The day has finally come - I'm heading home.
I leave Cairo this afternoon heading for Singapore and then tomorrow morning I start the final leg of my journey back home.
I'm so excited!
In some ways it feels like I've been gone forever, in other ways it feels like I've been gone only a short time.
Either way, it's exciting to be heading home.
Next time I post I should be home.
Toodles for now.
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Egypt
This update will be unbelievably short as I don't have a lot of time on the internet.
I am indeed in Egypt. Arrived on the 2nd and started a tour straight away.
The tour is absolutely exhausting, we're either doing absolutely nothing or absolutely everything. There is no middle ground.
We started in Cairo and then caught a train to Aswan (15 hour train ride was interesting). We drove to Abu Simbel (left Aswan at 3am) and then spent 3 nights on a Felucca. That was definitely an experience. There are no toilets on the Felucca and where you stop at night there are no toilets either. It's a little easier being on a felucca when you're a guy. After the Felucca we went to Luxor and visited the Valley of the Kings.
I'm in Hurghada at the moment, which is on the Red Sea. Hopefully we will have a few days to relax. On Saturday we drive back to Cairo and then I have 4 nights until I fly home.
I'm kinda 50-50 about Egypt at the moment. I have had some amazing experiences here and some truly dreadful experiences as well.
Not one of our group of 10 has escaped the dreaded Egyptian Belly! Definitely not fun when you're moving around so much.
Ok, will try to update more over the next couple of days.
I am indeed in Egypt. Arrived on the 2nd and started a tour straight away.
The tour is absolutely exhausting, we're either doing absolutely nothing or absolutely everything. There is no middle ground.
We started in Cairo and then caught a train to Aswan (15 hour train ride was interesting). We drove to Abu Simbel (left Aswan at 3am) and then spent 3 nights on a Felucca. That was definitely an experience. There are no toilets on the Felucca and where you stop at night there are no toilets either. It's a little easier being on a felucca when you're a guy. After the Felucca we went to Luxor and visited the Valley of the Kings.
I'm in Hurghada at the moment, which is on the Red Sea. Hopefully we will have a few days to relax. On Saturday we drive back to Cairo and then I have 4 nights until I fly home.
I'm kinda 50-50 about Egypt at the moment. I have had some amazing experiences here and some truly dreadful experiences as well.
Not one of our group of 10 has escaped the dreaded Egyptian Belly! Definitely not fun when you're moving around so much.
Ok, will try to update more over the next couple of days.
Monday, October 20, 2008
The New Acropolis Museum
The New Acropolis Museum was due to open this year, but it's behind schedule and won't open until around March next year. The Museum is designed to replace the small museum next to the Parthenon on top of the Acropolis.
Although it isn't officially open yet, some parts have been opened to the public to gain an idea of what the finished museum will look like. There is only one exhibition space open at present and the material contained within that exhibition has come from collections all over the world. The exhibit has been set up to illustrate the amount of ancient artefacts that have been stolen from Greece over the last couple of hundred years and repatriated. It was an interesting collection and intriguing to see where most of the artefacts have been repatriated from.
Beneath the museum is an archaeological site. There was no information explaining what we were looking at, but hopefully by the time the museum is completed it will be there. Although there was no information it was extremely interesting and a huge site. It has been done really well because it can be viewedfrom many different angles by the public. From outside of the museum they have left the site uncovered so you can see it clearly or have created areas of glass that you can walk on directly over the site. They have continued this glass floor inside the museum. It's really impressive and I think it has been done well.
After I'd wandered around the museum I gave Mum a call to tell her what I'd just seen. While we were chatting she told me about a program she had watched on tv regarding the New Acropolis Museum. The program was particularly focussed on 2 buildings in front of the museum. These buildings are 2 heritage listed Art Deco apartment blocks. The apartments are positioned between the museum and the Acropolis. However they do not block much of the view of the Acropolis and the museum was designed and constructed so these buildings would not impact the view of the Acropolis.
Mum was telling me that the director of the New Acropolis Museum wants to have these 2 apartment blocks pulled down! What's worse is that the government has approved the demolition of these buildings!
It's an absolute outrage!
I found these 2 apartment blocks and they are absolutely amazing. They are some of the most gorgeous Art Deco buildings I've ever seen and the best example of Art Deco architecture in Greece.
On the front of the buildings was information regarding the demolition that is due to happen and a petition for people to sign to try to stop it from happening.
What was very interesting is that the apartment blocks were given heritage listing which of course would protect them from this sort of thing happening. However, in 2007, the Ministry of Culture decided to revoke the heritage listing which would of course allow the buildings to be pulled down! The point of heritage listing is to protect buildings from this sort of thing happening. If it can be revoked whenever the government deems it financially viable what's the point of having heritage listing in the first place!?!
I think this really explains a lot about the mentality in Greece regarding their cultural heritage - unless something is several thousand years old and can make money from tourism, it isn't deemed culturally and historically important.
Greece is trying to prove to the world that they have progressed into the modern age and have the capability to look after the Parthenon friezes (better known as Elgin's Marbles and are currently housed in the British Museum). However this sort of act, pulling down of something that is historically important to Athens, proves that they don't fully understand or appreciate their cultural heritage and they are merely doing all of this for the money that comes from the tourists flocking to the city.
I'm sorry for getting preachy, but I just couldn't help myself. It really irritates me when people assume that just because something is less than 100 years old it can't be a part of history. Every single day affects the historical record. In 100 years the new buildings of today will be considered monuments of the past.
Although it isn't officially open yet, some parts have been opened to the public to gain an idea of what the finished museum will look like. There is only one exhibition space open at present and the material contained within that exhibition has come from collections all over the world. The exhibit has been set up to illustrate the amount of ancient artefacts that have been stolen from Greece over the last couple of hundred years and repatriated. It was an interesting collection and intriguing to see where most of the artefacts have been repatriated from.
