Arriving in Florence, we met another roadblock that did not allow us to have class…again. Instead, we were instructed to go find certain landmarks and take our picture in front of them. My group went to the fake David statue first, which was located in a very crowded plazza. We pushed through people and struck a pose in front of the statue. We all looked gorgeous. At one point, somebody came up with the idea to recreate the statues. We studied the layout and poses of the figures, and assigned each person a role. I was nominated to be the gladiator, because I am tall and menacing. The gladiator holds a struggling girl, while another girl lays collapsed between his legs with her arm draped over her forehead in a defeated manner. Another woman reaches for the captured girl, lunging across everyone else. As the gladiator, I had to hold someone in my left arm while lunging over another. Problems occurred when some of us were in dresses and the wind was blowing them up. More problems occurred when some people were short and could not properly assume the pose. They stretched as I lunged and tried not to fall or drop the girl I was holding. Thanks to our snappy photographer, our recreation turned out perfect. We moved from statue to statue, posing in imitation of them. At some point, we noticed the stares. The people sitting around the plazza were watching our American tourist antics, some with amusement, some with irritation. A security guard smirked at us. I returned these various looks with my own smirk. Yes, we’re tourists. But damn, we were making art.