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| One of the few photos I took in Florence |
I am sitting on a bench in the Accademia di Belle Arti di Firenze, in front of Michaelangelo’s David.
In front of David is the guy with the toughest job in all of
Florence: He asks tourists not to take photos of one of the world’s most
popular sculptures.
A tourist raises their phone,
all straight-armed, to take a photo, the photo enforcer scuttles over, wagging
his finger. As he returns to his position, another tourist raises their phone,
and he wags his finger at them.
His effort is wasted because most of the tourists get their shot and then leave. It is museum night
here, all the city’s museums have reopened in the evening with free admission
and there are other masterpieces to photograph. So they sneak in their photo of David and, with barely a second glance, they
move on.
So the No Photo Guy does his duty,
while I just sit there, dumbfounded by the magnificence of David. Even Michelangelo’s
incomplete sculptures from Julius II’s tomb stopped me in my track – stone
figures forever struggling out of their marble block bonds. It’s too perfect
not to linger. Florence is so beautiful I forget to take a photo.
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| Nope! Not the real David, this is a replicant. |
For three days in Florence, I lingered as much as I could.
In university, I was jealous of
friends who returned from summer break with stories of European backpacking
adventures. Off they went, visiting this city, seeing that, train traveling
here, partying there, hoping they won’t catch the Clap along the way and on and
on.
While they were colouring in the countries they visited on maps, I was stuck toiling in factories and drinking
on London patios over the summer, which, at the time, didn’t seem as rich as a
summer experience as theirs.
If University Marshall had made
it to Europe, there would have been similar stories of debauchery and awe as he
staggered through Europe’s great cities. He would have been the idiot taking a
photo of David before rushing to the
closest backpacker bar.
But it didn’t happen that way - University Marshall never made that trip.
Now I wake up nine years later and
I’m living in Europe. I don’t know if there’s an improper way to experience
Europe, but the opportunity to live and work here is a rarity where I come from.
Snapping a photo of David and then moving on without stopping
to appreciate it is not how I intend to get the most out of my time here.
As colleagues in Budapest
banter about their next trip or the summer’s travel plans, I remind myself that
I won’t be able to do everything I want to do with the time I have here.
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| Visiting places like Florence and Madrid, are better with local friends. |
I haven’t missed much. I lingered and enjoyed the places that I have visited – of course, having friends
in strange places help make the trips far richer. I spent Christmas with old
friends and made new friends in Dresden. Canadian Londoners reunited in London,
England. I have a friend in Spain. We met. We drank and ate my way through all
over Madrid’s tapas and taverns. I did this while sightseeing with a new East
Bloc buddy during the day.
I walk away from all of this
thinking that I could have seen more. Then I remember: It’s not how much you
see that matters, it’s how much you experience. And we all do it differently.
Me? There is no real checklist.
I can’t tell you with any certainty what I’m doing. I’m making it up a lot of
it as I go along.
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