AAR CSS: Day 1

Non-stop orientations. We got to see the inside of the American Academy, where we had lunch and then a lecture, but first we took a short tour of the Janiculan with T. Corey Brennan, a Roman historian from Rutgers:

He showed us a newly cleaned fountain (more impressive than it sounds):

...a monument to war dead:

...the first Renaissance building (inside the Spanish academy):

...and the rooftop of the Villa Aurelia (another panorama of Rome):

Then an orientation to the AAR library, an overview of our program, lunch, and an introduction to the course, followed by an orientation to the Centro (ICCS) with Franco Sgariglia, the guy who runs it. His family also runs the place where people who do the optional add-on down by the Bay of Naples stay - he's very nice, but the sentiment "it's all in the family" takes on a slightly different (read: Godfather) connotation in Italy. They definitely have a monopoly on people staying at the Centro during the summer and the school year. That said, the food is good (M-F breakfast and dinner).

The day ended with a pre-dinner reception in the garden of the AAR, where T. Corey Brennan and Susann Lusnia said a few words. There were quite a few other people there, most associated with the AAR in some way; we got the feeling a lot of them thought we were supposed to recognize them, but none of us did. On the way out some of us saw the Lead Burrito, a burial in which the skeleton was wrapped in a lead sheet. They couldn't x-ray it, of course, but they did some sort of scan to show that there is in fact a skeleton inside. It's now kept in the locked up wine barn in the AAR garden:

The Lead Burrito (warning: not edible):

Dinner: Rigatoni alla Puttanesca | Caprese | Gelato con panna