Beneath the museum is an archaeological site. There was no information explaining what we were looking at, but hopefully by the time the museum is completed it will be there. Although there was no information it was extremely interesting and a huge site. It has been done really well because it can be viewedfrom many different angles by the public. From outside of the museum they have left the site uncovered so you can see it clearly or have created areas of glass that you can walk on directly over the site. They have continued this glass floor inside the museum. It's really impressive and I think it has been done well.
After I'd wandered around the museum I gave Mum a call to tell her what I'd just seen. While we were chatting she told me about a program she had watched on tv regarding the New Acropolis Museum. The program was particularly focussed on 2 buildings in front of the museum. These buildings are 2 heritage listed Art Deco apartment blocks. The apartments are positioned between the museum and the Acropolis. However they do not block much of the view of the Acropolis and the museum was designed and constructed so these buildings would not impact the view of the Acropolis.
Mum was telling me that the director of the New Acropolis Museum wants to have these 2 apartment blocks pulled down! What's worse is that the government has approved the demolition of these buildings!
It's an absolute outrage!
I found these 2 apartment blocks and they are absolutely amazing. They are some of the most gorgeous Art Deco buildings I've ever seen and the best example of Art Deco architecture in Greece.
On the front of the buildings was information regarding the demolition that is due to happen and a petition for people to sign to try to stop it from happening.
What was very interesting is that the apartment blocks were given heritage listing which of course would protect them from this sort of thing happening. However, in 2007, the Ministry of Culture decided to revoke the heritage listing which would of course allow the buildings to be pulled down! The point of heritage listing is to protect buildings from this sort of thing happening. If it can be revoked whenever the government deems it financially viable what's the point of having heritage listing in the first place!?!
I think this really explains a lot about the mentality in Greece regarding their cultural heritage - unless something is several thousand years old and can make money from tourism, it isn't deemed culturally and historically important.
Greece is trying to prove to the world that they have progressed into the modern age and have the capability to look after the Parthenon friezes (better known as Elgin's Marbles and are currently housed in the British Museum). However this sort of act, pulling down of something that is historically important to Athens, proves that they don't fully understand or appreciate their cultural heritage and they are merely doing all of this for the money that comes from the tourists flocking to the city.
I'm sorry for getting preachy, but I just couldn't help myself. It really irritates me when people assume that just because something is less than 100 years old it can't be a part of history. Every single day affects the historical record. In 100 years the new buildings of today will be considered monuments of the past.
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Update ahoy!
Ok, I know it's been a while. Please don't hurt me!
This is only a very quick update to let everyone know what I've been doing.
~~~~
The first thing I'd like to say is thank you so much to everyone who left me messages and sent me emails commiserating about my camera. It really helped when I was feeling depressed and pissed off.
~~~~
Ok, when I left off I was in Dublin. I spent 10 days there, where it rained nearly every day. I'm talking torrential rain with plenty of flooding. Unfortunately because of that I didn't get to see as much as I would have liked.
After Dublin I stayed with my friend Rebecca in London (we went to uni together and spent many hours talking in HSS library when I was working there on weekends and she was doing research for her honours paper). She was lovely enough to put me up for 2 nights and we had a great time just chatting and catching up on each other's digs. We went out for the most amazing meal on my last night in London. Rebecca found this place called the Hoxton Apprentice (if I'm remembering correctly. I've got it written down somewhere but am feeling too lazy to check). The restaurant was started by a woman named Prue Leith, who is one of the judges on Great British Menu. Her idea for the restaurant was to take people who were down and out and train them to be chefs in this restaurant. The food and the service were amazing and it was one of the best meals I'd had since leaving Perth. I had steak!!!! It nearly broke the bank, but it was steak!
I left Rebecca's place on the 20th August and headed to Faversham, Kent for my second dig. Long story short, it started out extremely badly. I was going to be digging for 2 weeks, but ended up deciding to only dig for one week. I promise I'll explain more later. I did spend the second week seeing some of the local area and I went up to London for a day.
Then my lovely Mum arrived for 2 weeks. She flew into London on the 8th Sept very early in the morning. I met her at Heathrow airport and then that afternoon we flew to Marseille. Poor Mum spent over a day on planes!
Mum and I spent the next week doing the express tour of France - 1 night in Marseille, 1 night in Nimes (visited the Pont du Gard), 2 nights in Dijon, 1 night in Strasbourg, 1 night in Reims (which is actually pronounced 'Rance' - don't ask! Quite a forgettable city) and then 1 night in the ever wonderful Paris. From Paris we flew to Reykjavik, Iceland.
Iceland was definitely an experience! The weather was really cold because of Hurricane Ike that had gone through the US. Once it had downgraded into a storm system it headed up towards the arctic, got very cold and swung around to hit Iceland. But we didn't let it stop us, we just donned several more layers of clothing and continued on.
In Iceland we did a tour called the Golden Circle, which takes you past a couple of waterfalls and a series of Geysers which were very impressive. We also went to the Blue Lagoon, which is an amazing day spa with a huge outdoor pool area. The water is the most amazing bright, milky blue colour. It was such a bizarre experience. We spent quite a while just floating around with Silica mud on our faces.
We had also planned to do a whale watching tour but it was cancelled because of the weather!
I had to leave Mum and Reykjavik behind on the 19th September to fly to my last dig on the Island of Menorca. Having to leave Mum in Reykjavik made me extremely homesick! I couldn't fly direct - surprisingly not many people want to fly straight from Reykjavik to Menorca. Who would have thought it!? :D I had to spend about 10 hours in London and transfer from Heathrow to Luton airport. And then of course you all know what happened with the airport and my camera, so I won't rehash that.
