(no subject)
6/25
Spent the entire day trying not to fall into cess pool. Am not amused. The trenches that we're de-backfilling at the moment are all trenches from my first year of digging, when I seem to remember a very frantic and crazed day of 'we need more volume!' and pg driving everyone nuts and half the students hungover from one last night of partying. We're now realizing that this was a very bad idea. See, this one trench had a flat stone that might have been a capstone, so we dug a 1x1 square pit that eventually went down about 2 meters (We just all have this great memory of A crouching in this pit with a bucket over his head hacking away at the clay and swearing the whole time). This was all well and good until we backfilled, put plastic on the bottom of that pit and then proceeded to fill it with branches underneath plastic bags of repatriated bulk pottery. Our trench spent most of the day trying to shovel wet pottery from half-decayed branches and about two feet of seriously rank water. Am soaked, disgusting and possibly now have typhoid or foot and mouth. Shoes may not be coming home with me. Good news is that debackfilling is going well and we should be able to open trenches by monday. Still not sure of weekend plans other than laundry and possibly a quick jaunt into Siena for some shopping.
6/27
In Siena using internet while waiting for local membership to communist party to go through. Once that does, I should be able to be online routinely between 5-7ish our time and will be able to use IM. Yay for modern communication! Am spending the day wandering around Siena with a few friends. Had delicious salmon pizza for lunch and thus negated the need to eat for the entire weekend. Also found what Scavi people call simply 'the chinese store' because the name is in Chinese and it's sort of the euro version of the dollar store. Bought a couple of rather amusing t-shirts for off site wearing as I'm realizing I didn't pack enough not on the hill clothes. Peeves, I also found you a little present :) I think we're planning on a gelato run later followed by a quick trip to the co-op for weekend and snack food supplies (translation: Prociutto, bread, crackers and nutella) .
We still have not finished debackfilling and probably won't until Tuesday. Sigh. I spent the entire afternoon on Friday lifting out the giant rocks from the mud pit while the 6'5" football player I was working with sat on the tarp and troweled at the caked dirt. This apparently caused much amusement amongst the staff. Thus far though, no drama and the kids are holding up well although a few of them are realizing that Tony actually meant the 'physical labor' part of the program and are wearing down a bit. They'll either settle into it by the next week or leave early, but most of them figure it out. Looks like my trench will probably open sometime next week--we have to finish de-backfilling, lay lines and survey and then set a datum point and a baseline to measure depths for special finds. Fun stuff.
Miss you all!
Spent the entire day trying not to fall into cess pool. Am not amused. The trenches that we're de-backfilling at the moment are all trenches from my first year of digging, when I seem to remember a very frantic and crazed day of 'we need more volume!' and pg driving everyone nuts and half the students hungover from one last night of partying. We're now realizing that this was a very bad idea. See, this one trench had a flat stone that might have been a capstone, so we dug a 1x1 square pit that eventually went down about 2 meters (We just all have this great memory of A crouching in this pit with a bucket over his head hacking away at the clay and swearing the whole time). This was all well and good until we backfilled, put plastic on the bottom of that pit and then proceeded to fill it with branches underneath plastic bags of repatriated bulk pottery. Our trench spent most of the day trying to shovel wet pottery from half-decayed branches and about two feet of seriously rank water. Am soaked, disgusting and possibly now have typhoid or foot and mouth. Shoes may not be coming home with me. Good news is that debackfilling is going well and we should be able to open trenches by monday. Still not sure of weekend plans other than laundry and possibly a quick jaunt into Siena for some shopping.
6/27
In Siena using internet while waiting for local membership to communist party to go through. Once that does, I should be able to be online routinely between 5-7ish our time and will be able to use IM. Yay for modern communication! Am spending the day wandering around Siena with a few friends. Had delicious salmon pizza for lunch and thus negated the need to eat for the entire weekend. Also found what Scavi people call simply 'the chinese store' because the name is in Chinese and it's sort of the euro version of the dollar store. Bought a couple of rather amusing t-shirts for off site wearing as I'm realizing I didn't pack enough not on the hill clothes. Peeves, I also found you a little present :) I think we're planning on a gelato run later followed by a quick trip to the co-op for weekend and snack food supplies (translation: Prociutto, bread, crackers and nutella) .
We still have not finished debackfilling and probably won't until Tuesday. Sigh. I spent the entire afternoon on Friday lifting out the giant rocks from the mud pit while the 6'5" football player I was working with sat on the tarp and troweled at the caked dirt. This apparently caused much amusement amongst the staff. Thus far though, no drama and the kids are holding up well although a few of them are realizing that Tony actually meant the 'physical labor' part of the program and are wearing down a bit. They'll either settle into it by the next week or leave early, but most of them figure it out. Looks like my trench will probably open sometime next week--we have to finish de-backfilling, lay lines and survey and then set a datum point and a baseline to measure depths for special finds. Fun stuff.
Miss you all!