Adventures of a (Mostly) First Class Guy

We set out for the Galleria dell’ Accademia to see the famed statue of David, Michelangelo’s wonder of the world.  A replica stood in the Piazza d. Signoria near the hotel, but I had to see the real thing.  Crossing the piazza at the Duomo, I was attacked by a band of gypsy children.  My Inspector Clouseau trench coat cinched at the waist must have screamed, “Tourist!”  Grasping, grubby, little hands swarmed all over as the urchins searched me like flies on a corpse.  All I could think to yell was “Andiamo!”  But of course, that was wrong.  I had just issued an invitation for the marauders to join me by saying, “Let’s go!”  I certainly had no intention of bringing them along, but it was not an opportune time to locate my handy phrase book and research the Italian phrase “ottengami le vostre mani grubby fuori” (get your grubby hands off of me).  As if my utterances in any language would have meant a thing to the little buggers anyway.  As quickly as they had descended, the roving locusts withdrew getting nothing from me except a little of my dignity. 

There was no waiting at the Accademia.  We entered, turned into a long sculpture gallery, and at the end, bathed in glorious sunlight, stood David, the magnificent David.  It is a sight, without exaggeration, that will take your breath.  Just to behold him made me tear up.  Stealing a quote from one of my favorite tear-jerkers, “An Affair to Remember,” a crying Deborah Kerr said it all when she spoke, “Beauty does that to me.”  And so it did with me, such magnificence is beyond the power of words; there absolutely was nothing to say.