Here's the weird thing. The Leaning Tower of Pisa doesn't just lean. It leans visibly.
It leans so that you kind of suspect one of these days - in fact, any minute now - it will accidentally topple over. They only allow 40 people to climb at one time; one suspects that's because too many people gaping down from the top levels would send the whole thing to the ground.
It was leaning before they even finished building. That's why it also seems to curve, just ever so slightly, to compensate for the tilt at the base. No one tells you about that. No one tells you about the intricate design work on its many pillars, either, and the way it gently complements the beautiful cathedral sitting directly behind.
These were the surprising bits. Otherwise, it was something I'd seen a million times in photographs. I sat in the grass with a university friend I'd bumped into on the plane, both on our way to Florence for a seminar on digital publishing. We looked at the Leaning Tower together, and I couldn't help thinking that it was too familiar to be real.
My friend, a Chinese student with a talent for photography and a travel bug almost as large as mine, flipped through the pictures on his camera until he came to the one he wanted. He showed me the screen. "This all reminds me of a palace I saw in Beijing."
I looked. A temple, very Chinese in style, with the same sort of dome as the church whose shadow we were sitting underneath. Kind of. It looked completely foreign to me. But to my friend, this courtyard was foreign, and he was trying to compare it to home.
Just when you think you've got it pegged. . . . !
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I'm aware that I haven't posted in a while, and there is a lot of news to share from the trip to Florence, Madrid, and Morocco. Bear with me for a while, since most of my time right now is taken up by my dissertation. I'm writing as much as I can these days - it doesn't leave much creative energy for blog posts. Once the paper is done, hopefully in a few weeks or so, posting should go back to normal..
It leans so that you kind of suspect one of these days - in fact, any minute now - it will accidentally topple over. They only allow 40 people to climb at one time; one suspects that's because too many people gaping down from the top levels would send the whole thing to the ground.
It was leaning before they even finished building. That's why it also seems to curve, just ever so slightly, to compensate for the tilt at the base. No one tells you about that. No one tells you about the intricate design work on its many pillars, either, and the way it gently complements the beautiful cathedral sitting directly behind.
These were the surprising bits. Otherwise, it was something I'd seen a million times in photographs. I sat in the grass with a university friend I'd bumped into on the plane, both on our way to Florence for a seminar on digital publishing. We looked at the Leaning Tower together, and I couldn't help thinking that it was too familiar to be real.
My friend, a Chinese student with a talent for photography and a travel bug almost as large as mine, flipped through the pictures on his camera until he came to the one he wanted. He showed me the screen. "This all reminds me of a palace I saw in Beijing."
I looked. A temple, very Chinese in style, with the same sort of dome as the church whose shadow we were sitting underneath. Kind of. It looked completely foreign to me. But to my friend, this courtyard was foreign, and he was trying to compare it to home.
Just when you think you've got it pegged. . . . !
-----------------------
I'm aware that I haven't posted in a while, and there is a lot of news to share from the trip to Florence, Madrid, and Morocco. Bear with me for a while, since most of my time right now is taken up by my dissertation. I'm writing as much as I can these days - it doesn't leave much creative energy for blog posts. Once the paper is done, hopefully in a few weeks or so, posting should go back to normal..
The cathedral behind is so beautiful, i never knew it existed!!
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