Another End, One More Beginning

I finished off my first dig in Romania with very high spirits and feeling much more knowledgable about archaeology in the field. I have my directors and other experienced comrades to thank for that. The group we had was truly amazing to dig with. Most of the volunteers had digging experience and were very resourceful and very patient teachers, especially with someone like me, who hadn't a clue what I was doing. But now I feel my more confident with methodical digging. The site I was at definitely grew on me and now that I'm not there I do miss it. The site was a perfect choice for a beginner archaeologist. There was plenty of features and objects the would keep moral high especially during the hot afternoons. Finding things regularly is a pretty good indenture to keep working hard. Even if it was just tiny pottery pieces or animal bones, all of which is very exciting. 

I am so thankful for the amazing group of volunteers I had a chance to meet. Everyone was enthusiastic and friendly. At the end of it we were extremely close and definitely a little crazy after spending 4 solid weeks in the sun in rural Romania. Unfortunately I had to say good bye to another group of amazing individuals. Luckily the majority of them are from the US and this has given me a good incentive to do a road trip through the US. On the evening of the 24th we drank and said goodbye. I left Murighol with 5 friends from the dig and we headed back to Bucharest on July 25th, in an extremely hot train. Even though it was hot it was nice to see a little more of beautiful Romania country side, scattered with sunflower fields, windmills and a mix of old and soviet structures. We stayed at a cheap hostel where I got a single hour of sleep before heading to the airport at 3 in the morning. 

I flew whizz air to cyprus and landed at 9:30 in the morning. I stepped out dog the plane and on to the tarmac with immediate regret and kicking myself in the ass for not going back to Canada instead. It was only 9:30 and the sun was hot about 30 degrees with humidity at 75% making it feel likes it's in the 40s. I grabbed my checked luggage and headed for the bus stop from Larnaca to Limissol. I had my first surprise, I tried ti get on the bus on the right side only to find no door, however there was one on the left. Immediately I realized they drive on the left hand side. This made the bus drive both exciting and terrifying, constantly thinking we heading into straight on traffic. The bus I was relieved to find was air conditioned for the hour long haul. In Limossol I waited for another hour for the bus to Paphos, now I am seriously aware of how hot it was getting. How the hell am I going to dig in this weather without suffering heat stroke? Will there be a water source on the dig site? I just told myself it probably won't be as bad as I thinking. 

When I finally get to Paphos I walked about a kilometre to my hotel, I arrive completely drenched in sweat. I spent the rest of day in siesta waiting for the sun to set. In the evening I found the closest ice cream and gyro and went back to the hotel. Normally I love exploring new places on my own but my 4 days in Paphos were very dull. I found it too hot to do anything except sit by the pool or ride the air conditioned bus around all day. However I did manage to get out to Petra Tou Romiou, or Aphrodite's rock. When I got off the bus I was kind of surprised to see that no one else had got off with me, but I didn't think much of it. I walked down to the beach took a few photos, swam out to the rock and swam around it a few times looking at the rockiness of it. I swam back in and watched one of the most beautiful sunset I've seen on this trip. I wander back up to the bus and kiosk area. I wait for about 20 minutes and go in and ask the lady working when the next bus was, 

"12;00." She says

"You joking?" I ask

"No 12."she responds

I am 20 miles from Paphos and I have a massive blister on my foot.

"What's the hitch hiking symbol here?" I ask

She give me a very quizzical look and responds, "No! I drive you!" 

So Kiki drove me back to Paphos in her lovely air conditioned car, she didn't speak a lot of English but she told me everything I needed to know about southern cyprus. She is also of the generation that extremely disdain Turkish people because of the Turkish occupation of Northern Cyprus. She told me all about that too. She had never been to northern cyprus and most southern car rental companies will not insure you if you cross to the North. She also said that Turkey sends many radical nationalists to northern Cyprus. Now I have a picture of many abandoned rental cars in Northern cyprus with extremely national Turks. Another cool fact she told me was that cyprus is one of the few places in the world where you will find both American and Russian ships in the same port. A small island but with some interesting stuff going on.

