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Published: March 20th 2009
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Friday was a hectic day, since I had a field study in Villa Borghese and then had to go to the train station to catch a train to Fiumincio right after to go to Prague. To make matters worse, I messed up where we were suppose to be meeting and went to Largo Argentina instead of Piazza del Popolo, which I then walked to, which is one long walk... The field study was for my psychology class, and we went into the Galleria Borghese, where there were these three beautiful statues by Bernini along with other works of art. There was a statue of David, a statue of the God Apollo and Daphne, and a statue of the god Pluto and Persephone. The statue with Apollo is very interesting because the legend was that Apollo was chasing after this mortal woman who did not want to be with him, so she prayed to the gods to help her escape him and they granted her the wish by turning her into a tree. The statue depicts her transformation with Apollo reaching out to grab her. The last statue is of the god of the underworld, who tricks Persephone into having to stay
in Hades for half of every year and is the reason why we have seasons.
From Villa Borghese, I headed to the airport and met up with Al, Jordan and Bianca. The flight was delayed for an hour and a half. When we got on the plane, the Italian woman behind Al was apparently incapable of getting up or talking to the people next to her without the aid of pulling on Al's seat. Despite asking her not to, his seat was rocking the whole flight from her pulling on it. And when we landed, all of the Italians on the plane started clapping and cheering. I never seen anything like that before. It was interesting. By the time we got off the metro that led us to the main square, and where our hostel was at, it was already six at night. The square was beautiful at night. In Old Town Square, there was a gothic church that was lit so nice at night, and the clock tower, that at every hour, had the twelve apostles come out. Apparently, the people were so happy with the man who built the clock that they blinded him so there would
never be another clock like that made by him. We went out to dinner that night to a traditional czech restaurant. It was difficult to find a dish that was not a meat dish since it was a Friday during Lent. Almost all of their dishes include some sort of meat, beef or pork, and cabbage. I ordered a potato, mushroom soup in a bread bowl, as well as fried cheese and potatoes. Alfred got this huge platter of meat that had 3 different kinds of meat, dumplings, bread and two types of cabbage, and it was only the equivalent of 15 dollars. The food in Prague was so much cheaper than it is in Italy.
The next day, we got up early to walk around before we were going to take this free walking tour that started at 1. Since we had almost four hours, we decided to explore the town and see some other things that the free guided tour said it was not going to cover. One thing that was very weird was that every thing was closed until 10 o'clock, which is very different from Italy, where everything opens early but then closes later. Even
some of the Churches didn't open for viewing until 10. So we walked around the square a little bit to kill some time. Then we walked into St. Vitus's Cathedral which is the very Gothic looking church. It was beautiful in there, but very cold. The nice weather in Rome spoiled me a little. Then I went into the Dali exhibit they had. I never realized how much art Dali had made. There were bronze statues by him (my favorite one was of a rhino) and painted plates and tons of drawings. There was alot that depited the Divine Comedy. I was so excited though because they had Dali's drawing "Dream caused by the Flight of a Bee around a Pomegranate," which is one of my favorite artworks by him. Other than that, they also had the famous piece with the melted clocks and the one where his wife is looking out a window but from 60 feet away it looks like Abraham Lincoln. I really enjoyed the exhibit. After that we say the Church of Saint Nicholas. Then we were waiting for our tour, but the guy never showed up. So instead we went on Paul's free tour of
Rome.
We walked around the Jewish quarter, and learned alot about the history of Prague. Apparently they have a custom of throwing people out of windows that they are not happy with. The tour ended at the castle where we spent almost an hour. After it ended, we walked around Prague some more to see some more churches. Finally after walking all day we went to get dinner. I had delicious Stroganoff (ten times better than it is at home) and Beef Goulash and bacon dumplings. So good.
Unfortunately, we did not have much time the next day since our flight was leaving at 12, and we had to take a bus and metro to the airport. So we said our goodbyes to the Old Town Square and Prague and departed back for Rome.
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Laura Sahyoun
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Peace
God Bless you with continued happiness, good health and success, and to all you love. I am so glad you are making the most of your time, the IES program... All my love, Bella