David and Other Bits

Stella

Day 20 – Yay  our first full day in Florence yay . I get away with that emoji poop every day – he he  cheesey  me. Mwah ha ha har …ok I’m over and done with it. Mwah ha ha har. Ok sorry  I just had to do that. Ok I admit it. I promise I won’t do it again and put all my heart  into this promise. Look  I said I promise so, please accept that. I’m begging you on two legs. I tell you ok. Thank you. .

We went out exploring the new town of Florence – cool  We went into an interesting museum. My two most favourite, well actually three, things were:

• the gift  shop;
• then seeing Michelangelo’s statue of David – did you now that that statue is at least 5 metres tall? Wow  that’s amazing 
• and we saw a video of David the statue and in it he was saying very dramatic things like: “Maybe they’re worried that I will get too handsome. I think  I will just have a good little bath. He he. Oh and don’t laugh  at me. I’m too handsome and magnificent and famous for that”.

Ok  people. Ok  you got that? Ok 

Jac

Time seems to be going faster now we are in Italy. Perhaps we’re experiencing a bit of Italian fast train transference! The girls feel like they are on one big school excursion; an amazing changing classroom of learning and new experiences, with the best Principal in the world (Lansdowne’s Mrs Carter is pretty good too!). We were in cultural heaven today amongst the work of Michelangelo, Bernini, and Botticelli at the Galleria dell’Accademia in Florence. Even though I’d seen the statue of David before, it was still as mesmerising and magnificent this time around – it’s hard to capture in photos.

Dan is not a great buyer of souvenirs, so when I suggested we buy a set of coasters depicting the statue David, so that we could “Have a drink on David”, it ended up being a really cheap laugh, because Dan said No!

It’s been great hearing comments coming from the girl’s experiences and it seemed to be Stella’s day of quotable quotes. She was pretty excited in the lead-up to meeting David, continually tugging at me, saying “When can I see the handsome one”. She was also impressed with the religious artwork and asked “When Jesus was a baby was he well-fed, because his parents are covered in blankets and so they are probably poor?” As we went through the museum, she was relieved to find that the baby Jesus was in fact on a good wicket, often depicted as double the size of his devoted followers and surrounded by gold!

Stella was very interested in the value of the artwork. As she began to see a few of the big ticket items, she realised it might be a good reference point to determine her economic value within the family, prompting her to ask “If you were to sell me would that bit of art be worth more than me?” Either Stella sees us as child profiteers or she’s sitting pretty, knowing that she’s worth more than a Michelangelo original – a million times over, and then some!

The girls are developing a great sense of humour. It’s been important to explain that there is a lifetime for a joke and/or funny thing. We have set the “funny joke/thing” as telling a joke once, repeating a funny thing for no more than 10 seconds, and no more than one poo emoji. If this criteria is exceeded then it immediately becomes annoying. It’s working well for Dan and I, and here’s hoping that the girls also get on board.

Daisy

Today we hopped on a tram  and went to sight see. We were wandering about, “ a little bit lost”. Ok, let’s just say that if we hadn’t bumped in to this lovely  couple we would be sitting on the floor wondering which turn to take, which button to press and what road to cross! After we solved that difficulty and actually got where we needed to go…Oh wow  That church  was beautiful = all the pattern, time and detail on each individual piece was exquisite!

We looked around us to find something to drink. Stella and I got hot chocolate  – I was clueless about Italian hot chocolate, so the un-stretched truth is the hot chocolate wasn’t really a hot chocolate like we usually have, it was thick, melted chocolate with whipped cream on top! Oh it was yummy.

Then we slowly made our way to the museum to waste 30 minutes of our life standing in line! When we finally got into the museum, we went straight to the paintings. Most of them were religious. Then it was the instruments turn. We looked at ancient violins and cellos – cool  Then…the best – we saw David. Oh, he said hi  When he waved his arm his arm fell off and we had to plaster it back on, but it turned out fine! Today was fun!

Dan

The writing was on the wall this morning.  We started our sight seeing adventures armed with a shonky map and my sense of direction slightly off; we ended up in the fog for an hour or so, taking a left instead of a right after alighting from the tram. Remarkably, we circumnavigated Fortezza Da Basto Fiere and returned to our starting position (more or less) instead of heading to Piazza San Marco!

But with every cloud (and there were many about today) there was a silver lining…namely the unexpected sights that we passed along the way to Galleria dell’ Academia which added to our MoFlo experience.  The stunning Duomo Santa Maria del Fiore  (referred to numerous time as one hell-of-a big dome) and Battistero literally took our breath away, as did Santa Maria Novella.

After our visit to see David, we wandered the streets again, then escaped the rain by ducking into Hard Rock Café Firenze for a bite to eat (Linner we called it – lunch-dinner combo given it was after 3.30pm!)

We couldn’t believe our fortune; we were seated in a booth where Madonna’s handbag was on display and Melissa Etheridge’s guitar was hanging on a wall close by. Memorabilia from two of my long-ago favourites, eating a Texas Burger and washing it down with a beer, was a great way to end the day.