Paris!

A quick update for Paris so far!

Our day of travel went off without a hitch, even though we only had a 30 minute layover in Vienna. Somehow both us and our bags made it! The most shocking thing was how green Vienna was – and Paris too. Its nice to see trees again!

For our first evening, we took a walk and then found a nice little restaurant. Then we called it a night since we were both exhausted.

Yesterday we took a giant walk and saw a lot of the sites. We walked through the Jardin des Tuileries and saw the big opera house. We also walked past the Musee de L'Armee and the Musee D'Orsay. We visited the Louvre and saw (amongst hundreds of other things) the Mona Lisa, Venus de Milo, Cupid and Psyche, and Hammurabi’s Code. That museum is HUGE – we tried to at least run through most of the exhibits but we left after nearly 3 hours only having “seen” 2/3 of the works. We also got lost (again) several times. And by several I really mean hundreds.

The Gardens

Outside the Louvre

You can JUST see the Mona Lisa in the background - there were SO MANY people!

We are now cultured and learned. Ha.

Afterwards we found a little restaurant for lunch. I had the best quiche EVER! So tasty! Afterwards we walked to the Eiffel Tower – bucket list item #3 completed! Then we managed to wrangle a free ride on a double decker bus over to Notre Dame, and then we grabbed coffee and walked home!

Yay! I have a tower growing out of my noggin!

All in all, Paris is beautiful – albeit expensive! Today we are going to see the catacombs and seeing some other sights. Very cool. 

Pompei!

Today Fern and I got off to an early start to meet up with our tour group at 7am for a packed day!

We set off at 7:30 and drove to Naples with a quick stop along the way for coffee. The rest stops in Italy are funny - you can't get your coffee to go! They just serve you your espresso or coffee or latte at the coffee bar in a mug and you drink it before you leave.

We drove through Naples. It is a pretty town, but doesn't seem like there is a ton to do. We saw most of the major sites and took a quick break on the shore to take some photos of the Admiral of Italy's castle - house (its a full out fortress where the Admiral lives while in office) with Mt Vesuvius looming in the background.

After that we stopped at a coral factory, where artists carve beautiful figures out of shells imported from the Bahamas. They range in size from tiny earrings to giant carved conch shells - the cheapest thing I saw in the factory was 35 euro, the most expensive over 150,000 euro!

We took a lunch break after the factory tour in new pompei town, and afterwards we took a 2.5 hour walking tour of the famous city ruins. It is in stunning condition - some of the frescoes are preserved in wonderful condition. We saw a bakery, bar, house, and shop (all of which had been slightly re-built in places). Overall Pompei held a total of 300,000 people at its height and covered 150 acres - and the archaeology team has currently only cleaned up 3/4 of the site!

After and amazing tour, we got back on the bus for the 3 hour trip back to Rome. After arriving, Fern and I found an amazing nook-in-the-wall restaurant with the best food EVER and then went for Gelato. All in all, awesome day.

Coliseum!

Yesterday we left Greece behind to continue our adventures in Italy. I must admit that I wasn't sad to leave. Overall, Athens was lovely. I was very sad when field school was over, but I am officially "Greece'd" out - ready for a change. Greek food gets kind of old after 6 weeks, and pasta and pizza and gelato are calling me!

Bye, Greece!

We arrived on time, caught the first train to Termini Rome station, and made our way up to our hotel, which is less than 2 blocks from the Coliseum.

After a shower and a snooze, we walked around to try to situate ourselves. Rome is difficult to navigate - I miss grid systems! We saw the Trevi fountain, and then wandered over to the Piazza Navone for dinner. They had the cathedral lit up and were playing opera, and so we nabbed a dinner table right next to the fountain so we could watch the show. Amazing.

Trevi Fountain!

After dinner we walked over to the Spanish steps, and then home.

