Friday - Villa Borghese

This morning, the author of our book, Clash of Civilizations Over an Elevator in Piazza Vittorio, came to talk to us about it. I actually really like this book because it gives an account of each person's perspective on the others who live in the same apartment, and since they all are from different areas, either different countries or different parts of Italy, they all misunderstand or have stereotypical views of the others. Like the professor from Italy is snobby and thinks Southerners are civilized. The cleaning lady hates immigrants and thinks that Parviz is cussing at her when he says merci. The dog lady is super obsessed and i hate her. I feel really sorry for the fat girl who has to take care of the super old lady and just watches tons of TV thinking that someday, she will lose the weight.

Lakhous, the author, came from Algiers because of the political arrest in the area and now after getting his degree in philosophy and cultural anthropology, he writes book in Arabic AND Italian. This book is being made into a movie! I really want to see it. I feel like this is possibly one of the first boks that i've been assigned to read that I've actually enjoyed (and read.. heh heh heh).

I forgot to bring my book to get it autographed, though. Noooooooo =(

Later for Art History class, we hiked all the way to Villa Borghese. It was really far, but the outside was beautiful.

However, the walk to the Villa Borghese was very much less then beautiful. I was walking along peacefully, enjoying the scenery in the new area of the city where I had never been when I felt a warm splat on my arm. I look and there's this huge splat of slightly gooey bird poop with some white speckles in it. A pigeon decided to leave me a present. D=.

The sad thing is, this is not the first time on this trip that I've been pooped on =(. Daniel had to use half his water bottle to wash it off. I felt very dirty the rest of the day and avoided using that arm.

Back to the Villa Borghese. So apparently, Scipione Borghese, the guy who used to own the Villa was a huge collector and patron of art. So he has a ton of art. He especially like Bernini, who is an AMAZING sculptor. I definately put him up there with Michelangelo for my favorite/most amazing artist.

I really like the sculptures that he was commisioned to do. Like Pluto and Persephone, because they tell a story as you walk around the sculptor. For this sculpture, you start by coming around the back and all you see is Pluto's back and a girl in the background and it looks as if they could just be frolicking together or something, but as you "circumambulate" the sculpture, it's slowly revealed that Pluto is happy, but the girl has tears on her face. Pluto is grabbing her and is about to drag down into the underworld.

I also really like Bernini's Apollo and Daphne, where Daphne is turning into a tree just as Apollo catches her.

Later, for Molly's birthday, we went out to the best gelato place, Gelateria del Teatro. Afterwards, we came back to the Campo and sang happy birthday and gave her a big group hug. And then some of us went to the bar to have a drink and celebrate.

Pluto and Persephone

Apollo and Daphne