alba fucens middle of nowhere!

today was our second all-day field trip. the two stops were Alba Fucens and the villa of Horace. there was talk that there may be snow at the site in Alba Fucens (hence the Alba in the name, i presume) but in fact it was sunny and extremely pleasant there. Alba Fucens is pretty high in the foothills, and we could see that it was raining in the valley. i tried to check the forecast before we left. Alba Fucens isn't the name of the modern town, which is Albe. i tried looking that up on weather.com and it just laughed at me. when we got there i realized why. there are approximately 5 buildings in Albe, 1 of which is the site visitors' center, and 2 of which are churches. we were promised a bathroom break when we arrived in Albe, but there was only one toilet in the whole town, so the process took a good long time.

we stopped at a church which was built on the foundations of a roman temple to Apollo before we headed down to the site per se. once there we were split up into groups and had to deduce what our assigned part of the site was. i was stuck in group six, which was assigned letter S on the map. we asked "where are we now on the map" just to orient ourselves and were told: S. we had to watch as the rest of the groups trekked down into the site. after some debate we realized that our building was originally a quite large villa, and we identified the particular types of masonry used. Prof. Walsh came to check on us and we asked if we would have time to roam the site. at first he said no but we told him that we'd be totally cheated if that were the case, and he conceded 15 minutes to us. in that time i ran around and took lots of photos.

by the time we finished presenting our site "autopsies" it was definitely lunchtime. Albe is essentially a dead town though, so Walsh decided it would be more interesting to go down the road a ways to Carsoli and eat there. we acquiesced and piled in the bus. upon arrival in Carsoli we realized there is little or no reason to go there. everything was closed, so it was pretty boring, and all the school children were on their lunch break, free around town. a bunch of middle school boys came and started hitting on the female Centriste. unamused, Luke, the biggest guy in our group and decently proficient in italian went to talk to them. the resulting conversations were pretty hilarious. they decided to try their english skills on us. the boys knew two main phrases: "what is your name?" and "we like pussy." some of their female classmates joined the conversation, and their vocabularies were a little better. one asked Luke why on earth we came to their town. he explained that we were on the way back from Alba Fucens and she gave him this look as if to say "you poor poor soul, i'm sorry you had to come here." Carsoli is a pretty forsaken town, and i really felt bad for some of the people living there (basically everyone except the pervert schoolboys). we had a little more time to kill and Kerry, Alicen, and i walked a few blocks from the main square, through the public park where Alicen tried out the playground equipment. at long last we reboarded the bus and headed for the site of Horace's villa. on the way back we met another group of people. a drunk bum asked us if we were german. i'm not sure why he thought that, but we told him "no, non siamo tedeschi."

the villa was really quite palatial and impressive, and although only about 1 foot tall in their present state, the remnants of the walls were quite well preserved. after touring the ruins, we went up the hill to a natural spring. that spring may be the famous "fons Bandusiae" that Horace wrote about, if indeed the villa was his. we played around at the fountain for a while...Walsh told us we could drink from the fountain if we wanted, and clearly at our own risk. i opted out of that, but many people did.

we had a slow, traffic-plagued ride back into Rome, but got back significantly before dinner. i made a run to the enoteca and got wine for dinner and fanta for later. at dinner Alicen, Kerry and i split the wine, but Kerry only took a splash, leaving quite a bit for Alicen and i. oh well, it helped ease along the greek homework afterwards.

all my photos from today are finally on flickr, after the uploader program screwed up once. i'll finish tagging them tomorrow. now i need to get to sleep, breakfast is in 7,5 hours. tomorrow morning is another trip to the forum (i will remember my camera AND battery this time!) and in the afternoon i have greek and an italian quiz, both of which i doubt i'm sufficiently prepared for. i'm trying to avoid slacking too much, but i'm really focusing on the city course. it's what i couldn't do anyplace else. so now i'm rambling. perhaps tomorrow i'll compose an entry before i get too sleepy. goodnight.

p.s. this won't be posted until the morning because my internet connex just died. lovely. perhaps a sign. =P