This morning we toured the Coliseum, which was stunning. We joined a paid tour since lines were huge, and we ended up getting a wonderful and very knowledgeable guide. We spent nearly two hours in the building which was originally known as Amphitheater Flavius. Then we walked to Palatine hill and saw the ruins of Domitian's palace. We also got a chance to view the Roman Forum from the balcony on top of the hill.

Right before heading in...Yay!

Bucket list Item #2: Complete.

After that we decided a gelato break was in order, so we nabbed a bowl each (I got tiramisu, he got Pistachio) and then came back here for a nap because it is so darn hot today!

After a brief nap, we headed off to St. Peter's square and walked around the cathedral to see the biggest dome in the world. Talk about giant - you could almost get lost in there!

The square outside

That's a big dome...

Happy in Rome!

Afterwards we took a walk and ended up eating at a tiny pizza place with fabulous food. Then we headed back to Trevi fountain (my favorite, other than the Coliseum and Palatine hill) and then the Spanish Steps (Fern's favorite), and then home.

Bridge we walked over

Tomorrow we are headed off to Pompeii and Naples... should be fun!

Wait...what Island is this?

Last night we ended up opting out of the other archaeological sites and opted to people watch during dinner, while listening to the concert from afar. The full moon was beautiful, and we had a lovely evening.

Why yes, I am the luckiest girl in the world.

Today we decided to go on an adventure - off to the islands for a relaxing day. Well - it wasn't relaxing due to many small misadventures which ended up making a jam packed yet interesting journey. Today we travelled by FLYING DOLPHIN to the islands of Greece!

Cool eh?

We took a flying dolphin boat from the main port in athens to an island called Aegina. But - we missed our stop, and ended up on another island (Agistri) next door. After attempting to find an ATM to pay for a return ticket (all the ATMs were busted) we ended up going on a giant walking tour of Agistri before scrounging enough change to head back to Aegina via another flying dolphin. In Aegina, we went for a swim in the ocean, then had a nice lunch right next to the sea before headed back on the third flying dolphin home to the port. We couldn't find the metro at the port, so spent a while running in circles, before finally finding the green line, which then decided not to stop at the exit we needed. So, we got home much later than intended, and have decided that while Athens is pretty awesome, it is currently let down by its slobby inhabitants! We enjoyed our time here, but its time to move on. We are both ready for Rome!!!

We are Experts at getting lost.

(Eenie I poo) Acropoli!

Today was just awesome.

We got up late (9:30 ish) and had a quick breakfast at the hotel. Then we headed straight for the Acropolis! We bought a combo ticket so we could see a lot of the different monuments, but we started with the one I was most excited for.

Tickets in hand, and with me bouncing up and down, we headed up to see the Parthenon, Temple of Athena-Nike, and the other monuments currently being restored at the top of the Acropolis. On the way we got a chance to look at the amazing Theatre of Dionysus.

Bucket List Item #1: Check.

Afterwards, we stopped at a giant rocky outcrop that was used by a council to decide upon punishments for those who had committed crimes like murder and arson, which was neat. Then we walked to the Agora, explored for a few hours, and then went to the Acropolis museum.

On top of Areios Pagos

After the museum and lunch, we took a stroll over to the Temple of Zeus and Hadrian's Gate. Then back to the hotel for a power nap! This evening we are planning on going to Hadrian's library, the Roman Agora, the Keramikos, and then back to the Acropolis for a free full-moon concert thats happening tonight. We will squish dinner in there somewhere too!

The Journey Continues: Athens!

I left Astypalaia this morning with my bags stuffed full of goodies, hand-written boarding pass in hand, headed back to the mainland.

Can I just say how AMAZING it is to see a really familiar face at the airport? I found Fern almost instantly, and then we hopped on the express bus to syntagma square, and just 45 minutes later we had walked to our hotel and checked in. The room is small by Fern's standards, but its a palace to me! We have a SHOWER CURTAIN and running water where you can actually control the temperature. Awesome!