The dig on Menorca was fantastic. It was only a very small group of us excavating, 6 in fact. Everyone was lovely and we had a great time digging and getting to know one another. We had a great apartment right in the centre of Ciutadella (one of the towns on the island) with our own cook! We didn't have to cook, clean or do our own clothes washing. It was pure luxury! I felt so spoilt.
I had a couple of days on Menorca after the dig had finished before I could fly to Athens. I spent the time sight seeing around the island with a couple of the people from the dig.
I should mention that my computer also chose to die on Menorca. It decided to give me the ever lovely Microsoft 'Blue Screen of Death'. I'm hoping that it's not too bad and I can get it fixed when I get home. Until then I'm carrying around an extremely heavy brick! I'm not having much lucky with technology at the moment.
I left Menorca on 11th October and had to fly to London Gatwick. It turned out to be so much cheaper to fly to Athens via London than if I'd gone directly. Unfortunately it also meant that I had seven hours in Gatwick airport. I found myself a nice comfy-ish spot on the floor and settled in for the wait. It wasn't too bad and I feel like a true backpacker now.
I arrived in Athens the afternoon of the 12th. I pretty much just slept away the rest of the afternoon. I did manage a very quick look at the Acropolis from afar. I headed out first thing on the morning of the 13th on a 5 day tour of Greece. On the 13th we visited Epidaurus and then I spent the night in Nauplion (which is gorgeous), and then on the 14th we visited Myceanae which was amazing. Then today, the 15th and my birthday, we visited Olympia. Olympia is phenomenal. I can't believe how much has survived untouched. Tomorrow we will be seeing the site at Delphi and then the following day visiting the monasteries at Meteora. Then I'm heading back to Athens for 6 nights before I fly to Turkey. I think I may spend my first day back in Athens just sleeping. I haven't stopped moving in a long time.
Anyway, that's it for now. I promise I'll update again soon and I will expand on what I've just posted with more detailed info. And I haven't forgotten about Rome. It was just such a huge experience that I need time to sit down and write, write, write.
Toodles for now.
Casey.
This is only a very quick update to let everyone know what I've been doing.
~~~~
The first thing I'd like to say is thank you so much to everyone who left me messages and sent me emails commiserating about my camera. It really helped when I was feeling depressed and pissed off.
~~~~
Ok, when I left off I was in Dublin. I spent 10 days there, where it rained nearly every day. I'm talking torrential rain with plenty of flooding. Unfortunately because of that I didn't get to see as much as I would have liked.
After Dublin I stayed with my friend Rebecca in London (we went to uni together and spent many hours talking in HSS library when I was working there on weekends and she was doing research for her honours paper). She was lovely enough to put me up for 2 nights and we had a great time just chatting and catching up on each other's digs. We went out for the most amazing meal on my last night in London. Rebecca found this place called the Hoxton Apprentice (if I'm remembering correctly. I've got it written down somewhere but am feeling too lazy to check). The restaurant was started by a woman named Prue Leith, who is one of the judges on Great British Menu. Her idea for the restaurant was to take people who were down and out and train them to be chefs in this restaurant. The food and the service were amazing and it was one of the best meals I'd had since leaving Perth. I had steak!!!! It nearly broke the bank, but it was steak!
I left Rebecca's place on the 20th August and headed to Faversham, Kent for my second dig. Long story short, it started out extremely badly. I was going to be digging for 2 weeks, but ended up deciding to only dig for one week. I promise I'll explain more later. I did spend the second week seeing some of the local area and I went up to London for a day.
Then my lovely Mum arrived for 2 weeks. She flew into London on the 8th Sept very early in the morning. I met her at Heathrow airport and then that afternoon we flew to Marseille. Poor Mum spent over a day on planes!
Mum and I spent the next week doing the express tour of France - 1 night in Marseille, 1 night in Nimes (visited the Pont du Gard), 2 nights in Dijon, 1 night in Strasbourg, 1 night in Reims (which is actually pronounced 'Rance' - don't ask! Quite a forgettable city) and then 1 night in the ever wonderful Paris. From Paris we flew to Reykjavik, Iceland.
Iceland was definitely an experience! The weather was really cold because of Hurricane Ike that had gone through the US. Once it had downgraded into a storm system it headed up towards the arctic, got very cold and swung around to hit Iceland. But we didn't let it stop us, we just donned several more layers of clothing and continued on.
In Iceland we did a tour called the Golden Circle, which takes you past a couple of waterfalls and a series of Geysers which were very impressive. We also went to the Blue Lagoon, which is an amazing day spa with a huge outdoor pool area. The water is the most amazing bright, milky blue colour. It was such a bizarre experience. We spent quite a while just floating around with Silica mud on our faces.
We had also planned to do a whale watching tour but it was cancelled because of the weather!
I had to leave Mum and Reykjavik behind on the 19th September to fly to my last dig on the Island of Menorca. Having to leave Mum in Reykjavik made me extremely homesick! I couldn't fly direct - surprisingly not many people want to fly straight from Reykjavik to Menorca. Who would have thought it!? :D I had to spend about 10 hours in London and transfer from Heathrow to Luton airport. And then of course you all know what happened with the airport and my camera, so I won't rehash that.
The dig on Menorca was fantastic. It was only a very small group of us excavating, 6 in fact. Everyone was lovely and we had a great time digging and getting to know one another. We had a great apartment right in the centre of Ciutadella (one of the towns on the island) with our own cook! We didn't have to cook, clean or do our own clothes washing. It was pure luxury! I felt so spoilt.
I had a couple of days on Menorca after the dig had finished before I could fly to Athens. I spent the time sight seeing around the island with a couple of the people from the dig.
I should mention that my computer also chose to die on Menorca. It decided to give me the ever lovely Microsoft 'Blue Screen of Death'. I'm hoping that it's not too bad and I can get it fixed when I get home. Until then I'm carrying around an extremely heavy brick! I'm not having much lucky with technology at the moment.
