Today was the last day I visit Florence for the semester. We went to the market before our tour of the Academia, and I bought some last minute souvenirs. As usually, we showed up to our meeting spot a little late, and once again track coach Chip came out and told us to run to the Academia. We’ve learned our lesson when it comes to running with Chip, so we strolled there just in time to be let in (VIP style since we had an appointment). To make up for being a little late, I was the first one with a headset on ready for our tour. The Academia was much smaller than I expected. Usually our tour guides send us up three flights of stairs and then we have to hike all over the huge museums to be told just a couple facts about a few pieces of art. The Academia had about four or five rooms, each of reasonable size. The first room had one sculpture and paintings around the walls. There was a room of music, with instruments from famous string quintets such as the Medici’s. There was the first piano, and other variations like a piano-violin, and different techniques for the piano, such as strumming the strings versus a hammer and upright strings versus lying flat.
We went to the next room where there were Michaelangelo pieces that were unfinished. Our tour guide began talking about the first piece, and I was paying attention so intently that it took me a while before I turned to my left and saw the big guy – David. He is HUGE! Eighteen feet tall, I was told, and beautiful! There was so much thought put into the sculpture, and meaning behind every detail. And Michaelangelo was only 26 when he did this?! Ridiculous.
After staring at David for a while, we saw some plaster statues and other paintings and then our tour was over. Shortest tour ever. We waited in the lobby while our teachers discussed plans and got directions for where our next stop was, and eventually got kicked out by the lady hushing at us constantly. We decided that the mean Florentines get sent to the Academia. Mean Romans get sent to the Sistine Chapel. “Shhhh! NO PHOTO!”
We had kebabs for lunch and then the girls and I did some shopping at leather stores and trinket shops. We met with Giovanni, our history teacher, and walked to the Planetarium. We got let in the back door, because this is a private museum for the Science and Technology Engineering School in Florence. Giovanni is one of the directors for the museums in Florence, so he has hook ups all over the place. We entered the museum, which was very small but packed with everything from mastodon teeth to the first hydraulic machines. We split into two groups and my group went to the theater first.
I don’t know whose idea it was to put college students (that stay up too late and get up excessively early to travel, shop, tour and eat) in an IMAX-like theater with reclining seats, but I was very happy in that room. Giovanni talked to us for a while about what we would be learning, and then another man came in and taught us a bit of history on astronomy and constellations. After he had talked for a while, and some of us were already getting drowsy, he turned the lights off and projected stars above us. Hello nap time! I tried to pay attention but his Italian accent turned into white noise and the stars were so mesmerizing, like I was being put to sleep by a hypnotist. I think he knew we were all struggling a bit, even though you couldn’t see your own hands in that room, because every once in a while he would raise his voice or stomp his feet and I woke up at some point, very refreshed. I stayed awake the rest of the time and learned about some constellations, the North Star, lunar eclipses, and then he made the sun rise and we all had to wake up. For the record, I was not the one that snored two separate times during his presentation. Next we moved on to the collection of lots of engineering stuff.
We gathered in a small hallway that was lined with display cabinets on either side, packed to the brim with lots of machines I didn’t recognize one bit. (The only things in the entire museum I recognized were the mercury thermometers and some car batteries). I was shocked at the amount of pieces on display in this tiny museum – easily over 3,000 items! There were mechanical machines, electricity measuring tools, electromagnetic machines, hydraulic machines, a room of acoustic instruments, and an anatomy room – basically anything in the history of engineering you can think of was in this museum. I told Giovanni my dad was an electrical engineer, and he said that I should definitely bring him here and he will get us into the museum. Guess you have to come to Italy, dad!! Giovanni will hook us up! (He also told our class that we are family now and we can go to the Galileo Museum whenever we want. Apparently in the past he has let people into the museum the day his child was being born. Just straight up left the hospital!)
We quickly walked through the display cabinets to a room where we learned some history on the battery and the first communication devices. Then it was time for some experiments! We created a battery out of zinc and copper washers, stacked with salt-water soaked clothes in between, and we made a light illuminate! Yay, I’m a scientist! We also messed with a compass and magnetism, and then did some Morse code. We had to rush through our lesson because we were an hour behind and had already missed our train to make it back for dinner. (Luckily they held dinner until we got back).
The dean of our college is in town now, so tomorrow we have to impress him all day. We even get to skip our Seminar class in order to have more studio time. So excited for 7 hours of studio tomorrow. Then on Friday we leave for the beaches of Cinque Terre to celebrate Kelsey’s 22nd birthday!! Hooray!
Cara Marie
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