EU4- Can I [Eu]stay[chian] here?

Let me set the scene:

Brooke had just arrived in Venice the Day before, was to enjoy the day in Padua, and was to set sail (fly) to Cologne the next morning. She awakens to an email that her flight (FOR THE NEXT MORNING!!) was cancelled and that the entire airport is on strike for an ~uNdEscirMinatE AmOuNt of TimE~. She was quite angered.

Here is actually what I originally wrote about it …

<<< I guess the one day in 2018 that Brooke is in Italy was the best day for them to decide to strike across the entire country. Thanks for the advanced notice, RyanAir, I’ll make sure to reserve you your own level of Hell in Dante’s Inferno and YOU CAN BET I won’t cancel that one last minute. (Wow….. Brooke is being so sassy right now) >>>

At least I was aware of my sass? I swiftly decided tomorrows cancelled flight was indeed a “tomorrow problem” and decided to continue with my, come on – do the air quotes with me - “pLaN” to walk around the city that day and get lost on purpose.

^^[Y’all should all get used to this being talked about (travel surprises) bc it’s basically the theme for the rest of my trip]

Aiiiiiiight. Now you may read the rest. **clicks movie set prop

I was drawn to this beautiful old building and decided to take a walking-adventure break, look at that flight cancellation email again, and maybe start trying to find the next plan of action while here. I am not exactly sure what this building is but I’m sure I’ll find a name somewhere soon. I am just sitting in the center of a square of some sort, surrounded by beautiful sculptures and carvings. I am thinking I shall end up on an overnight bus/train tomorrow. I guess I won’t be looking into it now --as this beautiful old building, understandably, doesn’t have public WIFI.

ALERT THE MEDIA AND DROP EVERYTHING!!!!! I saw a pamphlet and I am ditching my “walk around aimlessly” plan. I am now on the hunt to find the building which houses the DUNDUNDADAAAANNN **screams internally** very first human cadaver anatomy observatory stadium. I am so freaking in awe of the possibility that this historical gem JUST SO HAPPENS to exist in the city I JUST SO HAPPENED to end up in today. WHAT ARE THE ODDS. EXCITEMENT. EAGER. WHERE ARE YOU.

To find this, however, I either need to have an innate sense of direction (not possible) or discover someone who speaks English that can aid me on my voyage. Lol, no wifi, Remember? Not so touristy town, remember? No speak English, yeah? AM I IN THE AMAZING RACE RIGHT NOW? WHERE IS THE CAMERA CREW? **Wonders where my “Italian for dummies” book is that I never bought**

I’ve now confirmed that you can actually tour the observatory. I have even confirmed that it is in a building called the Palazzo Bo. Most notably confirmed, I am already inside of it. Mhmm. **brain exploding emoj**

Y’all. Dramatic pause. No wonder it is so pretty in this building. This building is a hella famous museum.

I literally stumbled into the Palazzo Bo out of innate blessing-ness and then looked for the Palazzo Bo, whilst inside it’s walls.

Sometimes The Lord is just with me, what can I say? I was quite literally sitting about 70 yards from the office to buy tour tickets this whole time. Not to mention, once I realized it was a ticket office, homegirl got her ticket at a discounted price (bc I’m a student-they didn’t ask where). #blessings

Update:

scheduled tour starts in about an hour and I’m REALLY hoping another foreigner pops up to do this tour with me so that the it could be presented in English. If I were in a more touristic city, I’d be sure that It would be an option but, alas, I am in Padua. Odds are it will be given in Italian. To be expected. I am. In. Italy. So. Yeah.

Even if it were, y’all, It would still be nice to walk around looking and listening to the beautiful language. I could always Wikipedia what I was looking at later on?

30 minutes later:

God I really hope this tour is in English. Or that I’m not the only one who needs it to be. Past Brooke should have learned more languages. I’m getting real hyped and like I want to learn a lot so I need English. PLEASE JESUS.

P.S. I’m starting to think that I am also in a school???? But like, how TF is this a school. Is it though? What? People are studying, I swear, and I’ve seen some with backpacks. I saw one girl highlighting a book through a window. This is a museum, no? I’m trippin’. Also, P.S. Their parking lot is something we would pay tickets to walk around (insert picture here).

Tour is about to start:

It doesn’t look like any other Americans will pop up. As feared, I may be too far from tourist center. Which I like….but then again I don’t speak Italian- so my adventures are a little challenging. If I had to choose though, I’m doing it the preferred way. I definitely can’t read Italian, but sometimes I can follow the pictures or just walk into a store and ask around until I find an English speaking person to help a girl out. Casual, typical “Brooke for the Books” taking on Italy one kind native at a time. And god only knows if I’ll end up ever being able to leave due to this wonderfully timed strike. **laughing and crying

Post tour:

HOLY JESUS MARY AND JOSEPH. Can we talk about what just happened? How I somehow ended up doing this on a whim and it ended up being the best day ever? Have I told y’all how much I love traveling? This was an ~experience~

Okay a few things to clear up. It was in English so I learned EVERYTHING. This place is also an actual functioning university. That explained the backpacks. Talk about a multifunctional facility, no? NBD. Could you imagine? Yeah, ya know, I casually attend the University of Padua. So chill. So, ever the most casual. Pleaseeeee. Keep reading along to find out how much of an honor it would be.