After a brief power nap (in Fern's world in was about 3am) we went for a walk through the square stopping for cheese pies and beers. Then we went for a 45 minute walk through the beautiful national gardens and stopped by parliament before headed back to home base and getting dressed for dinner.

For dinner we went to Strofi, a really classy restaurant in Plaka with a beautiful view of the Acropolis. We sat outside and had a lovely dinner and caught up. It really doesn't feel like field school happened - its a distant dream already - and it certainly doesn't feel like I haven't seen Fern in nearly 6 weeks!

After dinner we headed back to have an early night to prep for monument-a-palooza the next day. Sadly I cannot upload pictures from here because they take ten lightyears per pixel so Ill upload the bulk of them later.

National Gardens!

Good-Bye, Astypalaia!

On my last full day here, I feel that it is appropriate to record my "trip in review" on day 39 of 50 (78% of trip complete!!!).

I know I have said this a few times - but this trip has been awesome. And not just awesome in terms of school, but also in terms of how many neat people I have met and how many laughs we have all had. And so, in no particular order, my top 25 countdown of AWESOME ASTYPALAIA MOMENTS!

1. Beer shooting out of my nose, mouth, and eyes when Emily made me laugh during the final flip-cup battle with the supervisors
2. Watching the sun come up over the Aegean sea at 6AM with Emily and Gen
3. Simon refusing to acknowledge that my petrous portion was a petrous portion, and therefore forcing me to write a tag that said "Foramen surrounded by dirt. Likely Left. Could be bone. But not sure." (I left this on his desk which made him laugh for a few days)
4. Gen dumping a water bottle on my head after school, soaking me much to the delight of the onlookers, and much to the dismay of my then-soggy undies
5. Archipelago hot chocolate with baileys and spicy pepper corn chocolate cake dates
6. The feeling of success completing my first baby
7. The feeling of success and happiness completing my last baby and tallying all the burials I worked on while here
8. Late night swims & Chilling on the Beach
9. Swimming across a giant bay and back without stopping
10. Running 5 km without stopping (and running part of the way with goats)
11. Epic Mealtime Sunday morning breakfasts - Corn beef hash with Em, Gen, and Mel
12. Every insult Mel and I hurled at each other in the lab, which made me laugh and kept me on my toes, and inspired the Can-Am war
13. The Water-Bottle Wall of awesomeness
14. Exploring the submerged cave during the boat trip
15. Watching the sun set at the yacht club
16. Simon saying he was thrilled with the work I had done, and giving me an A+
17. Anna setting an "obstacle course" in the Katsalos room to slow me down during photography
18. The lab camera being accidentally set to "video" resulting in over 2 hours of footage of bone trays passing under the camera lens, then disappearing; also viewed were feet, and people saying "why is this camera acting so WEIRD!?" in the background
19. Creating an Astypalaia play list on iTunes with Em and Gen
20. Inventing the nicknames "Shreddie" "BAMM" "Hamily" and "Wink Ninja"
21. Seeing the little owl on the way up the hill, and Gen offering to voice the little own with a semi-demonic sounding vocals
22. Inventing the best school ever: Shreddie U
23. Being able to Skype home almost every day
24. Running into other peoples' labs to yell BACON STRIPS or LEEEEROY JENKINSSSSS!!!! and then leaving again
25. Writing Em a note every day to paste into her lab book

The End…

Today marked the end of the 2011 Astypalaia Bioarchaeology Field School.  We cleaned up the labs, stacked the chairs, inventoried the equipment, stored all of the finished boxes and locked up – quota for the year met – and now everyone is starting to leave.

The lab.... empty :-( My desk was the one on the lower right.

Goodbye, Workshop 1!

I finished my last box on Saturday afternoon, so spent all of Monday and Tuesday helping other students and the supervisors by screening other peoples’ fill, then cleaning bones, and then with photography. It was really sad packing my last baby into its box. Even though we met our quota for the year (I met 150% of my personal quota) I feel terrible knowing we are leaving with hundreds of babies sitting in soggy cardboard boxes waiting to be cleaned and catalogued.