I left Menorca on 11th October and had to fly to London Gatwick. It turned out to be so much cheaper to fly to Athens via London than if I'd gone directly. Unfortunately it also meant that I had seven hours in Gatwick airport. I found myself a nice comfy-ish spot on the floor and settled in for the wait. It wasn't too bad and I feel like a true backpacker now.
I arrived in Athens the afternoon of the 12th. I pretty much just slept away the rest of the afternoon. I did manage a very quick look at the Acropolis from afar. I headed out first thing on the morning of the 13th on a 5 day tour of Greece. On the 13th we visited Epidaurus and then I spent the night in Nauplion (which is gorgeous), and then on the 14th we visited Myceanae which was amazing. Then today, the 15th and my birthday, we visited Olympia. Olympia is phenomenal. I can't believe how much has survived untouched. Tomorrow we will be seeing the site at Delphi and then the following day visiting the monasteries at Meteora. Then I'm heading back to Athens for 6 nights before I fly to Turkey. I think I may spend my first day back in Athens just sleeping. I haven't stopped moving in a long time.
Anyway, that's it for now. I promise I'll update again soon and I will expand on what I've just posted with more detailed info. And I haven't forgotten about Rome. It was just such a huge experience that I need time to sit down and write, write, write.
Toodles for now.
Casey.
Sunday, September 21, 2008
Disaster
Well today has been absolutely horrendous. So bad that I wanted to just hop on a plane and come home.
On Friday I left Reykjavik on my way to Menorca for my last dig. I couldn't fly straight to Menorca. Instead I had to fly from Reykjavik to London on the 19th arriving at 8pm and then at 7am on the 20th I would fly from Luton airport to Menorca.
When I arrived from Reykjavik at Heathrow airport, I straight away hopped onto a bus for Luton airport. The plane had been late arriving and I didn´t have long to get to my bus, so I raced there and got there with 2 mins to spare - only to find out that there had been a big accident on the motorway and the bus was delayed 45 mins. *sigh*
I finally got to Luton airport around 10:30 and transferred to a hotel so I could get a few hours sleep. I managed to get about 5 hours sleep before I had to be up and at the airport.
I arrived at Luton airport a little over 2 hours before my flight left. I thought it would be quiet, but there were masses of people at the airport and in fact it took me 40 mins to get to the check-in counter. When I finally got to the counter I was informed that I needed to collect my tickets from the ticket office before I could check in. So, I had to get out of the queue and find the ticket office. When I got there the woman told me that I didn't need a ticket because mine was a ticketless flight, so they'd just wasted my time and then I had to push back in to the front of the check-in queue (which always pisses people off because they don't know what's going on). Finally started to check-in and was asked how many pieces of carry-on luggage I had. When she found out I had 2 I was informed that Luton airport was extremely strict and I wouldn´t be allowed through with more than one piece so I would have to check-in one of my pieces of hand luggage. I was informed that I could try my luck with security but would more than likely be sent back to the check-in desk and I would end up missing my flight. So I had to make the quick decision to check-in my day pack and just carry my laptop case with me and shove as much into it as possible. I was trying to do it in a rush and I was panicking a bit so I grabbed out everything I thought was important and then checked it in. I told the woman that I was really worried because it didn´t have a lock and there was no ID on it, but she said it would have to go like it was, so all I could do was wind a paper clip through the zip and hope it stayed closed. Then because I´d checked-in a 2nd bag!!!!!!! I had to pay an extra fee for the second piece of luggage.
Getting through security was a long process and they wouldn´t let anyone through with more than one piece of hand luggage.
It wasn´t until I was on the plane that I realised that I´d forgotten to take my camera out of my day pack and put it into my laptop case. I just had to hope it would be ok.
When I arrived at Menorca I raced through immigration to get to the luggage belt and my daypack was one of the first off. I searched through it and guess what I couldn´t find!!!!! My camera was gone!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I was freaking out.
I could tell that my bag had been rifled through because of the way the contents were and the paper clip was gone (which isn´t something that could have just gotten knocked off). So, one of the baggage staff had obviously gone through my bag and taken my camera.
I was in tears. My camera was gone, but not only that, all my photos. Because my laptop hadn´t been working (a story for another day) I hadn´t backed up my camera since I left Rome so I´d lost all my photos from Ireland, the Faverhsam dig, France and Iceland.
As soon as my suitcase came off I headed straight over to file a complaint. The Spanish lady pretty much told me there wasn´t anything that could be done. All they could do was file a report with the airport and then I should just report it to the police.
I was really pissed off.
I managed to find the Thomspon Fly office. The woman there was very nice and sympathetic and helped as much as she could, but even she had to admit that I wouldn´t see my camera again.
By that point I wasn´t so much pissed off about my camera, but more about the fact that this person would go unpunished. That the airline/airport wouldn´t do anything about it. They weren´t even considering contacting HR and letting them know that their staff were stealing from people and putting the word out that this wouldn´t be tolerated.
I´m still pretty upset. I´ve lost heaps of photos and the camera that Mum and Dad bought me for Christmas. It was such a great little camera as well.
Dad is having to find out from the travel insurance people what I need to do to get a replacement camera.
I am going to contact Luton airport as well and let them know how unhappy I am with the way they operate and the stress they have caused me.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
There isn´t much I can do about it now.
I´m on Menorca now, the people on the dig are very friendly and we start the hard work first thing in the morning (so no rest for Casey).
It is a very small group. There are only 7 students split between 2 areas - 3 at the Necropolis and 4 at the Roman City.
The place we´re staying is nice. We have a housekeeper who prepares very nice meals and we´re not allowed to do the washing up! The apartment can accommodate about 18 people, but there are only 8 of us in it, so we have plenty of room. It would be extremely squishy if it was full.
