THE PIAZZA WAS EMPTY. So was the wine bar. The narrow streets of old Cagli were filled with a ghostly stillness, and where once the cries of American students echoed up through the alleyways and bounced off the craggy walls of ancient palazzos, now there was only the occasional chirp of a noctural bird or the lonesome howl of a farmer's hound dog.

The moon hung low in the dark sky. And this reporter asked himself: where was everybody?

Imagine your narrator's surprise when he discovered, at 11 o'clock at night, no less than one dozen dilligent, erstwhile students tapping away at computers up in the computer lab at the Atrium.

How is it that these students had forgone the sultry, sensual pleasure of a Tuesday night in Cagli for the dull hum of a computer lab and the deadening glow of a laptop screen?

"There's nothing else to do," was student Katie Haak's response. "And I wanted to read the news blog!"

Graduate student Mark Flynn made use of the time to look for lodging in the Renaissance city of Florence. "I had to book a hostel for this weekend," he explained with a grin. "And I found a quaint little guesthouse just a stone's throw from the Duomo."

Kevin Zazzali was concerned with more mundane matters. "I came up here to get some work done," he said, sighing. "But I stepped in dog poo and had to scrape my shoe on the pavement and then step in a puddle to clean it."