Ostia Antica

My alarm didn't go off this morning. I woke up at 8:58, and we had to leave at 9:30. Fortunately my quick wake-up routine and the proximity of the UWRC to our apartment allowed me to make it in time. Everyone purchased a few bus tickets, and we headed out toward Ostia Antica for the day. (Note: today wasn't a formal class day - we didn't have any class presentations or anything)

A short bus ride and a half-hour train ride later, we arrived at our destination. The ancient remains of Ostia Antica are more complete than what we saw of Trajan's forum. We looked at the necropolis, living buildings, and ampitheater of the site, the last of which has been fitted with a modern stage, lighting, and screen for a peculiar marriage of technological eras. We also explored the public baths (which were HUGE). The Romans had a rather ingenious system of temperature-regulated underground water transport (like modern Radiant heating, only much bigger) for maintaining controlled temperatures in the various rooms of the baths. Tiles, columns, and fine etchings could be seen all around. We clandestinely took a humorous group picture of the guys sitting on the ancient public toilets (hopefully I can procure that picture from someone who took it).

An aside: the site seemed to have a large number of twitchy lizards and rather large pinecones.

After enjoying a picnic lunch in an open grassy field in Ostia Antica, we headed further along the westward trian route to Stella Polare, a small-ish waterside community not unlike Alki in Seattle. There we went to the beach to enjoy the bright sunshine and cool water of the Mediterranean. There are free beaches and paid beaches in these parts, the free ones being very crowded and little maintained, and the paid ones featuring restrooms and other services, and more space to go around. Prof. Schultz recommended the paid ones, so we each spent €3,00 to enter.

The beach was quite nice, and there was a good breeze in the air. The sand was very warm (sometimes too hot to stand barefoot on), but the water was just a tad colder than ideal. A number of us got into the water to swim (or in my case, wade) while others just enjoyed the sun.

After traveling back in the late afternoon, I made a quick grocery stop, then uploaded a video (see my last post!), did a bit of peer editing work, and then went to watch part of the USA-Ghana football match.

(which was a bit depressing)

In any case, we had a fairly relaxing Saturday. Tomorrow will probably be largely a work day with lots and lots of reading...