Plinky Prompt: Describe the Coolest Thing You've Seen in Another Country

::rubs hands together::

This guy:

I saw the David when I was 18. It was right after high school and I had saved money for a year to go to Italy. It was my first time out of the country. It was incredible. Everywhere we went was impressive and I spent 9 days in a cloud of art and culture, but the David was the crowning moment.

Take a moment to look closely at the picture above. Take a good look whilst remembering that this sculpture was constructed of marble.

See the elbow joint... that's a vein.

I can only imagine the amount of talent it takes to produce that caliber of work from stone. We tend to think of people like Michelangelo or DaVinci or any of the greats as above us. But they really were just people like you and I. In fact they lacked alot of the common knowledge that we have... mainly technological. If you take into account that Michelangelo was just a man, a typical person with a knack for art, it makes the David more impressive.

He devoted years to this sculpture. Years! Can you imagine? I get frustrated if a sewing project doesn't work out. I feel as if I've wasted all that time and energy (and fabric) on nothing and I usually have only spent a few hours.

I can go down to the store and buy more fabric.

As you enter the building that the David is housed in you walk past the remains of half sculptures, arms or legs protrude out of great blocks of stone as if mountains had fallen upon them. These unfinished works of Michelangelo truly show the amount of work that went into what he did.

It's impressive and humbling.

I love art. I heart art. I love the concept of taking a slab of stone or a glob of paitn and creating beauty from it. I love the unspoken moment frozen in a Degas, or the enchantment of Monet. I could get lost in an art museum and be perfectly happy.

I'm an uneducated lover of the arts. I know very little beyond the greatest names and I'll be the one up front actually reading the plaque, but I can appreciate true craftsmanship when I see it. And in the David I definitely saw it.