Final Days

My palm has calluses from where the two ends of the trowel handle hit it when I’m baulk walling. So legit it hurts (literally).

Yesterday was the last day of real work at Scavi - Backfill day. First all the trenches had to get plastic laid in the bottom of them to show that they had been excavated in and just in case they need to be uncovered at any future point. Then the backfilling began.

First we filled in Taylor and Kelsey’s barren trench so we filled the whole thing up with the rocks and terracotta from the other trenches. As if backfill wasn’t depressing enough because we are undoing all the work we did in digging in the first place, but throwing the unwanted terracotta pieces that we were so ecstatic to pull out of the ground back into a hole to be covered in dirt was emotionally scarring.

After finishing Kelsey and Taylor’s trench we set up a bucket brigade to fill in Andi’s. we had a line of people handing buckets off from the dirt dump, down the line to where they were being thrown.

Freddy’s trench needed more people so I volunteered to go help them in their bucket line. I ended up at the end of the line throwing buckets into the trench. This was logistically difficult because we didn’t have enough people to have someone running empty buckets back to the people shovelling so we had to pass the empty buckets up the line while passing full (and extremely heavy) buckets back down. Once the trench was mostly full we started just taking buckets to the people shovelling and then taking them down by ourselves to even out the surface.

After Freddy’s trench was done there was only one left to be filled in the CB area so our group moved to CA to prepare to fill the last two trenches. We put bags of pottery to be repatriated into the first one which had a huge crevice to be filled then we added dirt on top before laying the plastic.

Filling trenches was more difficult here because the dirt dump was further away from the trenches so with less people our bucket brigade was rather thin. Some of us ended up having to run with the buckets to move them along. After the rest of the group finished in CB and we had more people working things went a lot more smoothly and we finished filling by 12:00 after an exhausting 5 hours.

Then we took everything down off the hill. All the trowels, picks, axes, shovels, stadia rods, tape measures, clippers, buckets string, nails, plastic, line levels, plumb bobs had to come down and be stored in the Mag for the winter. After all that was done we were given the afternoon off to relax and rest up for the student dinner. I took a nice hour long nap and then finished my final paper.

Once my paper was done I got ready for dinner and met everyone else out in front of the hotel for a social function that the commune set up for the members of the dig. It was a publicity event attended by a bunch of politicians we all awkwardly stood around and chatted but couldn’t really meet anyone because very few of us speak any Italian. We were all just impatiently waiting for dinner to begin.

After all the politicians left the group all got together by the pool to take a nice photo. Once that was all organized it was finally time to eat. We sat down and promptly started in on the wine. The evening was so fun we spent time joking with everyone and then Freddy sang his national anthem which was promptly followed by the anthems of anyone from anywhere else but America. Then after all the foreigners were finished there was a resounding chorus of the star spangled banner.

After dinner the real fun began, it was a sloppy night of champagne and grappa to the face.

Then this morning absolutely everyone at scavi woke up not feeling so hot. We at least got to sleep in until 7:30 this morning. We had a lovely breakfast of scrambelled eggs and fruit and then we began to dismantle and scrub every inch of the kitchen. We put on some dancing tunes and moved all the food off the shelves, giving the perishables to Sinora and packing up stuff that could be used for next year. We wiped all the shelves down and scrubbed the floor. All the leftover food and alcohol from the summer is laid on one table basically as a free for all for the weekend.

After that was finished we moved into cleaning the house and packing all our stuff up. I threw out a lot of socks – they were revolting mud stained and stiff. I also threw out my chucks, they had a good run, walked a lot of places.

We all spent the day hanging out being morose as people started leaving. It is so depressing watching our numbers dwindling, talking about someone and then getting sad as you realize that they aren’t here anymore. Most people who are still here are leaving tomorrow morning at the same time as me so it won’t be so hard to leave.

Florence tomorrow with Katia, then off home Sunday morning. (let’s hope I make it to heathrow in time for my flight!!)

blue baulk walls

today was an awesome last day of excavation on the hill.

we spent the morning throwing passes with the pickaxe and dropping the trench as far as possible. we were aiming to find sterile soil and have a pick pass which turned up no terracotta but our blue trench was just not a barren whore like the others and kept turning up large pieces of terracotta with every pass. we weren't finding as much as before and no firieze plaques, but it is still pretty strange that we have dug so deep and are still digging in clay.