Anyway, I just needed to rant a bit. I´m feeling ok now. I´ll have to find some time to get myself a new camera this week.
I promise I´ll post again soon (and hopefully something positive next time).
Casey.
On Friday I left Reykjavik on my way to Menorca for my last dig. I couldn't fly straight to Menorca. Instead I had to fly from Reykjavik to London on the 19th arriving at 8pm and then at 7am on the 20th I would fly from Luton airport to Menorca.
When I arrived from Reykjavik at Heathrow airport, I straight away hopped onto a bus for Luton airport. The plane had been late arriving and I didn´t have long to get to my bus, so I raced there and got there with 2 mins to spare - only to find out that there had been a big accident on the motorway and the bus was delayed 45 mins. *sigh*
I finally got to Luton airport around 10:30 and transferred to a hotel so I could get a few hours sleep. I managed to get about 5 hours sleep before I had to be up and at the airport.
I arrived at Luton airport a little over 2 hours before my flight left. I thought it would be quiet, but there were masses of people at the airport and in fact it took me 40 mins to get to the check-in counter. When I finally got to the counter I was informed that I needed to collect my tickets from the ticket office before I could check in. So, I had to get out of the queue and find the ticket office. When I got there the woman told me that I didn't need a ticket because mine was a ticketless flight, so they'd just wasted my time and then I had to push back in to the front of the check-in queue (which always pisses people off because they don't know what's going on). Finally started to check-in and was asked how many pieces of carry-on luggage I had. When she found out I had 2 I was informed that Luton airport was extremely strict and I wouldn´t be allowed through with more than one piece so I would have to check-in one of my pieces of hand luggage. I was informed that I could try my luck with security but would more than likely be sent back to the check-in desk and I would end up missing my flight. So I had to make the quick decision to check-in my day pack and just carry my laptop case with me and shove as much into it as possible. I was trying to do it in a rush and I was panicking a bit so I grabbed out everything I thought was important and then checked it in. I told the woman that I was really worried because it didn´t have a lock and there was no ID on it, but she said it would have to go like it was, so all I could do was wind a paper clip through the zip and hope it stayed closed. Then because I´d checked-in a 2nd bag!!!!!!! I had to pay an extra fee for the second piece of luggage.
Getting through security was a long process and they wouldn´t let anyone through with more than one piece of hand luggage.
It wasn´t until I was on the plane that I realised that I´d forgotten to take my camera out of my day pack and put it into my laptop case. I just had to hope it would be ok.
When I arrived at Menorca I raced through immigration to get to the luggage belt and my daypack was one of the first off. I searched through it and guess what I couldn´t find!!!!! My camera was gone!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I was freaking out.
I could tell that my bag had been rifled through because of the way the contents were and the paper clip was gone (which isn´t something that could have just gotten knocked off). So, one of the baggage staff had obviously gone through my bag and taken my camera.
I was in tears. My camera was gone, but not only that, all my photos. Because my laptop hadn´t been working (a story for another day) I hadn´t backed up my camera since I left Rome so I´d lost all my photos from Ireland, the Faverhsam dig, France and Iceland.
As soon as my suitcase came off I headed straight over to file a complaint. The Spanish lady pretty much told me there wasn´t anything that could be done. All they could do was file a report with the airport and then I should just report it to the police.
I was really pissed off.
I managed to find the Thomspon Fly office. The woman there was very nice and sympathetic and helped as much as she could, but even she had to admit that I wouldn´t see my camera again.
By that point I wasn´t so much pissed off about my camera, but more about the fact that this person would go unpunished. That the airline/airport wouldn´t do anything about it. They weren´t even considering contacting HR and letting them know that their staff were stealing from people and putting the word out that this wouldn´t be tolerated.
I´m still pretty upset. I´ve lost heaps of photos and the camera that Mum and Dad bought me for Christmas. It was such a great little camera as well.
Dad is having to find out from the travel insurance people what I need to do to get a replacement camera.
I am going to contact Luton airport as well and let them know how unhappy I am with the way they operate and the stress they have caused me.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
There isn´t much I can do about it now.
I´m on Menorca now, the people on the dig are very friendly and we start the hard work first thing in the morning (so no rest for Casey).
It is a very small group. There are only 7 students split between 2 areas - 3 at the Necropolis and 4 at the Roman City.
The place we´re staying is nice. We have a housekeeper who prepares very nice meals and we´re not allowed to do the washing up! The apartment can accommodate about 18 people, but there are only 8 of us in it, so we have plenty of room. It would be extremely squishy if it was full.
Anyway, I just needed to rant a bit. I´m feeling ok now. I´ll have to find some time to get myself a new camera this week.
I promise I´ll post again soon (and hopefully something positive next time).
Casey.
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Dublin at last
Hello hello!
Now don't worry, I haven't forgotten about Rome. I just thought I should let everyone know what I'm up to at the moment, before I start heading into the past.......
As you probably guessed by the heading, I'm in Dublin. Aaaaahhhhh Dublin, city of cool summers! It has rained every day I've been here. Fan-bloody-tastic! Ok, I'm a little strange, but if I have to live through 18 months of summer I would like to at least experience some slightly cooler temperatures.
I arrived in Dublin on Saturday and I can honestly say I was happy to leave Rome. Don't get me wrong, I love Rome and will definitely be going back in the future, but I was ready to leave. I'd had enough of the heat and the tourists and it was completely different without all of my wonderful new friends there.
My flight was about 40 mins delayed leaving Rome, so we got into Dublin a little late. It was quite an entertaining flight in a lot of ways and I think it can be pinpointed to the large number of Italians on the flight. As we were starting to gather speed to take off, the woman next to me crossed herself (which was kind of worrying!). I was sitting there thinking - 'I don't need to see this'. Flying can be bad enough as it is without knowing that the person next to me is praying to some guy in the sky to keep the plane from crashing. Then the man and woman next to me (same woman from previous) started making out and giggling and I really didn't like to look to find out what else they were doing. Then when we landed the entire plane started applauding! I couldn't help thinking - 'why are you applauding? It wasn't a miracle that the plane got back onto the ground safely, this is what the pilots are paid to do'. Oh well. It provided some entertainment to the flight.