Monday morning Em and I got up at 5 am to get pastries and watch the sun rise again. I filmed nearly the whole thing – I wish I could bottle up the sunrise here and take it home with me. Same with the stars at night. They are so bright here!

Last Morning Pastry Run

Breakfast Outside the Lab

Last night we had the dig party for the field school. Virginia’s restaurant delivered some souvlaki via boat to a very quiet beach 15 minutes from here, and we all swam, ate, and then played some flip-cup. Even the supervisors played which was really fun. My team won nearly every game, except for the round that the supervisors cheated and I laughed so hard that beer shot out of my nose (very painful!)

Flip Cup Spectators!

Gen, Mel, Em and I playing "Mouth-Off" on the beach

Afterwards a bunch of us watched some funny tv episodes back in our studio (yes: our rooms are called studios here which ALWAYS makes me think of Spongetta on America’s Got Talent; if you don’t know what I am talking about go google it!) and had some more beers and had a mini party. Hooray!

And now it’s the end. Some folks have already left, most leave on the ferry tomorrow morning at 4 am. I don’t leave until Friday, so I am planning on vegging out tomorrow at the beach and wishing it were day one all over again. Tonight we have our final farewell fancy dinner up at the restaurant in town.

I also received my final feedback today from Simon and Anna. They were thrilled with my work here, and gave me an A+ for my course work. I am so happy with their feedback. Pretty awesome that the "Teeth Dude" is happy with everything I have done!

Bye Bye, Lab. Thanks for an AMAZING field season.

I am excited for going on an epic adventure with Fern starting on Friday, but right now I am just plain sad that field school is over. Some of the people I have met here are really, really awesome, and it will be a shame not to see them for a while (although we are planning a field school reunion at one of the major conferences in the USA that most are planning on attending.)

I am sure tomorrow I will be excited to explore Athens – and then Rome, and then Paris!

Revenge for Canada!

We finally returned the prank on the Americans! After a planned delay to lull them into a false sense of security, the “Canadian Triad” (aka Em, Gen, and I) struck last night!!

For the last several days we have been stealing empty water bottles from the lab. We gathered over 50 of them, then constructed water bottle towers (7 bottles per tower, 7 towers) and borrowed a beer crate from the local grocery store.

Step 1: Dumpster Diving

Step 2: Count Bottles

Step 3: Build Towers

At 4:45AM, Gen, Em, and I snuck out of our room, armed with bottle towers. We then ran to the Americans’ room, and proceeded to fill their entire doorframe with bottles. We then taped the bottles into the doorframe so that they would fall in to the room when the door was opened. To top it off, we drew a large maple leaf on a piece of paper and stuck it to the inside of the water bottles. We plunked the beer crate at the bottom to support the water bottle towers.

Step 4: Get up in the Middle of the Night

Step 5: Construct Wall'o'Bottles

We did pretty well – we managed not to laugh too hard while taping the Americans in and we certainly didn’t wake them up which was good.

Success – a certain American was bonked on the head this morning at 6:00AM. If only we had seen her face! The water bottle prank is now somewhat legendary here, and all the supervisors had a good chuckle at Mel’s expense.

The Last Sunday

Today is our last Sunday on Astypalaia... its so sad! So we are trying to revisit lots of our favorite things today, including hot chocolate with baileys and waffles and baklava.

Anyway, yesterday we worked a 3/4 day in the lab to prep for the open house. We had screen-a-palooza outside with nearly 1/3 of the school outside sieving their soil looking for bones. This is proof we do actually work hard:

Us working hard

Sieving is funny apparently!

