A Halloween Away From Home

There's something great about finally slowing down after continuous work or getting an unexpected vacation. This weekend was spent playing catch-up when it came down to our sleep. Three days out the week were actually spent being active and having a good time. That means less for you to read and more for you to anticipate with our oncoming trip to Rome.

Photo 1 - Inside the Museum full of sculptures

This Thursday, our field trip began in a flurry as we rushed to make our tour appointment on time in Florence. Our original plan of  "Friday Fieldtrips" was thrown off this week because we learned about a sudden train strike. Apparently there are scheduled train strikes that the employees do every now and then. This obviously interfered with our regularly scheduled programming. We had a new tour guide because Silvia went on vacation to England. The day before while we were in our travel narrative class, we asked our professor, Gretchen, if there was any way that we could go to McDonald's before we have to meet the new tour guide since there was about 15 minutes of window room to get food and go. She worked her magic and got us the time so we could stop but it turned into the entire group wanting to go to McDonald's. Because there are 28 of us, we became the lunch rush. Add in like 50 other people who also want to get their food and the way that McDonald's serves their food in order of the difficulty of the order instead of who ordered first and it takes a lot longer than fifteen minutes. Costanza yelled in frustration "We are never going to McDonald's again!" 
We ended up waiting for about 35 minutes and half the group left to meet the tour guide so she at least knew that we were on the way. We finally made it to her and started our tour. The first place that we went to was a museum called Museo Nazionale del Bargello that was full of sculptures made by Donatello and Michelangelo. In the Middle Ages it was the biggest prison in Florence

The torture techniques that they used to do there were shocking. Two of which were binding your wrists behind your back and tying you to a pole so your arms would break and forcing you to stand up while someone pushes something heavy down on your toes to break all the bones. All you had to do was write down a name and what they did (true or not) on a piece of paper and put it on the wall and that person would be accused. There was no justice at that time. On November 30, 1786 capitol punishment was suppressed and since it was a century before Italy became a unified country, Tuscany became the first country/region to do it. They put all the torture devices in the center of the square and burned them as a symbol. 

Photo 2 - Dionysus

As we walked through the museum the tour guide told us about the different sculptures from the Dionysus (god of wine) to multiple iterations of the famous David (from the story of David and Goliath). The second floor of the building was meant for the judges and jury of their makeshift justice system.

Photo 4 - Donatello's David

Photo 3 - Verrocchio's David 

The three versions of David were done in different styles and interpretations. One was made by Verrocchio, the master of Leonardo DaVinci and the two others (one in marble and one in bronze) were made by Donatello. Its most likely that Donatello used an actual boy as a model since he liked young boys and always had them working in his studio. He was extremely jealous that someone would fall in love or steal his pupils so he would put ashes on there faces whenever they left the workshop.

After the museum, she walked us to the block of a house that used to be owned by Michelangelo. He bought a couple houses on that block in the 1500s. He was the 2nd of 5 children and born in Caprese.  Because he never had any descendants, he wanted his estates to be left to someone else in the family. When his brother had a son, Leonardo, he was elated. in 1568 Leonardo had a second child four years after Michelangelo died that was named Michelangelo the younger (basically a Jr. but not really). He never met his great uncle but Michelangelo Jr. (a writer and poet), was the one who took care of the house and dedicated it as a museum of Michelangelo's early works.

Photo 6 - Inside of Michelangelo's house

His entire career and body of work spanned from the age of 14 to 89. He worked as a painter, architect and sculptor. With no women in his life, he was surrounded by young boys his whole career. His most famous work is the David in Florence. He made it to celebrate the republic of Florence and freedom but he left Florence for the rest of his life due to the return of the Medici rule and the fall of the republic and ended up dying in Rome. We parted ways with our tour guide and headed back to Prato. 

We've become really great friends with the night shift couple of our hotel. Marco and Tina have become our parents away from home. They have grown to love us and enjoy having us around. On Saturday they invited us into their home for an "as-close-as-you-can-get" American style breakfast full of bacon, eggs, toast, grilled cheese (with about 7 different kids of cheese), and any drink you could think of.

Photo 7 - American style breakfast at Marco and Tina's

While hanging out with their dogs, I saw a guitar in the corner that looked untouched. I asked Marco if I could tune it and play a little bit and told him how I've been looking all over for a secondhand guitar to have while I was in Italy. He then offered to give me the guitar for the time we have left and to use any of the picks I wanted out of his various selection. We had to leave early because the videographer of Beacon, who flew all the way from Florida, wanted to interview us for the travel abroad video. He also took some video and shots of me playing the guitar for them. It was definitely a great day. 

Tuesday was our first Halloween abroad and I'd have to say that it went really well. Of course we had our weekly 3:30 Zumba class and then we got in Halloween mode. We were surprised by the amount of people dressed up in costumes and makeup. From kids to adults, it was like we were back in America. The little side shops and clothing stores put their decorations in the windows. It wasn't above and beyond like Americans love to do but it showed how cultures can share their traditions regardless of where you are. It made me forget the fact that I was even far away from home. The night before, we went out to get make-up and figure out what we wanted to be. Jeunesse ended up being a rag-doll and I was a zombie Fresh Prince of Belair.

Photo 8 - Lianne and Aaron (Fresh Prince and Kris Jenner)

Photo 9 - Jeunesse and Lianne (Ragdoll and Fresh Prince)

We went to dinner with a couple of our friends all dressed up in our costumes. Aaron was dressed as Kris Jenner and I curled his hair and Jeunesse did his make-up. Michael was Mark Zuckerburg and Laura was a nerd with pigtails. After dinner we walked back to the hotel to see what Marco and Tina's costumes were. Tina came in the hotel dressed as Anastasia for 50 Shades of  Grey and Marco was a devil. We were the only people that dressed up in the hotel but we had so much fun acting in character and taking pictures. Later that night we went to a bar with Garrett and hung out until around one and made our way back to our rooms.

For a week of so few events, we think it was well worth it to enjoy every minute of it and cherish the moments we have while we are here. We've made friends and created memories and we are ready to tackle this last month and absorb all that we can.