Two other English speakers came for the tour seemingly through the woodwork at the very last minute. One from Vermont and another from Tazmania. Thankfully so, the tour was presented in both Italian and English. If I’m being real though, It was in Italian and then supposed-English with hard Italian accent. Vermont, Tazzy, and I all worked together to piece together what she was attempting to tell us. Shoutout to Tazzy girl btw! We totally bonded over our mutual nerding out for what we were witnessing. Her name was Lauren and she is a Medical Illustrator and my BFF of the day.

Okay Okay Okay buckle up. So first we went into the lecture room in which Galileo taught his students. Super chill, right? We, of course, were not allowed to take pictures in the Traditional halls, but I was allowed these outside of the doors which was fine by me.

There are some things in which pictures wouldn’t do justice and I believe that true for this place. I only hope I can keep the mental pictures in this noggin of mine forever. We were taken into three rooms / traditional halls.

1. The lecture hall Galileo taught in

2. The room in which their medical students took their final examinations

3. The actual cadaver anatomy observatory

Right outside the lecture hall, there was a mural hanging of William Harvey. For those not as nerd experiences as myself, this dude was the first to completely describe the circulatory system. HE DID THAT. HE DISCOVERED CIRCULATION OF THE HUMAN BODY. Okay I’m chill I’m chill. And he studied here! Under Hieronymus Fabricus, nonetheless, who is referred to as the “Father of Embryology”.

At this point, we weren’t even fully in the first room and I was nearly on pass out level of awestruck. Entering the Father of Modern Science’s old lecture hall was weird and cool. I mean, this place is super old. Could you imagine the things they were just discovering back then? And that were taught in this room? Holy smokes. It boggles my mind to even get into it. The walls were decorated with coat of arms. Coats of arms? Coats of arm? How is the plural of this supposed to go? Traditionally, the people who graduated from this university had their coat of arms created and hung in the halls. Which is a cool idea, but again, wholly impractical when you think of how many people were eventually going to go through these programs. I guess they couldn’t have known that, though, or they would’ve been future tellers. Needless to say, they don’t continue that tradition today for the current students.

Next we went into the medical student Hall which was just amazing. Two long tables surrounded by murals of influential professors along 3 of the walls. The fourth wall border was a string of murals of the human body, some half skeleton half muscle, some half organs half skeleton, and some half muscle half nervous. MY FAVORITE. MY ABSOLUTE FAVORITE. Within that Hall was a painting of Bartolomeo Eustachi. Sound familiar? Just another LEGEND that studied anatomy here. Eustachian tubes were named after him because of his coolness. More specifically, he described the eustachian tubes, stapedius, and the malleus. Oh, and don’t forget about the cochlea y’all. Again. Get-my-Bermuda-shorts-out-level -Casual.

The medical students, for their final exams, had to sit at one end of the long table that took up the entirety of this room, surrounded by NOT ONLY the murals but also by all their living professors as they took their exam. Sound like the intimidation-medicine that still exists, am I right? hahah.

Our tour lady then took us through a very narrow door into a room wherein the walls were covered by more coats of arms of students who had completed their degree in medicine/surgery. This was where we were taken via small groups to the pit of the FIRST EVER HUMAN CADAVER ANATOMY DISSECTION OBSERVATORY STADIUM. She was explaining to us that this university was only allowed to have this b/c it wasn’t run by the church. Wherein other places, such as Genova – as Lauren was telling me- the church had final say in anything the professors were teaching. In the Genova dissection rooms, they had a small window atop wherein a clergy member had to observe and filter everything the anatomist was saying in accordance to The Word. This university in Padua was special for its acceptance of “unique and free ideas” and this is why people came from all over to study here.

The stadium itself had maybe 4 or 5 rows encircling a pit in the bottom. There of course wasn’t a cadaver donation service back then so the only cadavers donated were from the professors that taught the course. [ Fun fact: the skulls of those professors were kept and displayed back in that same room where the students’ final exams were taken.] The students were not allowed enough room to sit. They were very narrow and as the tour guide said “you could not be fat and study medicine here”. There was only a hip heighth-bar going around each row. This bar was only high enough to reach past the human tipping point, so that if/when the observing students passed out, they did not fall forward onto the cadaver. It was a very small enclosed circular room. Extra fun fact: they were only allowed to hold dissections in January and February for OBVIOUS REASONS. ~dead body, warmth, carcass, smells, etc. ~

I was able to go to the bottom of this pit, stand where the cadaver would’ve layed, and look up into the rows of stadium standing. It was so much smaller than I had imagined. I had forgotten that humans, in general, used to be much smaller.

Once this tour ended, I cried hysterically. Jk, I was fine. I was sad It was over, but like, I doubt they would’ve let me have a personal sleepover in the ancient cadaver observatory theater- so I had to accept it.

I'm adding this link of a Rick Steve's review ^^ of this exact place I've talked about! Isn't he precious? He obvi got way more clearance than I was allowed and has some amazing footage if y'all are at interested :). Also worth noting are his very impressive walking poses or major travel-dad style.

Extra fun fact: I never saw a graduate send off as they show in this video, but I was sitting right by these columns as I wrote some of this blog post. :)

#padua #education #italy #palazzobo #anatomytheater #anatomy #cadaver #science #observatory #italian #palazzo