Yesterday was the last saturday afternoon walk home - usually we laugh the whole way due to sleep deprivation and excitement for our day off. We paused up at the top of the hill to take some photos of the port to document our last saturday walk home. The we stopped in at the bakery of awesomeness for some honey-pastry-phyllo-epic-raisin-deliciousness treats (I have no idea what they are ever called. I just point at things and say One, parakalo!!!)

Note the super intense photographer face in the background :-)

Yummo.

Last night was the open house up at the lab, which was fun. A good number of people showed up - around 50 - from the island as well as tourists. They walked through the lab and looked at our various stations, asking questions. Unfortunately my workstation was a bit boring yesterday, but it was still nice knowing people care about the work we are doing up in our little slice of heaven overlooking the Agean sea.

After the open house we went for pitas (amazing food!) and then beers at the cafe in the town square. Afterwards we migrated to Archipelago - our favorite place ever! for hot chocolate and spicy pepper corn chocolate cake. Ill try to take some photos of the cafe tonight as we are going back to show off how amazing it is there. Then we ended our evening at 2am after some beach-beers and after Emily went for a night swim.

Emily doing her happy-food dance

Gen is so excited she is flexing her arms and the veins in her neck are sticking out.... ha!

This morning Em, Gen and I went down into the harbor in Chora for breakfast. I had a delicious omelette with veggies and ham, Gen had bacon and eggs and Emily had this amazing waffle covered in greek yogurt, fruit, walnuts, and honey. Amazing.

Tomorrow is the last Monday. And then the last Tuesday. And then the last day, ever. Boo.

Canada versus USA & Running with Goats

As promised, I have a funny blog post for today. To summarize, there is a war (friendly of course) raging in the lab, and it can be summarized as Canada vs USA.

It all started the first weekend here, when I suggested we play a (friendly) game of flip cup. When deciding teams, Gen, Em, and I opted to stay together; we challenged Mel (my supervisor) to play us. She is American, and before we knew it the whole game had turned into Canada versus USA. This continued in the lab, with me poking fun at Mel and vice versa. Last Friday Mel challenged me to “face-up” (a preservation technique used on delicate cranial bones) in 8 minutes or under. I said I could do it in 7, and when I finished in under 6:30 I laughed and said “Take that, America!” The Americans have all rallied against we Canadians as a result.

For example, we were invited to a scary movie night with the Yankees via note that read “Be there or be square… EH?!” so we responded with something to the general effect of we would be there because Canadians weren’t scaredy cats and afraid to watch scary movies unlike the Americans. And so, the next morning, when we got up at 545, we opened the top door to this fine barricade constructed by the Yankees overnight:

A solid attempt by the Americans.

To plot our revenge, we Canadians got up before the crack of dawn (5:15-ish) to walk into Chora. On the way, we made a pit stop at our favorite AM bakery (we stop at a different one for breakfast pastries than we do for dinner)  and then we walked to the big concrete platform that is right on the very tip of the corner of our little bit of the island. From there, we have a 180 degree view over the ocean and its calm and quiet. From our perch, we watched the sun come up as we debated how to best dispatch of the Americans.

Post-Prank Regroup Noms.

Sunrise over Astypalaia

During lunch, as a temporary pseudo-rebuttal, we organized every plate of food into something which resembled something Canadian. For example, we arranged this plate of fruit into a maple leaf with “eh?!” written across the top. Now they have been lulled into a false sense of security, which buys us time for the epic prank we will pull on them Saturday night. Hoorah.

Lunch, Canada style. Kind of. We didn't have any back bacon or maple syrup.

After school, I went for another run (I went yesterday too!). The best part about my run was that I literally ran with a herd of goats on the road for about 5 minutes! I was running along, minding my own business and listening to my ipod, when I heard a clatter of hooves, baa-ing, and the ringing of the bells they wear around their necks. I looked back and realized that I was being followed by a giant herd of goats! I guess the farmer had just let them out of their day paddock and they were running back home, which just happened to be the way I was headed. Anyway, the herd ran with me for a minute or two before they sped past me and veered off to the right down to their stable thingy.