Freddy is an awesome trench master, he doesn't talk a lot but he is super sweet. he spends most of his time laughing silently at our antics while he works on his trench book. the people in the trench this week are very excited to work and we fight over who gets to do the next pick pass. I think we let freddy have one today. and when we got James in our trench after his closed we begrudged sharing the pickaxe. Not only is he fun, he also gives us a break in the middle of the day and give us goldfish crackers.

Tony came by late in the day and told us that the blue color would be a result of the decay of organic matter. either human or animal waste or vegetable matter (I'm hoping vegetable matter since I don't want to have spent the last three days digging in poop). eww.

Since the main goal has been depth lately, neatness has sort of gone out the window. so the walls of the trench were very messy we spent the last hour and a half of the day with hand picks and trowels making sure the walls were all flat and at perfect right angles. My hand is super sore but the walls I worked on looks beautiful.

Tomrorow will consist of more cleaning up, taking closing photos and preparing to backfill the trenches. The very last day on the hill :C. Then there is a big dinner and celebration for everyone. I'm super sad about leaving, I've had such a good summer.

Flaaaaaaange

Yesterday was a good last Monday on the site. I’m in Fredrik’s trench this week which is nice, I don’t know him very well but I’m glad to get the chance to. I’m hoping he’ll sing for us – he has the most heavenly voice I have ever heard. When he sings anything - the Swedish national anthem, a church canto or the word ‘flange’ in the trench it is beautifully breathtaking.

The weather has changed again and it is once again 30-40 degrees during the day. It was weird to work in the heat again after the cold snap. I was exhausted and sweaty early in the day. And I’m back to drinking 3 or 4 litres of water in a day rather than barely 1.

Fred’s trench had a rock feature on one side and the other is bafflingly still clay. We’ve dug down about a meter and still haven’t hit sterile galestra soil. Even though trenches that are 2 meters away have hit sterile soil only 30cm down. We’ve been finding small and medium sized chunks of terracotta and some pottery so there is something going on in the trench but we’re not exactly sure what.

I spent a couple lovely hours drinking wine and chatting with Julian’s mother on Monday. I want to take Owen, Julian and his mom home in my pocket – I adore them all.

Today was a great day on the hill. Freddy’s trench is just as weird as before, we’re still pick axing through clay like soil and we’re over 2 metres below datum. But today I found my first special find! I found a fragment of a terracotta frieze plaque from an Etruscan building. It was pretty exciting especially since Fredrik thought that we weren’t going to find anything else in the trench. Then later in the day Luke found another frieze plaque fragment even deeper in the trench. So it is a pretty strange trench that we’re digging nobody really has any idea what it means.

I’m supposed to have Mag duty tomorrow but I’m going to try and find someone who will work in my place so I can go to help on the hill. I enjoy the Mag, but I’ve had 5 days more working there than anyone else because of my hives so I’d prefer to spend time on the hill especially now that we’re finding stuff in a trench that I’m in. Plus since it is the last week there is a lot to get done in a small amount of time so I’m sure they’ll take any help that they can get.

Yay! Freddy talked to Jason and just told me that I’m allowed to come up to the hill tomorrow and help after I finish my Mag duties. Loving him right now!

I need to go do some reading for the final paper we have to write this week. I want to get it finished tonight so I have time to hang out and party in the last couple days. Tomorrow there is a staff vs. students soccer game which is bound to be a lot of fun!

Amsterdam (finally)

so I went to Amsterdam on July 17th when we had a long weekend.

It was a rather spontaneous decision to go but I couldn’t be happier that I made it. I was sitting in the back yard and Patricia asked me if I wanted to go to Rome with her and a couple other people that weekend. I said sure and that we should make some plans after supper. After Patricia went inside Josh who had been doing his laundry beside me said – “Oh? You’re not going to Amsterdam this weekend.”

Wait what?

Since when was that an option?

Apparently Michael had been making plans to go and asked Josh if he wanted to come. And since a few of us had all gone to the beach together the previous weekend Josh assumed I was coming to Amsterdam too. (yes please)

So Katia and I decided that we needed in on that action. We came upon Handy, Andi, Josh and Michael all buying their tickets in the back yard (where the internet works) and asked to tag along.

