Byzantine monk, I'd have built there too.
My paper is SO not getting done. Oh well. I knew there was a reason Julius Caesar was cool. On How to Deal with Pirates:
"Caesar treated the cutthroats holding him as if they were a personal bodyguard: he would order them to keep quiet whenever he was ready for his siesta, commandeer an audience whenever he wanted to practice his oratory, and dress them down whenever he felt they failed to appreciate the finer points of his style and delivery. The pirates were amused no end by all this, and made the slip of staying amused when Caesar good-humoredly promised that he would come back after his release and hang them all."
Casson, Lionel. The Ancient Mariners, p. 181. Forgive the sloppy citation. I love this book!
And now, on to
March 24, 2004
Kalambaka
Somehow or other the bus made it down the slope of Mount Parnassos this morning, only to reascend, descend yet again, and barrel on across the Plain of Thessaly. Oh, how I hate buses. In a partially successful attempt to ward off hairpin-curve stress, I chose to ignore the intermittent rain that plagued the bus's windshield and added to the fun of the mountain road.
Passing through a small village somewhere in Thessaly, a lone stork stared down at us from its nest atop a church dome. Farther on, we passed a dried-up riverbank that housed, not cascading sheets of water or rushing brown torrents, but a series of pitiful dwellings consisting of clear plastic sheets stretched over dome-like frames. A few sheep were penned nearby, adjacent to a gravel pit. Even the scruffiest, most run-down house with the most thickly trash-strewn yard, many of which had been seen in other towns, seemed luxurious in comparison.
Far beyond, the startling rocks of the Meteora jutted above the plain. It is said that 50,000 years ago the entire area was a lake or small sea. A river washed gravel and sand down, which formed a cone in the midst of the lake. Seismic activity broke the cone apart into gargantuan fragments, which were then shaped by wind and rain erosion into the Meteora. Some rocks lean against one another like mammoth grinding stones; others resemble a giant's or dinosaur's toes planted in the earth, the body gradually washed away until only the bones remain. High on the peaks there are monasteries perched like gull' nests, and the roads leading up to them are even more precarious than the one at Delphi. As the bus ascended, it started raining harder. Naturally. Steadfast, we climbed the 140 steps up to the Varlaam Monastery, admired the frescoes and the view, and zipped off to St. Stephen's Monastery. As impressive as its icons were, however, I was far more moved by the vast panorama that revealed itself as the rain slackened. With the green plain below, the natural pillars all around glowing with moss, wildflowers, and wind-and-rain markings, it was breathtaking. If I'd been a Byzantine monk, I'd have built there too.
