AROURA 2014 - Post 2

Today we finished the forms for the batch of artifacts we were working on, and we started labeling artifact bags from the 2010 and 2012 seasons. The work is not too exciting but I like it. I think I like helping Wes with the photography best, but we didn’t have access to an outlet today so we didn’t do any.

Yesterday we went to the lake on our way back from Thiva and went swimming to cool off. It was warmer water than on the beach, and the rocky shore was much less friendly to our feet than the sand had been. Still, it was refreshing. It’s been very windy lately and the lake was rough. From the water we could see a wildfire burning on a nearby mountainside. There’d been another on Gla a few days before we arrived. The one we saw yesterday seemed to still be burning this afternoon.

Last night we were invited out by Dinos, a resident of nearby Kastro. We met up with him and his family in a taverna in Kastro and then moved on to a restaurant where we were fed souvlaki in the courtyard of a church across the street. Dinos insisted on refilling our wine glasses whenever they were less than half full, and consequently we all consumed quite a lot of it and stayed well into the night. The food and company were great, though, and we all made it through the morning with minimal difficulties, once we all woke up. This afternoon will mean naps for most of us, and Wes will be leaving shortly for a solo adventure overnight.

It’s another hellishly hot day, but the winds finally brought us some clouds and the temperature has lowered enough to be almost bearable. Right now, at 4pm, it’s almost 87 F.

Tomorrow I’m going with Molly and Cara to Athens. We have heard that on full moon nights, you can get onto the acropolis for free and enjoy it in the moonlight, so we really want to try it. I’m sure we will have a great time no matter what. I think Cara will be doing some work with Michael in the morning, but we should have plenty of time to enjoy the city.

Sorry I still don’t have any photos. I’ve been making an effort to stop living my life from behind a camera lens – it’s more important to me that I experience these moments than that I capture them. Still, I will be taking photos in Athens tomorrow, I am sure.

First Few Days in Greece

I spent a few days in Lisbon early this month, then flew to Athens on July 7. At the airport, I met up with Wes, who is staff on AROURA. We drove together to Kastro, a village near where we are staying. Wes is friends with a local man named Dino and his whole family, who invited us to share their dinner. They had a Cretan salad, french fries, and barbecued wild boar. It was amazing and the perfect start to our time here in Greece. We finally left their house after midnight and made our way to Κóκκινο (Kókkino), where the field house is. We met up with the project leader there, and settled in for a night of too little sleep.

At 6:30am on July 8, we got up and ready then headed to Θήβα (Thíva - better known to Americans as Thebes), where we have a little work space in which we store the artifact collection. We started cataloging the collection in great detail, and we've been working on that for two days now. The work day ends around 2:30, after which we get lunch and take siesta. Later on we may work in the evenings but for now we have just relaxed until dinner time, followed by bedtime.

Today the temperature was about 100.4°F, so after siesta we drove out to the shore and found a beach that Michael knew. We went swimming in the Mediterranean Sea there, which was delightfully cool and definitely worth the 45 minute trip.

I don't have any photos to share because I've been too busy enjoying myself to drag out my camera. I mostly wanted to let everyone know that I made it here and that our work is underway. It's the start of another great season at AROURA.

My Return to Greece

It's been a long time in the making and it hasn't gone exactly according to plan, but in exactly two weeks, I am going back to Europe! After a few days in Lisbon, I will be meeting up with the AROURA team once more, this time as a field school supervisor.

I was first asked about it back in November and now, three bosses later, I am somehow still allowed to take five weeks off from work to go! It makes me feel incredibly lucky but also quite anxious to be taking so much time off.

It will be an amazing challenge to spend a month working in Greece again, and I am beyond excited to go. Still, my nerves are starting to kick in now that I have to start packing. It's scary to be taking so much time off from my life. I think a lot of it is based off my bad memories of the last time I tried to spend a month away from home and came home in tears after three weeks... but that was a different place and a different project and a very different set of people. I know I will have a blast with the AROURA team and I think that will help the homesickness a lot. I have done this several times before, after all. It's just been five years since my last successful month abroad (!!!) and I will miss everyone back home.

However, I am looking forward to the adventure of a new season in Greece, and all that comes with the package. I will do my best to keep my journal going while I am there.

Preparing for a Busy Summer

As you probably know, I'm a graduate student in anthropology at Monmouth University right now. In a week, I will leave for the island of Nevis to participate in an MU field school. I've done all my shopping (I always seem to lose my field gear between excavations) and all I have left to do now is finish up the past semester's projects and pack. I've been trying to exercise every day so my body doesn't rebel against me when it comes time to start digging, but it probably will anyway. The past few weeks have been busy and I'm looking forward to getting away from it all and spending a month in warm weather.

After I arrive in Nevis on May 9, I will be periodically updating this journal, or possibly the one I share with my classmates over at The Inaugural Fishbowl. I'll be there from May 9 to June 11, so check back in that time frame to hear about the project.

