Florence is a beautiful city. It is situated in the region of Tuscany, and has a lot of great Gelaterias. We were there on Easter weekend so it was really hectic, you couldn’t walk properly in the streets because there were so many people.
The highlight of our stay was seeing Michelangelo’s ‘David’ at the Galleria dell’Academia. I knew he was going to be amazing, but wow.. he was amazing! He is so breathtakingly beautiful, everyone in the room was completely mesmerized by him. It’s funny seeing all the tourists standing in front of him; heads back, mouths open, eyes ogling. He will literally put you into a trance. Nothing can replicate the magic that is his marble presence, I tried to sketch his face and it was like I had no artistic ability whatsoever. At one point, Jo turned to Lisa and I, and said “wouldn’t it be funny if you just looked over at someones notebook and all they were drawing was his penis”.
So then we all started looking at people’s notebooks.
And there was a young girl right next to us doing exactly that!!
Then, I think it was on the second or third day of our stay in Florence, I was walking down one of the main shopping streets and I heard some cheesy euro dance pop. I looked over to where it was coming from, and there was this seedy looking man leaning against the wall, with an oddly smug look on his face. His body language seemed strange to me, as generally the men on the side of the street are always selling something, but he didn’t seem too worried about losing customers. I looked down at his feet to where the music was coming from, and low and behold, there were two Pikachus jiggling in mid air to the music next to the stereo!!!
Of course I had to stop and watch for a while, It was actually magical! They were the cutest little guys I’ve ever seen. So I called my friends over, we all thought it rather hilarious. We approached the seedy man and his jiggling Pikachus to demand an explanation and obviously purchase some of the magic.
He said in broken English that they they levitate due to static electricity. He took out a new one, reached down and rubbed it against the stereo, saying “You see, static”. He placed it in mid air, inches off the ground, and what do you know, the little thing started to dance!
Off we went, extremely pleased with our fantastic purchases, already planning to send them back to Australia to show friends and family, all the while wondering why he wasn’t a millionaire if he’s discovered how to make cardboard cartoon characters fly.
Let me tell you why that man isn’t a millionaire
Later that night at Jo and Lisa’s hotel, I couldn’t contain myself; I wanted to see Pikachu dance again. So i ripped open the packet, sprung from the bed and proceeded to rub Pikachu all over the television set, just like the street seller had directed.
Well you can probably guess what happened next. After I thought he was static enough, I held him out in mid air and let go, fully expecting him to start dancing a jig to the music video on the television. My keen anticipation soon turned to dismay as I watched him float sadly to the ground. He wasn’t jiggling!
But don’t worry, we didn’t give up straight away. Jo and Lisa jumped off the bed, “No look Anna this is how you do it”, “No you have to rub it on the speakers so the sound waves get to it”, but alas - my little Pokemon refused to fly!
I grabbed the wrapper it came in and found the ‘manual’, reading it out loud I said:
“FASTEN AN END OF THE THREAD AT 20CM…”
…
“oh @#$%^&*, no wonder the little f*cker doesn’t dance”.
Yeah, so not once that whole time had it crossed our minds that; perhaps rubbing cardboard on an electronic communication device didn’t make it levitate, that perhaps not even static electricity can make paper cut outs of Pokemons jiggle spontaneously in mid air to European dance music, and perhaps the reason that man looked so smug; was because he probably fools dozens of silly girls like us every day.
The next night, Jo and I were having drinks in town and we saw a similar guy selling dancing Pikachus, but as we were getting ready to confront him, he got into a fight with a woman who ended up throwing his stereo across the street in a fit of rage. We watched it smash with pleasure, and cheered as she swiftly escaped on her bicycle. Man karma is sweet.
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Sightseeing, Travel, Uncategorized
Italy, Travel
