Not so much fun

Unfortunately the rest of the weekend went downhill after Tarquinia. I contracted a stomach bug and spent all of Sunday day and night throwing up with a fever.

 I'm still feeling really awful so didn't go to the dig today, am just having a rest day in bed. Hoping I'll magically be better by tonight so I can be onsite tomorrow. Maybe I can beg to be put in pottery lab as it's much less strenuous than excavating.

I don't have much else interesting to say, so you can have a photo of an American One dollar bill my room-mate gave me because I thought it was cool.

Also, a picture of the wall in Tarquinia I forgot to include in my other post but think is very awesome.

Tarquinia

Tarquinia was a very cool town with a mixture of Roman and Medieval ruins. It is also an Etruscan town which was awesome as I always found them one of the most fascinating cultures. They were very different from the other Latin tribes and there isn't that much known about them apart from their incredibly rich burials and early origin.

We took the train from Trastevere and then the bus to central Tarquinia. We then decided the first thing we needed to do was have lunch. We found a small Italian restaurant with some shade in the courtyard out the back and all had a variety of pasta meals. I had Carbonara. Here you can see our group for the day.

After our pleasant lunch we decided to find the Etruscan Necropolis. There were a huge number of tombs to descend into and some mounds that were not even excavated yet which was pretty cool. Most of the excavations took place in the 60's and therefore the moisture from all the tourists going to see the burials meant they were all sealed behind glass, so unfortunately we weren't able to go inside, however even the view though the glass was breathtaking. 

The Etruscans modeled their burial chambers around the houses they had during life, so there are often painted beams on the ceilings, and fake doors on the wall behind. It's also interesting how strong the Egyptian influence on their art was, Liz is doing her PhD in Egyptology at the moment so she had some pretty interesting stuff to say about that. 

The other cool thing was how one of the tombs had inscriptions; Etruscan writing is rare and comes only from burial contexts. I am also not sure if we can actually read them or not as their language was very different from Latin. Cool stuff. You can just see some writing vaguely on the right hand side of the door here. Also the door is cool because it's painted. Directly in the center the large hole descends with stairs into where the body would have been. 

The Medieval wall surrounding Tarquinia was also very cool. We stopped for photos. 

We then went to the museum which was also within the city, it was a very good museum but I also enjoyed the fact that it was within an old building in itself. Up on the highest walls there was also a good view of the city itself and the sprawling land beyond. 

What was once an old well in the central courtyard of the museum. We decided to do another group photo.

Within the actual museum were some very cool things. There were a large number of gold coins, pottery and sculpted sarcophagi with effigies of their owners molded on the lids. 

My favorite pot is this one because it's an apotropaic drinking vessel like we learned about in high school. This means when you lift the cup to drink and it covers your face, the eyes on the outside make it look like your still looking at people even when your face is hidden. This was meant to keep away evil influences and ward off the evil eye.

The weekend

We went exploring again the next evening in search of the elusive river, and we finally found it!! There were lots of tourists but it was still very cool. There were tonnes of tents lining the river banks which was interesting. It was all crappy tourist shit of course but still was fun to wander around and look at. A bird flew into my shot just as I took it and I think it worked well!

A street artist was playing classical guitar and the sun was setting so it became very picturesque. The old stone walls were also very cool.

Digging the next day was the most satisfying day yet even though it was sweltering hot and there was no breeze. Our team discovered a small walled room so spent the day uncovering the walls to find out its exact size. It was very eroded and made it hard work as it often crumbled away as we uncovered the wall. I also got to spent the afternoon brushing which cleaned the stones better and really brought them to light, it was super fun and rewarding.  In the afternoon we started to go a bit nuts from the heat. 

Here you can see my other friend also called Joe (hence the nickname Loki) pretending to be Leia from Star Wars with our dust masks.

That night we were going to go explore the Spanish steps and Trevi fountain but the fountain was closed and under construction and my sandal broke before I could get to the Spanish steps which is extremely annoying and I have to go sandal hunting today. We did come across a cat sanctuary in the city which was made up of ruins, I think one of the girls said something about the three temples of victory.  It was very cool and there was a very fluffy cute three legged cat. 

After that I went home and we had a glass of wine on the balcony. Today, Tarquinia!  

Dig Stuff

The next day of dig was actually better, even though my muscles felt atrophied. It was overcast and there were showers all morning which did wonders for keeping us cool. I had once again woken up very early, however it gave me time to check my emails and also take a photo of the sunrise.

Although it was much of the same work we found the edge of a wall and so were able to begin uncovering that with our trowels instead of attacking the ground with pickaxes like over eager dwarfs. I also found a iron nail which i was highly excited about but had to throw away. Because we are only clearing ground zero all items are without context as we are digging through the disturbed layers to get to the undisturbed ones. Its extremely hard to throw away all the pottery, glass and animal bones found simply because they have no stratigraphic context.

Although I can't post photos from the dig, a few have been published by the actual Gabii project which I feel safe in posting as they are already online, so here are some for an idea of the site!