Shortly after my return from Nevis, I'll be down in Baltimore helping out The Society for the Preservation of Federal Hill and Fells Point during the War of 1812 bicentennial celebration. Depending on what happens, I may write about it a little.

Later in the summer, I'll be working with one of my professors at the MU undergraduate field school in Navesink, NJ. That will run from July 7 through August 6 and will probably warrant a few posts, too.

So stay tuned, it'll be a busy summer for both me and this blog!

Day Four in Greece

The past few days have been crazy! We did finally get an internet connection in the house, so I am able to write on this blog at last.

My flight from Amsterdam to Athens was all right. There was a lot of turbulence. The Greek couple next to me tried very hard to talk to me despite the fact that they knew no English and I know no modern Greek. The sky was beautiful.

We even got to see a beautiful sunset not long before landing.

On the 7th we started fieldwork, which I can't say much about. Really, it's not that complicated. It's just a surface collection. We have a lot of artifacts, though, and the work is going pretty quickly. We are between 1/2 and 1/3 of the way through the area we have to survey. We should be finished in another couple of days.

It is hard work but I am doing better than I expected to. My legs were killing me the first few days, and I've been taking painkillers. But today I felt great. I am a bit sore now but generally I think I am getting stronger.

I've learned how to do flotation, which is a method of gathering the contents of a soil sample, such as stones, shell, and seeds. We got to see another amazing sunset out at a farm doing flotation.

I don't really have any photos to share of the work - we don't want people to know where we are and try to loot the place. I can't imagine anything they'd find would be very valuable, but you never know what people are thinking, I guess.

Even though I am enjoying myself, I will be happy to get home, sleep in my own bed without my face feeding mosquitoes all night, and take a bath without flooding the bathroom. Oh, and do laundry. I miss clean clothes. I miss being clean in general. It's impossible to do fieldwork and stay clean. Even if I was able to bathe properly and do laundry every night, I'd just get filthy again the next day.

But mostly, I'd really like the mosquitoes to leave me alone. I mean, look what they've already done to my face:

And I have to wear earplugs at night so that they don't wake me up in the process of doing this to me. At least most of it doesn't itch.

Oh well. It is a very exciting project and I really am happy to be here. But I will also be happy to return to the comforts of home.

Amsterdam

My flight from Newark to Amsterdam went smoothly. Actually it was a much better experience than I've ever had at Newark before. Terminal B was pretty empty. Security took all of ten minutes and I got to get dinner and relax at the gate for just the right amount of time before boarding. It didn't take forever to get off the ground. We landed right on time. Got to see a beautiful sunrise.

I got really confused in the Amsterdam airport and it was frustrating at first. But I've been here six hours now and it's a pretty nice airport, though it could use more seating! I've finally gotten my boarding pass and I am sitting here at the gate looking at the airplane that will take me to Athens. They have just started loading it up with luggage. I discovered that in Amsterdam they occasionally put hats on smoothies as part of a fundraiser:

Also most everyone is strangely nice for airport employees. They ask me where I'm going, how long I've been waiting, are surprised and sympathetic to hear "six hours," and give me advice on where to find comfy chairs. 

I had a six-hour layover in Rome once that was the absolute worst experience. I was seriously sleep deprived and couldn't buy anything to eat or read because all the stores were through passport control. The problem there is that I couldn't go through without a boarding pass and I couldn't check in to my flight until an hour before it left. So sixteen-year-old me got to sprawl out alone on a dirty airport floor and wait five hours for them to let me check into my flight and go through security. It was awful.

This was much MUCH better. It didn't feel endless at all. I can't wait to get out of here, of course, but it was a pretty enjoyable layover, as layovers go. I should be in Athens in about 3-4 hours, if I'm doing my math right. I hope this flight goes as smoothly as the first and the rest of this trip follows that example!

AROURA

I have been interested in the AROURA project for quite a while now. At UMBC I listened to Michael Lane plan this project and then heard about the results from the first season last year. I considered joining him out there this fall but opted to enroll in graduate school instead. Due to some complications, it has turned out that he needs another person out there for the last couple of weeks and he asked me if I was available.

It took a little juggling but as I am only in one class right now, it was easier than I expected to find the time. My class is on Thursdays so I will be leaving on a Saturday (arriving in Athens on Sunday) and coming back two Thursdays later. I will miss only one day of class unless jet lag keeps me from going on the night of November 17.

I don't know how much internet access I will have in Greece, but I wanted to open up this blog while at home so that if I can use it, I don't have to set it up from there.

I hope everything goes well. I'm not certain yet what exactly I will be doing out there but I am excited to go. It's all so sudden - I bought my plane ticket less than two weeks before my departure date! Now it's time to pack like mad and hope I can find everything I need to bring with me!!