The Irish really live up to their reputation for being larrikins. I should have mentioned before that when I was boarding the plane, one of the pilots was standing outside the cockpit door. As I was standing right next to him he decided to have a chat. He wanted to know where I was sitting and when I told him he promised me it was the best seat in the house! It was my first exposure to the lovely Irish accent.
Dublin airport is a strange place. It's an odd mix of ultra-modern and 1950s. When we got off the plane we headed down long, narrow corridors with very strangely patterned carpets and it was all very old-fashioned. I couldn't help thinking that this was the domestic airport for some small country town. Then all of a sudden we emerge into a large, light, airy, all glass modern airport. It was very strange, but rather charming.
Immigration in Ireland is a lot more involved than it is in Europe. Whenever I fly into Rome a bored-looking guy behind a desk looks at my passport, looks at me and then I'm through. In Ireland I got to play 20 questions. However, the guy was very friendly and when he found out that I'd been doing a dig in Rome he was intrigued and asked me even more questions!
Getting through the airport was pretty quick. I knew the bus I needed to get me into the city and it wasn't hard to find. I had to buy my ticket on the bus and the driver was yet another character. He was giving me shit about how he could keep the change from the ticket and all sorts of other stuff.
We arrived in Dublin at the main bus station, which was only about a 10 min walk from my hostel. My hostel is in an area known as Temple Bar, which has a big bar and cafe scene and is really popular at night. The hostel is faces the river Liffey, so it's an excellent location. The hostel itself is pretty simple and the rooms are small, but it's clean and it has a kitchen and free wireless internet (that I can get in my room), so all-in-all it's not bad.
My room is on the second floor of the building and as the room is at the front of the building I have an amazing view of the river from my bed. It's rather lovely.
Not long after I arrived at my hotel it started absolutely pouring with rain. I didn't much feel like braving the elements, so I got myself set up with my laptop on my bed and just watched the rain and the people scurrying around in it. It was rather lovely.
In one of the few short dry spells I headed out to find something for dinner. On the way from the bus station I had spotted a supermarket about a 2 min walk down the street from my hostel, so I headed there to see if they had anything. It turned out that at their deli counter they cooked stiryfrys as you waited. I'd been craving Asian food for ages, so it was fantastic.
I'd decided early on that I wasn't going to rush Dublin. I've gotten so sick of spending only a couple of days in a city and seeing all of the main touristy sites and then moving on again in a rush. It's exhausting doing it that way and you don't get a proper feel for the city.
So, on Sunday I slept in (luxury!) and then headed further in to Temple Bar to a tourist office that had been recommended to me by one of my roommates (a New Zealander). It was rather impressive. I don't think I've ever seen a tourist office quite so busy before. I had a wander around their shop and then bought a ticket for the hop-on hop-off sightseeing bus.
One of the bus stops was right outside the tourist office so I hopped on. As it was valid for 24 hours I decided to do the entire circuit and then the following day use the bus to take me to the sites I wanted to see.
The guide on the bus was absolutely hilarious. She was the most vivacious Irish lady I've ever met. She would have been in her early 60s and hails from Belfast originally. She was such a character. We got a lot of information about Dublin but also a lot of information about her life and Irish independence and the period of economic growth Ireland is going through. It was an amazing way to see the city.
The bus roughly took us past all of the main monuments. We went past Christchurch Cathedral, St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin Castle, the Guinness Storehouse, Kilmainham Gaol, the Four Courts, the Ha'penny bridge, and O'Connell Street (which is the main drag). At O'Connell Street we had to get off and change buses. O'Connell Street is the first and last stop on the tour (I'd gotten on at the 8th stop), so to continue onwards we had to change buses. Unfortunately this one had a pre-recorded tour so we lost our wonderful tour guide. The rest of the tour took us past Trinity College, the National Library, Gallery and Museum, St Stephen's Square and then I hopped off at the tourist office where I'd started from.
It was a rather lovely way to see the city and helped in my planning of what I wanted to see and how I was going to do it.
I ended up having really crappy roommates that night. I'm in a 6 bed room, but just 2 people can make it a crappy experience. The two irritating ones were 2 German girls who weren't friendly in any way. One of them had spread her stuff all over the floor so I was barely able to get into my bed. She wasn't at all apologetic, so I just shoved her stuff out of my way whenever I needed to! Made me feel much better!
Luckily they were only in the room for one night. I didn't think I would have been able to handle them for several nights.
I woke up this morning - my first day of proper sightseeing - and felt like crap. *sigh* I'd had a feeling this would probably happen. Because we'd been going flat-stick for the last 2 months, I knew that as soon as I stopped my body would decide it wanted a break for a while and I'd invariably get the flu. Turns out I was right. However, I wasn't going to let that stop me, instead I just decided to alter my plans slightly and not do as much as I'd been planning on.
My hop-on hop-off bus ticket was only going to last me a couple of hours this morning, so I decided to head out to Kilmainham Gaol, which is a bit further out of the city than everything else.
I'm sure by the name you can probably guess what Kilmainham Gaol was. Kilmainham was Dublin's jail for a good 200 years and only closed in the mid-1920s.
You can only visit the jail as part of a guided tour, but as entrance and tour only costs 5 euros, it's not bad. The tour itself was excellent. The guide was very informative and managed to not overload us with information. The jail is pretty depressing, particularly when you hear of the conditions that many of the prisoners lived in due to overcrowding. Something that I found interesting was that 4000 criminals were transported from Kilmainham Gaol in the early to mid-1800s and every single one of them was transported to Australia (I want no comments from you Americans!!)