So we set about making flight plans. With the terrible internet, it took about 3 hours and countless tries to actually get the flights booked but we eventually managed it and still had time to go watch the world cup finals.

It was supposed to be a group of 6 of us going but the Handy and Andi and Josh decided they would stay behind to work in the trenches at Aguttso so it was just Katia, Michael and I who ended up going - which made for a nice low-key weekend.

The trip getting there was a lot of fun. We took the bus to Siena (along with most of Scavi who were leaving Vescovado) on Friday afternoon since we got a half day to begin out long weekend. At the train station we got our tickets to Rome on a train that didn’t leave for a couple hours so we went across the street to stock up on snacks for the ride. We went for a well deserved espresso since we had gotten up at 5am yet again and had worked 4 hours on the hill. After a lunch of cheese and prosciutto sandwiches and bottles of champagne (drunk through a straw with that touch of class Katia and I love) we went to catch our train.

The ride to Chiusi was uneventful. We got off our train and found that the train we were switching to was late and we had an hours wait. So we decided it would be a good time to go pee. Tragically the bathroom at the train station was broken so we went into the town to find somewhere to go.

We found a little bar and figured we’d buy a drink and use the bathroom. We decided on shots for a joke since it was mid afternoon. The only mildly appealing alcohol visible was Captain Morgan’s White Rum (not the most delicious to shoot though)

Apparently “shot” didn’t translate well.

What we got was 4 ounces of rum in a tumbler.

Well, what else is a good scavi member to do but take it to the face.

And so we did. (I was the first to finish)

Then with a good afternoon buzz going we went to the train. The train was pretty empty so we sat in a cabin and were quite cosily seated. Then Michael made the discovery that you could scoot the chairs into each other to make beds! This was perfect since there were 3 of us and 6 chairs in a cabin.

What joy for our aching bodies.

So, reclining in style we spent the trip to Rome chatting and listening to the Tallest Man on Earth courtesy of Michael’s iPod.

Once we arrived at termini we went for a bathroom break and the lovely bathroom was well worth the euro it cost especially compared to the delightful urine stained bar bathroom at Chiusi.

We used the self service terminals to buy tickets to the airport. It took several tries to get my card to work in the machine but we figured that we’d have enough time to make the train that left in 2 minutes.

So we ran (horrifically reminiscent of my first experience of Termini)

I ran until I thought I was going to vomit (definitely regretting the rum ‘shots’) and we still missed the train. (not exactly a surprise)

We decided we’d just use the ticket we’d bought for the next train that came (which was actually the last train of the night)

I lay on the ground (gross I know) in exhaustion and left a nice sweat angel on the floor when I got up.

We made it to the airport around midnight and made our way to the terminal that we were supposed to check in. we found a couple benches on which to nap while we waited until 4:30 when we could check in for our flight.

If the uncomfortable benches and dirty terminal weren’t bad enough there were mosquitoes buzzing around (flies are everywhere in Italy) making it impossible to sleep (Michael even got a delightful bite on the face) Then a security guard came around to tell us the terminal was closing and we had to go to terminal four which was open all night.

The terminal was bigger and cleaner, but there were also no benches which could be laid on (all of them had armrests). So, we lay on the floor.

It was frigid. Usually we complain about the heat and the lack of air conditioning, but this was ridiculous, too much air conditioning and a granite floor do not make for a good night’s sleep.

We all slept fitfully waking up every 10 or 20 minutes hoping that we’d wake up and an hour would have passed only to be disappointed that a only a fraction of the longest 4 hours of our lives had passed. We changed into the warmest clothes we had and laid on other clothing but still weren’t comfortable.

At around 2am Katia and I went outside to sit on a bench and warm up. We strongly considered sleeping there but decided it was way to sketchy sleeping near the hobos outside the airport.

Once 4:30 finally arrived we checked in and went through to security. Michael and I got through with no trouble, but Katia had forgotten that she had her multi tool and a fork in her backpack from the dig. So she had to go back through security a second time and deal with an extremely surly security guard. She did finally make it through sans fork and multi-tool.

Basically as soon as we sat down on our flight we were asleep. And slept all the way to Schipol Airport.

One we landed and got into the airport we went to the tourist centre and bought a map, asked where to get train tickets and got directions to our hotel. Second on the agenda was coffee.

