Gettin' Busy

This week was full of snow-related failures, but it turned out pretty well. On Monday morning during our Ancient City lecture (That's the class we all take- we have a Monday lecture to talk about what we'll be seeing Tuesday and Wednesday) we found out that the sites we were planning on visiting on Tuesday were shut down due to snow. (Spoiler: We still get to go!). So on Tuesday, instead of the usual full-day field trip, we took the metro down to the Testaccio area, where we visited a branch of the Capitoline museum that used to be a factory. They left all of the old factory-looking things and added ancient things, so walking around, you come upon many strange (but intentional) juxtapositions, like this one:

After the museum we walked down to a large Pyramid tomb in the middle of the street. I would have to consult my notes to tell you more about that, so here's a picture instead! 

That afternoon I decided to make good use of my unexpected free afternoon and went over to the AAR to start my internship! Basically, I am in charge of 50ish ancient artifacts, and my job is to make sure that the information I have about them matches the information on the AAR website. A lot of my objects are completely missing from the site, or don't have pictures, so I'll have plenty of work to do! My first day was slightly a failure, as my computer refused to connect to the AAR wireless OR ethernet. I ended up working on a library computer, away from my artifacts. Hopefully next week will go better!
We spent Wednesday morning at the AAR again. We got to see some cool inscriptions, something called 'burrito guy' which, to everyone's extreme disappointment, was not a man passing out free burritos, but rather an ancient man wrapped burrito-style in a lead tank and buried. They think he may have been a zombie. (No, but really though). We also got to go down part of an ancient aqueduct that lies beneath the AAR. That was quite nerve wrecking, as we walked up to a dark hole in the ground and heard 'alright, who climbs down first?' Um. WHAT?

But it was not as scary as it looked, and the aqueduct was another one of those cool experiences only Centristi get to do that I can brag about later! Among other things we did at the Academy- see the collection of ancient things just laying around- the back yard, the porch, where ever there's room, really. Also, at one point Ernest Hemingway's grandson walked by. This place is magical!
Wednesday afternoon was brutal- I had double Italian and our Latin class ended late, so I had way more class than I was willing to sit through. After dinner, too burned out to do actual work, we sat down and planned our spring break, which is in a month. Me and five other friends are going to fly out the Barcelona, then Brussels, where we will also take a day trip to Bruges. Ryanair is the best.
Thursday we got to do half of our cancelled Tuesday trip- Palestrina. It's the site of an ancient sanctuary that scaled the side of a mountain and, judging by the models, was an amazing sight. Today, due to ruinage and medieval building, not much is left. We got to see an incredible mosaic from one of the temples and the view from the top of the mountains, which, of course, was breathtaking. The trip, however, involved so much failure. First, of course, the trip was cancelled on Tuesday. When we got there on Thursday, we found the escalator going up the first part of the mountain was broken, so we had to climb up by foot. Once we reached the forum area, we found out that we could not get into the building built around the ruins. We kept climbing, and when we reached the museum on top, the room holding the mosaic was full of loud italian kids doing an art project. When we finally found a quiet lecture room in the museum so we could have our lecture, someone outside the room decided to start banging a large metal pipe against, by the sounds of it, more metal, or the ground. Really, just everything went wrong. But we got our amazing view and the trip and failures were worth it after all! See for yourself (though of course pictures don't do it justice)

Amazing, once again.
This weekend we're taking a trip to Ravenna. It should be awesome, though unfortunately it means early wake ups and heavy duty learning during my usual resting time. So now I'm going to pack for that! Ciao!