Baroque Gardens and Valmont

I totally aced my Czech quiz this morning, which is funny because our teacher was sick on Monday and Tuesday and we had substitutes who were funny and nice, but did not teach us the things we were supposed to learn this week. My Art and Architecture class explored Prague. We went to the Charles Bridge, the Lennon Wall, The Church of our Lady Victorious where the Infant Jesus of Prague is, and a bunch of other places I had already been actually. But it was still a good day. Our professor convinced these ladies to show us this organ concert hall.

And then I was just being artsy because I had already done some of the stuff.

Then, I went to a garden that Elaine and I discovered next to the embassy. It was actually really funny because we saw people almost as high up as we were and then we went to check it out and they said they were in a garden and they were like where are you and we were behind bars as though we were in prison but we were just at the embassy. And then he threw a brochure into the embassy even though it was in spanish. And I'm surprised nothing happened because throwing stuff into the embassy just doesn't seem like a great idea. But I went today and it was beautiful and it's my new favorite place in Prague. But I probably won't go back because you have to pay.

The little gate on the top you can get to from the garden, but the higher gate it from the embassy.

There was also that cage you can see in the last picture filled with cool birds. Be jealous mama.

On the way home, I decided to try to replace my stolen metro pass because CIEE gave me to form to get it replaced. The first place I went to gave me a very confusing map for the place I actually had to go to. I was surprised I found the right place. But then, the lady there did not speak any English. I gave her the CIEE letter, which clearly states that I'm a student in Czech so she definitely understood. But then she kept saying "photo" so I gave her my passport and she was like no. And I was very confused. And for some reason, I think she wanted like the headshot I got taken for the passport. But I left very angry because she didn't even try to find somebody else who spoke English. She just kept saying no and not explaining what she wanted. It was very frustrating. Julia is going to go with me tomorrow.

Then, we had our high culture event. The Ballet! We had horrible seats because CIEE must have just bought the cheapest ones. They were up way too high. And one of the main points of the ballet was that they wrote letters to one another and they had done voiceovers in Czech, but they pulled down the opera thing with English subtitles. However, there was a strand of lights directly in front of it for us because we were up so high so we could not read them. It made the ballet much harder to understand. It was certainly interesting. It was called Valmont and basically these people like messing up everybody else's live for fun and they end up ruining their own. Here's the website for it. http://www.narodni-divadlo.cz/en/show/7444?t=2014-06-26-19-00 It was just way too dramatic. Some parts made me laugh because they were so dramatic. I prefer the Pennsylvania Ballet. The dancing was good but they never danced in unison or did anything impressive. It was too focused on the drama. There were two really great pas de deux, which I really enjoyed, but overall not amazing. I liked it. It was definitely a good experience. Probably would have enjoyed it more if I knew what was happening more clearly. At least we looked good.

This picture was taken with me standing up and leaning over very far. I could not see nearly this much sitting and leaning forward.

Then I did homework. And our wi-fi was broken and I totally fixed it. Go me!