My favorite part of the day however was the osteology (study of bones) lecture we were given in the field. The professor assembled the Roman skeleton right in front of us, explaining how she could tell the gender (male), age (about 38) and even height from the femur (5.8 ft). Seeing a real human skeleton and having it all explained was the highlight of the trip so far. I got an awesome photo of my friend Joe holding the skull in an 'alas poor Yorick' pose but unfortunately can't post it. You can see when we were shown how not to swing a pick-axe instead. 

We also got to do some awesome pottery cleaning in small groups which I really enjoyed. There's something to be said for taking a black undefinable lump of dirt and washing and scrubbing it carefully, watching the mud fall away revealing the red slip beneath, often shining and incised, the work of some Roman potter many moons ago. Even cooler when the clay is indented where the potters fingers once worked it. I think this is my favorite job on site so far, and wish we got to do it more often. The other upside to pottery work was we got to sit down and converse with the people in the group. One of the guys was Belgium and I had lots of fun making french-fry jokes at him. We also all decided everyone needed nicknames from religion or mythology, so he became Brother Mark and another guy became Loki. The rest of the nicknames we are still working on but it was great fun. I also taught them how to say kumera which was hilarious. 

Our day was finished early with the sudden down-pour of rain so we made our way home. After showers I was bored so one of my friends that I made on the bus and I went exploring. We had seen a garden from our window that was within the apartment complex so we decided to go looking for the entrance, but it turned out only some residents could access it, so after calling it the 'secret garden' and abandoning our quest, we turned to plan B. We thought we would wander over to the river -the map showed it as being in a straight line from where we were-and admire the view, however after an hour of wandering and wondering if the river had somehow disappeared we realized we had gone in completely the wrong direction and gave up. We went and had pizza for dinner instead which was very nice. I had a margarita pizza and Joe had an olivey-tomatoey one with an unpronounceable name.

Of Excavations and Exploring

Unfortunately I haven't (and probably won't) had that much time to write lately, the dig is time consuming and exhausting!!!

The first day I woke up at 3:30 and didn't get back to sleep so the dig was exhausting. It was hot to the point of completely unbearable and our water went warm and we still had to drink it. 8 hours of backbreaking pick-axing the ground, shovelling it into wheel-barrows, and carting them up a hill to deposit the earth and then repeat. Did I mention it was for 8 hours in the sweltering sun?? 

Although I didn't enjoy it at all, the next day was better. However I will first detail that evening as we went for a good wander. 

One of my roomies Amelia knows Rome a bit as she has been there before, so she took us to an awesome gelato place, I got hazelnut cream and coffee, both were fantastic and went well together as the coffee was almost bitter whereas hazelnut with cream was extremely rich. We then wandered into the rich part of Trastevere (the neighborhood we are staying in).

We then wandered for a while taking in the sites of the cobbled streets, fountains, restaurants and hanging terraces. The solemn tolling of the clock tower and joyful shouts of youths in Italian completed the brilliant atmosphere. We then decided to explore a church.

One of the girls we went exploring with is doing an architecture degree so she gave us an awesome explanation of many of the features of the church-why they were unusual or even why they existed at all. It was a very impressive church, but my favorite part was without a doubt the roof.

Rome: Day One

First day of the dig was pretty intense.

I didn't sleep much the night before because unfortunately as pretty as the view is there is a tram line and cars running directly below and apparently the Italians like shouting to each other on the street at 2am on a Sunday night, I dread to think what Friday night will be like. We ended up closing the doors to try keep the noise out but then of course we boiled. 

I ended up getting up at 5:30 in the morning which was nice as I had a leisurely shower and breakfast with a lovely morning coffee (just milk no sugar, i'm adapting so fast! Next i'll be having it black!) and delicious lemon flavored yogurt. I also awoke to bird noises, I hesitate to call it 'song' because it sounded like crows cawing and brought to mind gory Game of Thrones scenes. It was awesome.

We were out the door and off for the bus by 6:45, it took about 40 minutes to get to the dig sight, but we passed some fantastic scenery on the way-i'll try take some photos tomorrow morning if I remember.

Once at the dig site we got issued our steel cap boots, gloves, dust masks, hard hats and Gabii t-shirts. Super cool. We then had a safety orientation and a tour up to the temple of Juno which was awesomely huge. Unfortunately one of the strict regulations of the site is no photos of anything to be published on the dig allowed because it's all copyright...which really sucks and unfortunately means it's all going to have to be left to your imagination. I will try take some photos at some point anyway to show people back at home but no blog posting :(.

Everyone was really nice, there are quite a few of us, probably about 50 altogether which I was quite surprised about. Also go me, only person outside the US on the dig! According to the girl's my accent is 'cute'. First time I've heard that one before. I've also started being called 'Wheels' because of my suitcases broken state, which I find hilarious. 

We spent most of the bus ride exchanging different slang words which was pretty fun, I learnt that a common American insult is calling someone a 'tool' which I found hilarious. They had also never heard of skulling (e.g. I skulled that glass of water so fast!) they say chugging instead. Interesting stuff. 

