Friday, November 28, 2008

Thanksgiving Day in Florence

We just got back from our long day in Florence. It was a good day, but we are both extra exhausted today, I think all the walking and lack of sleep is catching up to us but since we only have 4 days left we are determined to keep on the move. We saw some amazing art and sculptures today. We agreed that our favorite part of today was seeing Michelangelo's "David." The sculpture is HUGE...a lot bigger than I realized. I thought it was life-sized, like the size of a normal human, but it wasn't at all. It was seriously beautiful. It looked brand new, not like it was 500 years old. It was so perfect, even up close too, down to the veins in his hand. I couldn't believe that I was actually seeing the real David, I have seen my whole life in pictures.
"David" is in the Accedemia, and we had a tour there. When you enter, there is a longish hallway, lined with what looks like unfinished sculptures, and it ends in a bigger part of the room with the "David." The ones that look unfinished are actually called "Michelangelo's Prisoners" or something to that effect. Each are carved out of stone, and look like they are escaping the rock, and their bodies are all twisted, and they look painful, and in bondage. They look unfinished because some of them have bodies, but not finished, and it looks like their arms or heads or feet become the rock. Anyway it was really cool. We saw a lot of Michelangelo, and Donatello, and even some Leonardo Da Vinci today. Can you believe it, it was so fun and amazing to see work that was actually done by them. There were a couple of things that were not there though because it was being restored. Sad for us. But we saw a lot of cool things, and they were in 2 big Museums called the Uffizi Gallery and the Borggello Museum.


So we went to our Thanksgiving Dinner at a place called Trattoria Za' Za'. It was actually REALLY good. We both got a starter and then Steak and Rosemary potatoes, and we loved it! It was good good good.

On another random note, at the Villa where we are staying it has a pool/pond with geese, and we thought it was so beautiful, until we got a little closer. When we left this morning, Alicia said, "Jerilyn, those geese are looking at us weird, and they seem a little scary" and I said, "No Alicia, they are fine, what can they do to us?" Then their beak radar kicked in and they started squawking their little goose heads off and waddled with acceleration towards us, so Alicia ran away. around the back to the car, and left me to battle alone. They aimed their beaks at my shins, so I tried kicking toward them, but that just made them more determined, so while screaming, I swatted uselessly at them and ran to the car. They blocked our car, and started pecking at the car, like little devil geese. After almost running over them trying to back out we remembered we had some little crustini bread packets in the car from our last hotel breakfast, so we threw it out the window and they went running and we finally made our escape.
We are going to be going to Rome on Friday and since it takes almost four hours to get there we may go to a place called Sienna for a few hours if we can.
I hope your Thanksgiving dinners were great!!

3 comments:

Jesse and Katie Brunner said...

Jerilyn!!! ahhh!!! Everything looks BEAUTIFUL!! You must be having the time of your life :) Can't wait to hear all the stories when you get back!

Nicki said...

You totally took a picture of The David, you little hooligan! I'm jealous I didn't break the rules like you (it was practically empty when I went -- way too obvious). You should send me that picture :)

Unknown said...

the geese story was funny. I mean, i bet it wasn't funny when they attacked you but it reminded of my field time in Colorado... There were geese everywhere and we were told that they had more rights than us so we shouldn't get close to them... I bet if I kicked one of them the tree huggers would have put me in jail... hehehe... Anyway, I'm glad you had fun in Italy! It made me want to go there too!!