When my mother turned 30, she was given a surprise party in my grandmother’s backyard. Shortly after the party she took a trip to Italy and visited Venice. Whilst there, she purchased a necklace in Piazza San Marco for my grandmother that reminded her of my grandmother’s birth sign, Gemini.

Before my grandmother died, she gave the necklace back to my mom. My mom has been wearing it for over 30 years, enjoying the memories that it invoked.

When I turned 30, my family threw me a wonderful surprise party on Chincoteague Island. My mother’s gift was the last to be opened. Inside the small box was the necklace and a letter.

A portion of the letter reads: “It seems to be the perfect time for me to re-gift the necklace. I feel I have merely been the necklace’s caretaker, awaiting the appropriate and meaningful hour to pass it to someone as special as her granddaughter, born on her day, now turning the same age as myself when I purchased it for her.”

I never met my grandmother, but I am proud to share a birthday, and the dynamic personality quirks of a Gemini, with her. Each year, on our birthday, I know that my mother is happy to wish me a year full of joy and adventure, but is also missing her own mother and the ability to wish her a wonderful year.

Before we left Chincoteague last year, Joe and I vowed to make it to Venice before my next birthday. We sat on the Piazza at a little table, listened to the music, enjoyed a drink and the beautiful view. Just as my mother had. Each day, I donned the necklace and wore it through the streets of Venice “with aplomb”, just as my mother taught me to.

**Warning/Disclaimer** The following post contains pictures of copies of male appendages sans crotch cloths, and pictures of paintings of non-humans in their birthday suits. If the sight of bare-bottoms, and other associated parts, offends you, you should stop reading now. If you’re feeling a little spicy, than please…join me!

The wonderful part about returning to a place you have already visited is enjoying the details. Details that were lost in the first, frenzied attempt to see-all-do-all. I visited Florence nearly eight years ago with my mother, but was excited to explore it again with Joe and get an insider’s perspective from our friends who currently live there.

Hopefully this isn’t foreshadowing, but I found the details of “Hell” to be quite curious. Used to educate an illiterate public, the domed ceiling of Florence’s Duomo contains frescos depicting all the possibilities for post-life. Angels and Heaven at the highest point, closest to God, and “Capital Sins and Hell” at the bottom.

The Plexiglas, preventing us from falling several stories to the cathedral floor, was a hindrance when trying to enjoy the details of the art, but proved to be an excellent method of simultaneously capturing the beauty of the ceiling and the stained glass windows.

So, let’s get on with Hell already!

I’m sure that Hell has to have the obligatory skeleton with scythe, acting as Death himself. However, what is more concerning is the man/woman with five breasts in the lower left hand corner. I could definitely see how having five boobs would be considered punishment.

As a consequence for slightly undesirable behavior, one might fear being bludgeoned by an angry frog-man.

What would be the punishment for someone who kicked their dog? Or maybe their wife? Or what if they just had ugly feet? Well…obviously his/her leg would be cut off at the thigh by a human bat with rabbit ears, horns, and a tail where something else should be. What about the man in the lower left corner? Is he being skinned? Is this poor sap a victim of gluttony, being punished by exposing last night’s dinner? Maybe he is an original resident, waiting to receive his next assignment from the Devil himself.

Speaking of the Devil…those with ultra-deplorable behavior just went right down the hatch.  (I took a few liberties on the computer with this one. It just didn’t exude “being eaten by the Devil” when in its original format.)

If all of the aforementioned didn’t persuade someone to change their earthly behaviors, there is still one doozy left! Personally, I consider this to be much more miserable than being eaten by the Devil. What does someone have to do to get stuck in the a@$ with a flaming torture rod? The woman in the lower right corner has to cover her eyes because it is so terrible. Yeah, look away lady. I hope you aren’t next!

Whew! Now that our journey to Hell and back is complete, we can move on to other topics. Another thing that my mom and I didn’t get to do while in Florence was see Michelangelo’s David…the real one. There are plenty of copies all over Florence, and Italy for that matter, of David. However, there is only one “real” David.

Is this the real David? Nope. Just another copy, often outshined by the nearby statue of Poseidon, but perfectly positioned for great photos!

Is this the real David? Nope. Just another copy, who must have spent some time in a tanning booth.

Now, you never know who is connected to whom in Italy. In order to protect my family, friends, and anyone I have ever come in contact with, I am not going to say that neither Joe nor I took an illegal picture of the real David. That would be against the rules, and totally wrong. So, in order to avoid taking an illegal picture of the piece of marble that Michelangelo himself worked on from 1501-1504, one should probably not pretend that he/she is listening to an audio guide on his/her iPhone and snap a quick photo.

The real David

What I found really interesting about Michelangelo was that he didn’t consider himself to be a sculptor, and definitely not an artistic genius. He believed that each piece of marble, stone, or plaster already contained a work of art, placed there by God. He was only uncovering it, revealing it to the world. When moved by the spirit, he would work without pause, for days and nights on end. He believed he was simply doing God’s work.

Thank you to our wonderful Florentine hosts, the Flammias, for a great kick-off to our Italian adventures!

CARRIE – Grazie per avere fatto questo belle foto. Non vedo l’ora cuando possiamo continuare le nostre avventure. Bacci!