Europe Day 13: Half Sculptures and Gelato Knees

I am absolutely to determined to write a post every single day.  I may not post them everyday, depending on the wifi situation, but I will write one everyday.

It is currently 11:28pm, and I still have much to do before tomorrow, so this will have to be very brief.

Today we went to Academia.  Again, I happily spent three hours in the museum.  My favorite part were the unfinished prisoners Michelangeo was sculpting for the tomb of a pope-though I have forgotten which one.  Each figure was half pull from the rock.  Of the six, all had their chest and legs formed, though many only had the rough outline of a head.  Given the expression on their faces, it almost seemed as the the humans were being absorbed by the rock, rather than rising out of it.  Fingers and toes were rarely formed, and only a few faces.  A finished sculpture is smooth as glace, but these were scarred from the chisel.  I am sure there is an metaphor for life, but I haven't the time to come up with it yet.

Most people know the Academia for Michelangelo's statue of David.  Standing fifteen feet tall, built of left over marble from a cathedral, and with a furrowed brow, I was again, driven to distraction looking at him.  Scholars still argue if he has just killed Goliath, and is contemplating his victory, or if he is preparing to go to the battle field.  Personally, even after staring at him for a good long while, I am still torn between the two camps.  On one hand, I agree that David appears concerned, as if suddenly the idea of fighting Goliath has frightened him.  On the other hand, when I imagine David in that space of time before the battle, I see a hot headed boy, fired up with passion and without a thought for his own safety.  This is not the David Michelangelo depicted, I am certain of that.  I would have liked to continue to sit on a bench in that room for a long time, considering the emotion on his face, but there was a lot of people who wanted that seat, and I wanted to allow others the experience I had, of sitting and contemplating.

The second floor of the museum was all religous art.  I am protestant, and the idea of looking at painting and upon painting of Virgin Mary was origionally incredibly monotonous.  But, the more I look at the paintings, the more interesting I find them.  Every painting has something unique about it.  Many of these have symbolic meaning, and I am slowly learning to pick up on.  Others feature various Saints, who I am learning to identify.  Every time I think I have a handle on who is who, another one pops up and I need to determine who he or she is.  Each is always painted with something to designate who they are.  For most, it is the symbol of what they are the patron saint of, or the object of their martyrdom.  For example, St. Sebastian is usually depicted fill of arrows-for he was shot to death-or carrying a bow and arrow because he is the patron saint of archers. 

Saints and relics are all fairly unfamaliar to me, but being so constantly surrounded by them, I am quickly picking up an interest.  Even so, I do not intend to convert anytime soon.

When I finally visited every peice of art in the museum-including a collection of historic instruments, such as the first known upright piano-I wandered to find some lunch.  I underestimated the amount of time I had until class, so I went to a grocery store to get bread, cheese, and an apple.  Tall, dark and handsome picked up a banana while I was choosing my apple.  He set it on a scale, and a little sticker popped out, which he promptly stuck on his banana and walked away.  I assumed I would have to do the same with my apple, so I set it on the scale, and nothing happened.  I pressed what I thought was a button-nothing happened.  I looked for instructions-there were none. I looked for some one to ask for help-nobody was around.  Finally, I put the single apple back and picked up four apples already packaged together with a price tag.  I was determined to get an apple, and I like golden delicious better than gala anyway.

After lunch, I had class and worked on homework until dinner, when Kayla and I returned to "Il David" and I had a delicious pizza, followed by my usual gelato.  Today I had chocolate, mint, and chocolate vanilla cookie wafer, or something long and complicated like that.  Every night that Kayla and I get gelato, she wolfs hers down so that my bowl is still three quarters full when she is looking for a trash can. She would tell you that I eat far too slowly and it gets all melted, but I think I kinda like the melted part.  Except it has a habit of dripping on my knees.  I have yet to stain a shirt with gelato, by all of my pants have gelato spots on them. 

And now I am in my room, where I have been sitting for five or so hours, sort of working on homework.  I have really enjoyed living with four other girls, but it really makes it more difficult to focus, especially when the book puts me to sleep!  Oh well, I am here in Europe, and this is what I have to do so I don't fail my classes while I am here in Europe.  Therefore, I shall stop sharing minute and unimportant details about how messy my gelato gets, and finish my homework. Farewell!