Later on down the road, I realized I had acquired a new running buddy: a little lizard was tearing up the pavement beside me, and kept ahead of me for a good ¼ mile or so before giving up and heading for the shade. Finally, on the homestretch, a few chickens tried to keep pace with me, but they couldn’t keep up and stopped after a 25 foot dash or so.

Tonight I am headed into Chora with Em and Gen for some hot chocolate (with Baileys of course). All of a sudden I am painfully aware of how little is left of this trip, and I feel like I should make the most of it (and ingest as many calories as possible, haha.)

5 days and field school is done. 7 days and Fern is here.

Where did the time go??

Sir, Your Motorcycle Does Not Make You Look Badass

I would like to dedicate a blog post to my new least favorite thing ever: the motorcycles of the islands, and the idiots that drive them. I apologize, I have been boring recently, however, I promise an epic post tomorrow. But first, I must address that which is making me bonkers.

One of the many offenders.

Dear all men between the ages of 16-25 on Astypalaia:

I hate you and your stupid, loud, irritating motorcycles. I can here you from the opposite side of the island. Kindly walk, as your island is 2 cm long, or take a car. Or the bus. Or use a regular bicycle. Anything but your stupid motorcycle.

First of all, as a general rule, you do not look "cool" if your motorcycle is the size of a child's plastic tricycle. And you don't get bonus points for making your glorified unicycle louder than a concord jet taking off. And you don't appear suave and daring for passing me with less than a 2 inch buffer zone. In addition, the smell your exhaust puts out is revolting and shockingly pungent for such tiny engines. Finally, it is so not cool to ride around on your little pocket rocket in a neon speedo. So there. Your efforts do not impress me. Neither do your jiggly, hot-pink spandex-clad rear ends.

If you continue to irritate the ever living snot out of me, I will start carrying a large, pointy stick. When you pass me, I will jam the stick into your front wheel, and gleefully watch you roll down the giant hill of doom.

Sincerely,

Hannah (& the rest of the Bioarch Field School).

........
I feel so much better now!

The Plague

A pinch and a punch for the first of the month for all you fabulous people!

So the Greek plague has hit field school and hit us hard. There is a fabulous little 48-72 hour bug going through the camp that results in migraines and upset stomachs. It has hit the rest of the island too – the greek archaeologist who works with us was telling us how everyone is sick or has been sick. This doesn’t even strike me as an over-exaggeration as everyone on this island does really know everyone else!

A few of us, myself included, started feeling a little rough on Saturday night at dinner. I went home early and passed on all the Saturday night festivities which really stank, but I am glad I did since by the time I got home I felt like I got hit in the head with a baseball bat. I felt weak on Sunday, and woke up this morning feeling lousy again. Needless to say, by the time morning break rolled around (8:30) there were 6 of us out for the day, all sent home due to what I am affectionately calling the Greek plague. That’s a pretty good chunk of us – 6 of 21 (4 students + 2 supervisors) that are down and out. Ideally I will only be out for today but you never know. I feel better than Saturday night but my head is too sore to focus and it just isn’t fair to work on the little babies when you can’t do a good job.

I actually overheard part of the supervisor’s Monday morning meeting (down the 2 that went home sick, of course) and they are concerned about everyone being run down due to the long hours we work combined with the wicked heat. I am hoping they consider giving us a half day off this week, especially since we are WAY ahead of our quota of boxes completed for the year. I really think we all need some extra down time after such hard work. Its frustrating – part of me wants to just work work work (after all that is what I came here to do) but I know if I do that this bug just wont go away and Ill be sick-ish like I am now for the next week. What a bummer.

I am so mad I am going to miss swimming and evening walks for the next few days too – but Emily will not let me do anything if I don’t feel 100% - so it looks like I will be laying low for a little bit.

Hopefully the next post will be a bit more interesting, and a little less whiney.