More old stuff

Hello all!  I haven't posted anything new in a few days, but I have more than enough material for some great stories.

The first photo is from modern day Palestrina/ancient Praenesta.  The museum there was pretty cool, but the best part about the trip was that Palestrina is located at the foot of the Apennine mountains, so the city sits on top of a tiny mountain and you can see all the way to the ocean on a clear day.  The view was incredible, and the temperature was perfect due to the elevation.  We also went, on a different day, to the region of Abruzzo, which was similarly located in the mountains (picture #4).  That day was a lot of fun.  We went to the ruins of the Roman colony of Alba Fucens, we were given a numbered map, and we had to go around to the different areas of the colony and figure out what everything was. It was a lot of fun, and I now know why archaeologists enjoy what they do.  I was actually able to figure out most of the structures, and the stuff that I, along with others, was confused about are confusing to everyone else too, which made me feel pretty good.

The second picture was taken underground inside of an ancient aqueduct, the Aqua Traiana.  The aqueduct actually runs beneath the American Academy, which afforded us the wonderful opportunity of exploring it!  FYI there was a huge spider down there :-/

I included the third picture because it will be significant to the HAB's from Xavier for a particular reason.  This picture was taken at the so-called "Horace's Villa," or actually just a short walk from the villa.  The villa itself was pretty puny and speculative, and very doubtfully did it belong to Horace.  Anyway, this fountain is the (so-called) Fons Bandusiae!!  When I and the other HAB's were at Xavier, we took a class on Horace with Prof. Cueva, and one of the infamous things that we had to do was memorize Horace's poem "Fons Bandusiae."  During our visit, everyone in the group who knew the poem recited it - I must say, I was surprised at how much I could remember!

The next to last photo was taken at the Forum.  It rarely rains during this season in Rome, but it actually happened to rain that day.  What resulted was a very unique view of the Forum and some beautiful clouds.  It rained quite a bit, and we had to take shelter inside of the Curia in order to avoid the storm.  I now appreciate very much the Romans' usage of drainage systems.

Finally, Nutella is everywhere in Italy.  I usually eat some for breakfast on a roll, since they don't really have peanut butter here.  We stopped at a gas station one day and found this massive, 40 euro jar of Nutella.  Chris, the guy in the picture, was pretty excited, as you can see.

I hope all is well in the States!

Evan