Saturday, April 24, 2010

Day 101 (Rome)

Last day in Rome. I woke up around 9 today, had my good fruit + yogurt breakfast, packed all my stuff up – and headed out into the city. When I finally arrived, it was around noon. I had to leave somewhere around 5 or 6 in order to catch my flight.

Well, as I said in my last post, the Da Vinci museum was on my list today. That is the first thing I set out to do. It wasn’t the biggest museum ever, but, it was truly one of my favorite museums I have been to thus far! The basic idea of the museum was to take all of his drawings, works, and inventions in three journals of his – and bring them to life. Engineers, scientists and experts in the like made it their missions to recreate and bring some of Da Vinci’s ideas to life. With this being said, the array of things in the museum was so broad! From flying machines, to ball bearings, to pull systems, to scuba equipment, to war machines, to lawn mowers! All of these were on display, and most of them were interactive. What a great experience. This is not to mention that there were blown-up posters of his anatomical sketches all over the museum, I wasn’t even aware that Da Vinci did this! He has painstakingly detailed sketches of every part of the human body, the way the muscles function, even onto the organs and brain. It was said that he studied countless cadavers and around 30 patients. One of my favorite parts of the museum was a 7 minute documentary on Da Vinci’s Vivarian Man… which inspired me to buy a print of it. This piece of work deals with many things entwined into one picture. First and for most, it tells the story of the golden ratio of man – 1:1.618 … this is seen throughout our bodies. The Navel is the starting point of this, split into upper and lower halves of our body. Our arms, and legs follow, and can be split into even further points, from the finger tips to the elbow x4 = body length. Four fingers equal a palm, our fingers then split from knuckle joint to joint. Arm length is our height. Our legs, by knee to foot and knee to hip = elbow to fingertips… our hands are the size of our face; our feet are the size of our head. Our face is split into thirds; our ears are 1/3 of our face. It goes on and on, pretty amazing. This was only part of it though, if you take a look at the picture, there will be one man standing with legs together, surrounded by a square, and one man with legs spread apart, surrounded by a circle. The transition to the spread out man shows motion, his legs also make an equilateral triangle. Furthermore, the square was said to represent the physical world – where the gentiles would be the center point of the body from every side. A square also represents the four elements, and the four directions. A circle on the other hand, represents the spiritual world, and the navel is the center point of the body from this position. The fingers of the man touch the intersection between the square and the circle, showing the connection between the spiritual and physical world! Great stuff Da Vinci. I made a few last rounds around the museum, and then headed back into the city.










I didn’t really know what to do now, and didn’t have any plans. I ended up walking through a park with a bunch of statues and sculptures in it, it was nice having nowhere to go and a bunch of tie to kill. I ended up getting a coffee and croissant and walking around a bit more, and then I decided it was time for my last Gelato in Italy… so I got on the metro and went to the famous Old Bridge. This time I tried some flavors I would normally not try, Pistachio, Coconut, and Tuiti Fruiti. Interesting, to say the least, but still good! I enjoyed this cone as I walked to St. Peters Square, where I finished it standing in the middle amidst the rain (oh yeah, it has been raining today). From here, I took shelter under the colonnade and read a few chapters from Broca’s Brain, the book by Carl Sagan I have been reading, almost done!

Now, I had about an hour to go, I went back to the Da Vinci museum and picked up my print. Then I found my way to the train station, in which instead I caught a 4 euro bus to the Ciampino airport, after much discussion and hard work finding how to get there (no one seems to know or use this airport any longer…). I arrived just in time, got in the cue (which means line) and was ready to be airbound. In the lounge, I took another good chunk out of the book, in which I finished up on the plane.

I landed around 11pm… my flight back to Edinburgh is at 6:30am… this being said, off to the comfy chairs to try and catch some snooze! I probably slept from 2:30 to 4:30am… but hey better than nothing. Afterwards I got checked in and yadda yadda, headed upstairs to look for a bite to eat or something. I ended up getting a Guinness. I’m in Ireland, it had to be done, and it tastes better here – after all. So, I am enjoying this Guinness and writing this up as I type. I am officially typing in the moment, and with that being said, I am over my daily allowance of a blog post, and must leave you now! See you back in Edinburgh.

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