I moved from Paphos to Kissonerga on the 30th. The walk from the bus stop to the village was almost unbearable with my bag and extreme. I was the first to arrive from my group. I was given a quick tour of the building. This month I'm staying in the villages elementary school. I have a nice mattress and a spot outside to sleep. I could sleep inside but I would die from the heat at night. I took a nap to speed up time. It was very restless and I was seriously considering booking a flight home immediately and not dealing with this heat. But on the other hand when will I ever get another chance to make beer again in this setting. As shitty as it I'll stick it out, I'm not quitting yet. And knowing me I was just feeling this way because I hadn't talked to anyone in a few days and was just feeling lonesome and homesick. 

When I woke up I met the only other person to arrive. An American guy who works for a craft beer company. We talked with the directors about the dig, about my last dig and about beer... I felt much more knowledgable about beer after talking with the directors and the brewer. Later in the evening everyone else arrived. There are only twelve of us on this dig, most of whom are studying in either from Scotland or are studying in Scotland. Many of them at first year students and this is their first dig... Which makes me experienced? Lols. It is really funny going from a dominantly american group to a dominantly Scottish group. Both are amazing, in completely different ways. I love it. But one similarity remains, everyone loves to tease me about my crazy Canadian ways.... But I'm definitely milking my Canadian-ness for the sake of many laughs. 

We all have hit it off really well. This dig is much different from the last one, we are divided into three groups and we rotate through a three day schedule. 2 days of "digging" 1 day of dirty duties. On days where we dig we are building a kiln to replicate an ancient structure that would have been used in the Bronze Age to make beer. On dirty duty days one of the groups doesn't go down to the site. They are responsible for cleaning the school, making the days meals as well as brewing beer. So far we have only begun to germinate the barley. This day is really relaxing because you get to stay out of the sun and have a refreshing break. 

During work days we wake up at 5:45 and work only until about 12:30 because becomes to hot to work. Which means we have the entire afternoon to hang out at the local bar for wifi, or head down to the beach. Seriously not a bad schedule at all. I think I have finally begun to climatize to this horribly hot and humid place... It'll be weird going back to temperate Nova Scotia in 2 and a half weeks. 

Although I am loving my time here, I am missing home. I often catch myself thinking about which food I'll eat when I first arrive; wheel and tall&small's TPs are very high on the list. What should I do in my few days before classes resume; James river falls, surfing and catching up being my three that need to be accomplished. This might be my last blog, maybe I'll continue when I'm back if I think something is worth writing about in an informal fashion. Anyhow I hope everyone back home found this a good way to keep up with me, without bothering me:) Please send me a message as soon as I'm home so I can make time for you, I'm hoping I won't be too jet legged and I can get back into an NS summer as quickly as possible. 

For everyone I met in the last 7 months thank you, I've met many inspirational people and kindred souls who made this the best 7 months of my life. I learned so much and won't forget any of it. Please make your way to a Nova Scotia some day so I can be as hospitable to you, as was shown to me. 

    In Rasnov, a beautiful hilltop fortress outside of Brasov 

    A few of the digging crew of Halmyris

    These stunning ladies in front of Bran Castle.

Romanian birthday Feast 

Troweling in action 

SHOVEL BUMS 

How I look after 6 hours on site 

Pottery and bone cleaning and labelling 

Our last evening on site, definitely shack wacky 

The beautiful daube 

The crew

The happiest moment of the Summer, digging this bad boy out of the ground 

Paphos Harbour 

Aphrodite's Rock 

sunset!

I look homeless and happy...completely accurate 

An evening out with the new dig Crew. Drinks were cheap eh!

Beer making has begun!

Cleaning barley

Germinating the barley using different methods, because this is an experiment eh.

Crushing barley the good old fashion way

Romans in Romania

I began my first archaeology excavation this week in Murighol Romania. Murighol is the Turkish word for purple lake, because at sunset the lake and sky have the most amazing colours, often purples and pinks and orange. The site I'm digging at is called Halmyris, it is a roman fort that stood between approximately 100-700 AD. Most of my knowledge on site at the moment is quite vague because we we're given very brief tours and histories regarding the site, so the particulars I cannot give a very good explanation. 