We were provided lunch which was nice, apples and subway style sandwiches with ham and mustard and greenery. Good stuff. And in the shade thank goodness. We had only 6 hours in the burning heat today, tomorrow onwards it's a solid 8. And it is unimaginably hot. You are digging in the burning sun with no shade for a solid eight hours in the middle of the day, dripping in sweat and chugging warm water. It's only the first day and a girl already fainted half-way through the day which was pretty bad. She just collapsed face forward on the rough dirt and had to be carried off somewhere. Hopefully she's ok by tomorrow. 

The dig site is, for lack of a better word, AWESOME. It also very confusing and everything is everywhere. From 6th C walls to 2nd C concrete pilled on top to a medieval church ruin just chilling a few meters away. Unfortunately our legal licence only extended to the basalt road so by Italian law we aren't allowed to cross over and explore the road or church or other ruins without huge fines and getting arrested. Fun times. 

We also had a look at the previous excavations done on the site which included two infant burials with bronze finds and spearheads and unbroken pottery. Plus bones! Bones are awesome. We got to see a sarcophagi which is pretty cool. Unfortunately this summer is excavating a hut from even earlier so i'm guessing 7-8th C, which is cool but not as cool as mortuary stuff. Yay post-holes!  

You can have an awesome photo of my oh-so-official name badge instead of dig photos.

Also I couldn't resist temptation and bought a four pack of fanta cans from the supermarket. Fanta in Europe is so so so good. Nothing like the orange flavoured cough syrup stuff in NZ. this stuff is bubbly orange goodness. 

Me and two of the girls (there are 8 of us to our flat) also split a pack of beer so now I'm sitting on the balcony typing this while sipping my ice cold beer. Life is good. 

Hong kong Airport and a series of unfortunate events

Excitement at Auckland ready to head off! 

The flight to Hong Kong was long.
I entertained myself with the dig readings I'd been putting off and when I became tired of that, I watched crappy tv (who knew there was a program called the great British bakeoff where the most entertaining moment of the show culminated in a dude putting salt in his cake instead of sugar. Oops)

I then tried to ignore the world and listen to classical music while dozing as the second half of the first leg didnt land til 1:00 am nz time. It failed miserably. No leg room, nowhere to put your feet, you cant curl up because then you'd be squished up against a total strabger (which I doubt either of us woukd have appreciated) and worst of all no bloody head support. I'd have done anything to go back in time and take a headrest with me.

The exchange rate with Hong Kong dollars is pretty interesting though, when I bought a sandwich with euros they gave me 3 euros change. ..except it was 20 Hong Kong dollars. Strange stuff. I felt rich!

And that was about where the fun ended. The airport was huge, I was lost about four times, our departure board was written on a piece of paper that said no gate yet and no one seemed to know what was going on. I asked about 3 different people who all gave different answers so I gave up and stalked a British rugby team that had been on my flight hoping they would lead me to my destination.  Miraculously they did, only for me to be told by an elderly British couple that the flight was at least three hours delayed. Did I mention the announcements were so bad you couldn't understand them even if they had been in English?     

I tried not to fall asleep and miss my flight, entertained myself by taking photos of my shoes and ate my sandwich,  which was rubbish by the way.

After eventually boarding we had turbulence a lot of the way and I finished reading the series 'Emperor's Edge' on my kindle (good series by the way).

 I ended up befriending the lady in the aisle row next to me who was from Melbourne and decided to mother me. She was a welcome distraction from my neighbor who spent the entire time mumbling and singing to himself in Chinese. Awkward.

Upon landing I was greeted by a blast of warm air and a truly beautiful summers day in Rome. I would have enjoyed it more if the airport hadn't smashed both wheels off my suitcase in transit;  I had no idea it was so difficult to drag 20kg of shit across unsealed roads on a sweltering day. Never again! I then took a taxi to my accommodation but he dropped me at a different street with the same name.  After a brief panic I asked a lovely girl for help and ended up with a group of her friends all helping me out and pointing me in the right direction. In English too!! Sometimes strangers can be very kind.

The accommodation is nice though it feels like it might be in a slightly dodgy area, three locked doors though so good security. There are also cool chairs.

My flatmates-for lack of a better word-seem interesting, they are all from Yale or Michigan so I feel a bit out of my depth. Have to be up at 6am tomorrow to be at the dig site by half 7 I think, no idea what to expect so should be interesting. 

Its now half 8 at night and there's no hint of it getting dark (or cooler!) Yet. Will need to buy  a fan and alarm clock tomorrow. 

Probably should get some sleep now with the early start tomorrow. Lets hope things run more smoothly after that series of unfortunate events!

Did I mention the awesome view from the balcony?

Dalek Steve

My amazing friend Caity came up with this brilliant idea for me while i'm away.

There's this thing called Kermit on Tour (you may have heard of it) where basically you travel with your kermit frog and take photos of him wherever you go, for example in site of the Eiffel Tower, at the pyramids etc. Well, she gifted me my very own version, and I can't wait to take him off on adventures with me.

Meet Dalek Steve. The Exterminator.