Travel. Digging. It's too hot to write.
Have booked a hostel room in Trastevere1 for the two nights/one day I'll be in Rome due to flight-and-Centro-schedule wonkiness. I believe this concludes my Heinous Travel Days scheduling. Eep.
Today it was 102F in the shade and over 115 in the sun when I finished work. Bear in mind that my work = using pickaxes to remove hard-packed dirt, hauling bushels of said dirt, and shaking large wooden sieves filled with said bushels. Also troweling and brushing off cool potsherds. We may actually hit the Layer of Destruction(tm) tomorrow at last. It may also be hotter tomorrow. When we finished afternoon pottery-washing (a once-a-week chore, more or less), we only had about fifteen minutes left for swimming, so we all jumped in with our dig clothes on, staff included. The ocean was pretty much body temperature. Also glorious.
If Teach For America and Mississippi Teacher Corps don't want me next year, and I don't have another job offer, I will at least have an invite to return to work here, apparently. One more good thing to hold on to.
Yesterday we had a site visit and class around dusk, just before dinner, where a student gave a presentation. Unfortunately, in the middle of it, one of the local shepherd-women started to call her flock home. She's in her 60s, bent, dressed all in black with a black veil, banging on a tin can and shrieking-- literally shrieking-- to drive the sheep. Also occasionally throwing rocks at them. It was a little distracting. (Side note: I'm going to miss sheep.)
Instead of panicking about returning to the states (rather ironically, after having such bad bouts of homesickness in Rome), I'm just going to panic about international baggage allowances.
I'll probably only check my email one more time before leaving Greece, so now's your chance to make postcard or tchotchke requests.
1: It /is/ a little more expensive than a room elsewhere in Rome would be. However: 1) Proximity to the Centro for the Heavy Bag Of Doom(tm) pickup. 2) The cheap hostels are near Termini in a neighborhood that makes me nervous. 3) All hostels in Rome are expensive. 4) It's in Trastevere, probably quiet because women-only, and will be a good spot to spend my last two nights in Europe. I can deal with paying a little extra.
Today it was 102F in the shade and over 115 in the sun when I finished work. Bear in mind that my work = using pickaxes to remove hard-packed dirt, hauling bushels of said dirt, and shaking large wooden sieves filled with said bushels. Also troweling and brushing off cool potsherds. We may actually hit the Layer of Destruction(tm) tomorrow at last. It may also be hotter tomorrow. When we finished afternoon pottery-washing (a once-a-week chore, more or less), we only had about fifteen minutes left for swimming, so we all jumped in with our dig clothes on, staff included. The ocean was pretty much body temperature. Also glorious.
If Teach For America and Mississippi Teacher Corps don't want me next year, and I don't have another job offer, I will at least have an invite to return to work here, apparently. One more good thing to hold on to.
Yesterday we had a site visit and class around dusk, just before dinner, where a student gave a presentation. Unfortunately, in the middle of it, one of the local shepherd-women started to call her flock home. She's in her 60s, bent, dressed all in black with a black veil, banging on a tin can and shrieking-- literally shrieking-- to drive the sheep. Also occasionally throwing rocks at them. It was a little distracting. (Side note: I'm going to miss sheep.)
Instead of panicking about returning to the states (rather ironically, after having such bad bouts of homesickness in Rome), I'm just going to panic about international baggage allowances.
I'll probably only check my email one more time before leaving Greece, so now's your chance to make postcard or tchotchke requests.
1: It /is/ a little more expensive than a room elsewhere in Rome would be. However: 1) Proximity to the Centro for the Heavy Bag Of Doom(tm) pickup. 2) The cheap hostels are near Termini in a neighborhood that makes me nervous. 3) All hostels in Rome are expensive. 4) It's in Trastevere, probably quiet because women-only, and will be a good spot to spend my last two nights in Europe. I can deal with paying a little extra.