With Starbucks and Train tickets in hand we went to catch a ride to the city centre.

As soon as we got out of the train station we fell in love. The stark contrast to Italy was shocking - 25 degrees, beautiful architecture, winding canals - it was even raining a little.

Our first stop was for breakfast. Then we decided that instead of taking the streetcar we’d walk to our hotel so we could see some of the sights of the city. We winded through the streets marvelling at the tall skinny buildings all squashed together leaning at different angles, the canals lined with boats of all shapes and sizes and the most bikes I have ever seen in my life. (it was funny to get used to looking both ways before crossing the street then again to cross the bike lane)

The weather was heavenly. I wore my jeans and tights with my dresses and didn’t break a sweat once – quite a welcome change from Vescovado.

We were too early to check in when we got to our hotel so we left our backpacks in the baggage room and set out to explore again. we walked around being touristy and We stopped for coffee again (caffeine has basically kept me alive this summer) at check-in time we went back to our hotel, our room was tiny but very nice and the beds were ridiculously comfortable. The shower was huge. Especially compared to the miniscule ones we have in Vescovado where you can barely wash your hair without banging your elbows on the walls.

After freshening up we decided on more walking around and exploring.we found a little place to eat supper. The pasta with pesto and bacon I had was delicious as were the classic Amsterdam fries and mayo after supper Katia started to feel sick - probably having ingested something gluten contaminated. So she walked back to the hotel and left Michael and I to our own devices.

We walked along the canals and sat and dangled our feet off the edge and watched boats go by for a while.

Later in our wanderings we happened upon the red light district which seemed rather tame in daylight although there were several girls in their windows. We passed by children and elderly tourists on our walk through which was kind of odd.

Utterly exhausted by 10pm we went back to our hotel for along sleep.

We had planned to sleep in. but apparently our bodies were still on scavi time and we woke up at 8am ready to go. And thus began our lazy Sunday in Amsterdam.

As per usual, coffee came first. We walked to the park by the I Amsterdam sign and had the most incredible waffles and café lattes after breakfast we walked through the park and to the Van Gogh museum. We were surprised that the line went so fast, but then realized that it was because they let way too many people into the museum at once. There were people crowded around all the paintings but everyone moved along with some order so it was possible to see everything.

The paintings were awesome, everything was set out as a progression in time of Van Gogh’s life and his paintings were interspersed with those of his mentors and inspirations from each period. The florals are my favourites as well as the still lifes. His period of Japanese inspiration wasn’t particularly appealing at all.

After the museum we decided to go for lunch. We stopped at a tiny little sketchy pub with a super old lady working there. She seemed rather forgetful as she scribbled down our orders. Michael got his ham and cheese but not the water he ordered so we shared. My burger was super yummy so I was happy despite the sketchiness. But tragically Katia’s food seemed to again contain gluten and she began feeling sick a little while later while we were walking around and again ended up going back to the hotel to sleep.

We sort of did some shopping, but I didn’t end up buying anything except food. We stopped in little touristy shops and a couple antique stores. We found a store that sold American food and stocked up on Jif peanut butter – a commodity that Italy is seriously lacking in – there is peanut butter but it definitely isn’t the same as the north American stuff and I stopped into lush to get some toiletries to make my scavi experience less dirty. I bought pastries at a bakery which were delicious. The doughnut that Michael had was the softest baked good I ever had the pleasure of holding in my hand.

We did a lot of walking then spent time sitting around in the park resting our aching feet.

Michael and I had the most delicious pancakes ever they were smothered in pureed bananas and powdered sugar. We decided that we couldn’t leave Amsterdam without making a trip to the Red Light District at night so Michael and I hung around to pass time (It didn’t get dark until about 10pm) we went to another park and climbed a tree and listened to music.

We finally decided to mosey on over and stopped for fries on the way. They were the most ridiculously deep fried, mayonnaise smothered things I had ever eaten and they were unimaginably delicious.

Michael and I walked along every little alley way and perused the selection of ladies. It was rather amusing they would call thins out of the doorway like: “do you want to play a game.” And the men coming from the rooms doing walks of shame was pretty funny. Definitely an interesting experience.