After the tour I hopped back onto the bus and headed back into the centre of Dublin and got off at the top of O'Connell Street. As the rain was holding off for a while I decided to walk to the river, at the bottom of O'Connell Street. O'Connell Street has been rather well layed out. The street is extremely wide, which huge footpaths (so you're not constantly dodging people) and heaps of trees. There are quite a few statues along the length of O'Connell Street. Starting at the top is the Parnell monument, then the James Joyce statue, then the Spike and finally the O'Connell monument.
The Spike is a very modern monument built in 2003. It was built to replace a monument (the name of which I can't remember) that had been destroyed many years earlier. The Spike is pretty much as it sounds. It's a very tall (120m high) metal spike and at the top it is covered in 11,000 lights. Most of the locals don't particularly like because they don't seem to understand the point of it. I think it's quite impressive and a nice, modern monument for a city that is very rapidly moving into the 21st century.
The O'Connell monument is quite interesting because it is full of bullet holes. The bullet holes come from the 1916 rebellion when a group pushing for independence from Britain took control of the General Post Office and held the city by force for 5 days. During that time much fighting took place between the rebels and the English and it was during this time that much of the city centre of Dublin was destroyed and the statue aquired its bullet holes. The rebellion wasn't a success and the leaders were taken to Kilmainham Gaol and executed by firing squad over a period of 9 days.
Apparently there had been talk over the years of patching up the bullet holes on the O'Connell monument, but it was successfully argued that they too are a part of the history of Dublin.
After O'Connell Street I decided to wander along the Northern side of the river Liffey to the Ha'penny bridge. There is a lovely boardwalk that runs along the northern side of the river and right at the start of it, at O'Connell Street, there was a coffee shop, so I bought myself a hot chocolate and strolled along the river. The Ha'penny Bridge wasn't far from O'Connell Street (nothing is, Dublin is a rather tiny city) so it didn't take me long to reach it. The Ha'penny bridge is only of the earliest bridges in Dublin. Officially it's name is the Liffey Bridge, but nobody calls it that. Instead it is known as the Ha'penny bridge. It is known as such because, for a period of a hundred years, there was a toll of half a penny to cross the bridge. So, it became known as the Ha'penny bridge and the name has stuck.
I'd been planning to head back to my hostel after I'd walked across the Ha'penny Bridge. My hostel is on the South side of the river and between the Ha'penny Bridge and O'Connell Street. However, it was a nice day and the rain was still holding off, so I decided to head to Grafton Street. Grafton Street is the main shopping street in Dublin and certainly the most expensive. The street is pedestrianised and is a popular place to find buskers and today I wasn't disappointed. I passed at least 4 different groups of buskers. It certainly isn't what you're used to in the way of buskers. Most of the music that was being played was classical and very good quality. I even passed 3 boys, who couldn't have been more than 15. One was playing a banjo, the other a guitar and the last one was playing a violin. They were playing traditional Irish folk music and it was lovely. I think you would have loved it Uncle John.
After I'd spent a bit of time wandering along Grafton Street, peering into all of the shop windows and forcing myself not to go inside (except for the bookstores, the call was just too strong to resist), I headed back to the hostel. I think I picked the right time to come back as it wasn't long after that it finally started to rain.
It's been a rather pleasant afternoon and a nice introduction to Dublin. I think I'm going to stay in Ireland until my next dig starts in Faversham, Kent - which is around the 20th. Hopefully I'll be able to get over to Galway or Cork, not entirely sure yet.
Anyway, this was supposed to just be a quick update to let you know that I'm in Dublin.
Typically for me I just couldn't help myself and kept on writing!
Toodles for now.
More over the next few days.
Now don't worry, I haven't forgotten about Rome. I just thought I should let everyone know what I'm up to at the moment, before I start heading into the past.......
As you probably guessed by the heading, I'm in Dublin. Aaaaahhhhh Dublin, city of cool summers! It has rained every day I've been here. Fan-bloody-tastic! Ok, I'm a little strange, but if I have to live through 18 months of summer I would like to at least experience some slightly cooler temperatures.
I arrived in Dublin on Saturday and I can honestly say I was happy to leave Rome. Don't get me wrong, I love Rome and will definitely be going back in the future, but I was ready to leave. I'd had enough of the heat and the tourists and it was completely different without all of my wonderful new friends there.
My flight was about 40 mins delayed leaving Rome, so we got into Dublin a little late. It was quite an entertaining flight in a lot of ways and I think it can be pinpointed to the large number of Italians on the flight. As we were starting to gather speed to take off, the woman next to me crossed herself (which was kind of worrying!). I was sitting there thinking - 'I don't need to see this'. Flying can be bad enough as it is without knowing that the person next to me is praying to some guy in the sky to keep the plane from crashing. Then the man and woman next to me (same woman from previous) started making out and giggling and I really didn't like to look to find out what else they were doing. Then when we landed the entire plane started applauding! I couldn't help thinking - 'why are you applauding? It wasn't a miracle that the plane got back onto the ground safely, this is what the pilots are paid to do'. Oh well. It provided some entertainment to the flight.
The Irish really live up to their reputation for being larrikins. I should have mentioned before that when I was boarding the plane, one of the pilots was standing outside the cockpit door. As I was standing right next to him he decided to have a chat. He wanted to know where I was sitting and when I told him he promised me it was the best seat in the house! It was my first exposure to the lovely Irish accent.
Dublin airport is a strange place. It's an odd mix of ultra-modern and 1950s. When we got off the plane we headed down long, narrow corridors with very strangely patterned carpets and it was all very old-fashioned. I couldn't help thinking that this was the domestic airport for some small country town. Then all of a sudden we emerge into a large, light, airy, all glass modern airport. It was very strange, but rather charming.