When you first enter the site your are on a very small hill, about three meters at the most above the surrounding farmland to the north and east. Those farm fields used to be the Danube river, however the river has receded about 300 meter from where it used to be. We know this because there are two man made harbours at Halmyris, therefore the Danube would have come right up to the fort. The fort had approximately twelve towers and with good reason. The location of Halmyris is important because it intersects two important commercial shipping waters, the Danube and the Black Sea. However this also made is a target for Roman enemies, which was everyone. I'm also not into classical or Roman history so I can't tell you much about that either. Hopefully I will learn a few things before I'm finished. 

What I can tell you is that the site has faced and is still dealing with quite a few issues. On the site there are two very impressive structures; a bathhouse and a basilica. The basilica is quite impressive and gathered quite a bit of attention from the Romanian Orthodox Church. Ancient Roman texts and legends discussed the presence of two monks or missionaries who came to Halmyris spreading Christianity. They were eventually brutally tortured and executed for disturbing the peace of Halmyris. However both of them were loved by their followers and their remains were hidden. Many year later a less crazy Roman emperor had a basilica erected at Halmyris and had the remains of the two monks placed in a crypt. Later these to monks were sainted. A few years ago the basilica was discovered with the remains of the two saints. The osteological investigation showed that flesh was removed from the two individuals using grappling hooks, numerous bones were broken, and hammers were taken to their pelvis region. So yep they were put through some severe torture and then beheaded. 

Anyways, when the couch discovered that the remains of the two saints were found they came to the site, tried to tell the archaeologists that the entire site now belonged to the church, stole archaeology materials, erected a monastery adjacent to the site. Mihael who has been at Halmyris since the beginning of excavations and continues to this day. The church has never given the man or any other archaeologist at the site any credit, for the discovery. Since then it is a bitter and passive aggressive battle between archaeologists and the church. 

You are probably thinking, "oh wow that so cool! Lucy is on an archaeology dig." I will have to admit yea it really is. But it's not exactly what I thought it would be like. I always thought archaeology was a very meticulous and tedious work, where you sift through tiny grains of dirt looking for important material history. Not exactly the case. I'll give you an idea of what it has been like so far. The first day we cleared vegetation from our work area and moved a massive pile of rubble from a previous excavation that was on the spot we wanted to dig. With about 20 people working together it didn't take very long. The next day we plotted our trenches, and you won't believe it. I used Pythagorean Theorem in the real world. We made trenches facing east west from previous trenches, then we measured the trenches to be 2m x 3m, then we would take the hypotenuse of the triangle to make sure out measurements and squares were correct. Kind of harder then anticipated when you are not working on level ground and only have a few pegs and measuring tapes to make it perfect. But eh, we got 'er done.

After we got our trenches stringed off we began to dig. My trench was promised to be the most interesting trench because it was right in behind tower that had served as a commercial area to declare goods. My trench was 2m x 6m trench. The first day we were told to bring it down about 10cm. Alright we start bringing it down. But we are running into a lot of rocks on the north side of the trench. Boss comes over takes a look, and says bring it down another 10, so we go again. And this goes on and on throughout the week. Basically the boss is just going to look for a few minutes either say its a wall, or maybe collapse but we won't know fore sure until we see that face. So we just keep digging. The dirt never ends. Cut the dirt, sift through for pottery and material culture, remove dirt from trench and wheel it away. There was a crazy person who attempted to do archaeology in the site about 20 years ago, but he just butchered whatever he found, so we are just dumping all of our dirt in his trenches. One girl in a trench adjacent to mine found a coin, it was bronze and you could see the emperor on the coin face and some other designs, and we were able to date it to the exact year it was made. I was told but can remember exactly, I believe it was in the 1st or 2nd century. So far I have found lots of pottery, mortar, shells, bone (animal), tiles and rocks... Lots of rocks. 