We then made it back to our room to sleep before getting up at 5am to make it back to the airport for our flight home. We had some trouble at the airport because we had to check a bag to get our peanut butter and Katia’s hair conditioner home. But we made it back to Vescovado alive.

whining, winning, wine and titty kitties

The past week has been good fun and I’ve definitely learned a lot. We opened a new trench on Tuesday since the first one I was assigned to this week with Kelsey and Taylor ended up yielding nothing. We opened our trench in the section of the hill called ‘CB’ next to Andi’s trench which has pulled up lots of different things.

Monday was spent in ‘CA’ in a small trench that was opened the previous week in hopes of finding evidence of a forno where Etruscans would have smelted metals - but no luck. We dug until we hit sterile soil and Tony decided that it was time to close the trench and try somewhere new.

On Tuesday we cleaned up the work that had been done, straightening the baulk walls and evening out the bumps in the floor of the trench. We took final elevations in the morning then took closing photographs and moved ourselves across the hill over to the wasteland of CB.

First we had to lay out the trench. This involved clearing the area we were going to ding in of sticks and stones. This was made all the more difficult by the fact that the area had been forested over the spring and the entire ground was thick with tree branches, new trees trying to grow and thorny vines which entwined the branches on the ground.

I managed to cut and bruise myself a ridiculous amount of times by tripping over and whacking myself with branches. And my leg was dripping in blood when I got wrapped in a thorny vine.

Clearing is SO much fun.

Once that was finished we had to lay the points for the corners of the trench. The entire hill is on a grid so we had to make sure the 4mx4m we were laying out was perfectly square with the other trenches nearby. We triangulated the points of the four corners which pretty finicky – it involved 3 plumb bobs and 3 measuring tapes, several strings and some line levels. After measuring the points, screwing them up and fixing them again we had out trench strung in time for lunch.

During lunch it started to rain (the past week has had some super weird weather. We’ve been getting rain and thunder and lightning and it has been cold (well relatively – in the mid 20s) after eating it started to rain harder so we walked down to sit under an awning by the farmhouse which is on the hill to wait it out. After an hour it seemed to have cleared up so we went back to see what the trenches were like.

Playing in the muddy soil was messy but pretty fun and squishy. We found more terracotta that afternoon than we did the entire day in the previous trench. We worked to drop the trench down to the level of Andi’s trench which was finding things about 15-30cm down.

The second day in CB started with a walk/lecture by Tony since it was raining a little and we wanted to wait to see what the weather would do before starting the day. Since half the trench was hungover the morning was not exactly smooth. We were all tired and sore and grouchy and we started to get trench stir crazy early on. We laughed at nothing and everything and I ended up with my hair tied up in a ponytail on top of my head (which I sported the rest of the day)

In the afternoon Taylor and Kelsey invented a game to motivate us. First round whoever could fill the most buckets of dirt in the allotted time (while still practicing good archaeology) got a free beer. The second round they threw a pick pass across the entire trench and if we could get the entire trench cleaned up in 37 minutes then they’d buy the trench a 5L jug of wine.

We did it.

Archaeology and Alcohol seem to go together.

That evening we had a lovely dinner of Mexican food courtesy of Julian - Which he followed up with jell-o shots.

Delightful night

Then Grayson and Hannah came back from a walk with the most adorable tiny kitten. He was ridiculously cuddly too and I spent most of the evening with him sleeping between my boobs. we had to leave him outside at the end of the night since we couldn't bring him into the house. so we put him in a box with a blanket and some food and water before we went to bed.

Julian later told me that Gianluca - the grandson of the woman who owns the hotel is going to keep the kitty and bring it to his house. He named it grappa (Gianluca is the bartender at the hotel bar and Grappa is a really strong alcohol that he likes to encourage us to drink) I don't know how he ended up with the kitty at the end of the night but I am really glad he did.

Saturday I went into Siena for the morning with Alec. We did a bit of poking around but were too exhausted to really do too much. That night everyone was sitting outside the kitchen and we invented a new game and dubbed it “Pod Pass” we passed a few iPods around the circle and each person had to choose a song and add it to the on-the-go playlist, then we put the iPod on and everyone had to guess who had chosen each song. After the first playlist it just devolved into a silly dance party. It was lots of fun.

Today was a good lazy Sunday - a nice rest for the final haul and the last week in the trenches. I’m going to miss this place.