The village I live in is quite small, but when you are surrounded by interesting and amazing people it doesn't matter how small the place. Everyone on the dig is studying different things; anthropology, archaeology, classics, history, art history, religious studies, etc. everyone is very dedicated to their studies and we have done quite a bit of nerding out. The nights are spent in the local bar or outside on our patio drinking beer (which is dirt cheap!) having excellent conversations about what we study to everything else. Most of the crew are from the US, which means I'm an constantly defending the honour of Canada, and it is quite difficult being the only one. But it's all in good fun. 

During the day we eat at Girus. For 75lei or 25$ I eat three square meals a day from a buffet that also includes dessert. I haven't eaten this well in months, the food is all locally sourced and very we'll balanced. If I had any thought of slimming down digging holes all day...nope. At the archaeology site there are a few plum trees that ripening and I get to snack on those during the my break. We also have a well that was built by soldiers many year ago, all my water that I drink comes from that well that I bring up with a pail. In the afternoons it becomes to hot to work and the entire village sleeps. Between 2-5 the power goes out and siesta begins, the time of day where it is perfectly acceptable to nap, and yes I nap everyday. After shovelling for 6 hours, napping is exactly what I need. 

It's all Greek to me

Greece, what a place. I remained only in the Cyclades islands but I was never bored. After coming from Istanbul relaxing on some "remote" island or 10 didn't seem like a bad idea. However I'd relax for only a few moments then I'd be up and walking around again. The islands I went to included Naxos, Paros, Santorini, Delos, Mykonos, Antiparos, Ios, Sikinos, and two others adjacent to Santorini. 

For a long time my favourite books had been about male adventures, and I'm realizing now that I really need to get into books with female protagonists. You really wouldn't believe how many solo female travellers I ran into. I really didn't expect to meet so many but I'm happy I did. I would highly recommend travelling solo, it was the most amazing experience I ever had. Everyone has different interests when they travel, and that can make travelling in pairs or groups more challenging. But when you're on your own it is complete freedom, stay where you want, eat what you want, do what you want. It was really nice, I rarely had a solid plan of anything. I'd wake up check ferry schedules, hope on a boat, haggle with a kimaki at the port. I love never knowing where I might be. Every morning I'd just make sure would pack sunscreen and water. The only two things I needed all the time. Everything else is superficial. 

Greece is also one of the easiest places to visit, everyone is laid back, everyone speaks English, everyone is friendly. You can land on an Island, totally disoriented with only a vague idea of which direction you should be going, you have people begging you to stay at their hotels others begging you to eat at their restaurant. But a quick walk from the port and you'll be out of the chaos. During the afternoon the buses typically have a few hours off. If you find yourself stranded hitch hiking is easy, you'll be picked up by the first Greek person, but forget about being picked up by other tourists. I think if you live along the Mediterranean on a small island life is going to be fairly easy going. I'd spend my days wandering each of the islands, searching for the nicest most secluded beach, climbing a nearby mountain, visiting an archaeology site, renting a bike and touring around. Whatever I came across in the morning I'd make a day of it. My evenings I spent searching for the most delicious and cheapest gyro to eat. I feels so shameful being in Greece for a month and eating mostly street food. But I feel like I'm the queen of street food. One day I took a day trip to Sikinos, a very small island off of Ios. I decided to hike to the village from the port, ahh it's only 3km no problem. Wrong, 3km uphill in 35 degrees with a slight hangover is not a good idea, I will never claim intelligence after that. In the village there was nothing to do except snooze on a stone wall until the next bus came around. But even I couldn't wait that long so I ended up walking part way down before a mother with a few kids in the back picked me up, along with a few more walkers along the way. 

Of course I rarely was alone, everywhere you go you meet people and you spend an entire day with them..or a few days with them. It was really cool meeting so many people who have the most amazing, inspiring or crazy stories. I learned so much about so many different places. Of course the places I went to in Greece were amazing, but whT it rely lived most about Greece was all of the really amazing people I met. In the future I will definitely travel solo.