Immigration in Ireland is a lot more involved than it is in Europe. Whenever I fly into Rome a bored-looking guy behind a desk looks at my passport, looks at me and then I'm through. In Ireland I got to play 20 questions. However, the guy was very friendly and when he found out that I'd been doing a dig in Rome he was intrigued and asked me even more questions!
Getting through the airport was pretty quick. I knew the bus I needed to get me into the city and it wasn't hard to find. I had to buy my ticket on the bus and the driver was yet another character. He was giving me shit about how he could keep the change from the ticket and all sorts of other stuff.
We arrived in Dublin at the main bus station, which was only about a 10 min walk from my hostel. My hostel is in an area known as Temple Bar, which has a big bar and cafe scene and is really popular at night. The hostel is faces the river Liffey, so it's an excellent location. The hostel itself is pretty simple and the rooms are small, but it's clean and it has a kitchen and free wireless internet (that I can get in my room), so all-in-all it's not bad.
My room is on the second floor of the building and as the room is at the front of the building I have an amazing view of the river from my bed. It's rather lovely.
Not long after I arrived at my hotel it started absolutely pouring with rain. I didn't much feel like braving the elements, so I got myself set up with my laptop on my bed and just watched the rain and the people scurrying around in it. It was rather lovely.
In one of the few short dry spells I headed out to find something for dinner. On the way from the bus station I had spotted a supermarket about a 2 min walk down the street from my hostel, so I headed there to see if they had anything. It turned out that at their deli counter they cooked stiryfrys as you waited. I'd been craving Asian food for ages, so it was fantastic.
I'd decided early on that I wasn't going to rush Dublin. I've gotten so sick of spending only a couple of days in a city and seeing all of the main touristy sites and then moving on again in a rush. It's exhausting doing it that way and you don't get a proper feel for the city.
So, on Sunday I slept in (luxury!) and then headed further in to Temple Bar to a tourist office that had been recommended to me by one of my roommates (a New Zealander). It was rather impressive. I don't think I've ever seen a tourist office quite so busy before. I had a wander around their shop and then bought a ticket for the hop-on hop-off sightseeing bus.
One of the bus stops was right outside the tourist office so I hopped on. As it was valid for 24 hours I decided to do the entire circuit and then the following day use the bus to take me to the sites I wanted to see.
The guide on the bus was absolutely hilarious. She was the most vivacious Irish lady I've ever met. She would have been in her early 60s and hails from Belfast originally. She was such a character. We got a lot of information about Dublin but also a lot of information about her life and Irish independence and the period of economic growth Ireland is going through. It was an amazing way to see the city.
The bus roughly took us past all of the main monuments. We went past Christchurch Cathedral, St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin Castle, the Guinness Storehouse, Kilmainham Gaol, the Four Courts, the Ha'penny bridge, and O'Connell Street (which is the main drag). At O'Connell Street we had to get off and change buses. O'Connell Street is the first and last stop on the tour (I'd gotten on at the 8th stop), so to continue onwards we had to change buses. Unfortunately this one had a pre-recorded tour so we lost our wonderful tour guide. The rest of the tour took us past Trinity College, the National Library, Gallery and Museum, St Stephen's Square and then I hopped off at the tourist office where I'd started from.
It was a rather lovely way to see the city and helped in my planning of what I wanted to see and how I was going to do it.
I ended up having really crappy roommates that night. I'm in a 6 bed room, but just 2 people can make it a crappy experience. The two irritating ones were 2 German girls who weren't friendly in any way. One of them had spread her stuff all over the floor so I was barely able to get into my bed. She wasn't at all apologetic, so I just shoved her stuff out of my way whenever I needed to! Made me feel much better!
Luckily they were only in the room for one night. I didn't think I would have been able to handle them for several nights.
I woke up this morning - my first day of proper sightseeing - and felt like crap. *sigh* I'd had a feeling this would probably happen. Because we'd been going flat-stick for the last 2 months, I knew that as soon as I stopped my body would decide it wanted a break for a while and I'd invariably get the flu. Turns out I was right. However, I wasn't going to let that stop me, instead I just decided to alter my plans slightly and not do as much as I'd been planning on.
My hop-on hop-off bus ticket was only going to last me a couple of hours this morning, so I decided to head out to Kilmainham Gaol, which is a bit further out of the city than everything else.
I'm sure by the name you can probably guess what Kilmainham Gaol was. Kilmainham was Dublin's jail for a good 200 years and only closed in the mid-1920s.
You can only visit the jail as part of a guided tour, but as entrance and tour only costs 5 euros, it's not bad. The tour itself was excellent. The guide was very informative and managed to not overload us with information. The jail is pretty depressing, particularly when you hear of the conditions that many of the prisoners lived in due to overcrowding. Something that I found interesting was that 4000 criminals were transported from Kilmainham Gaol in the early to mid-1800s and every single one of them was transported to Australia (I want no comments from you Americans!!)
After the tour I hopped back onto the bus and headed back into the centre of Dublin and got off at the top of O'Connell Street. As the rain was holding off for a while I decided to walk to the river, at the bottom of O'Connell Street. O'Connell Street has been rather well layed out. The street is extremely wide, which huge footpaths (so you're not constantly dodging people) and heaps of trees. There are quite a few statues along the length of O'Connell Street. Starting at the top is the Parnell monument, then the James Joyce statue, then the Spike and finally the O'Connell monument.
The Spike is a very modern monument built in 2003. It was built to replace a monument (the name of which I can't remember) that had been destroyed many years earlier. The Spike is pretty much as it sounds. It's a very tall (120m high) metal spike and at the top it is covered in 11,000 lights. Most of the locals don't particularly like because they don't seem to understand the point of it. I think it's quite impressive and a nice, modern monument for a city that is very rapidly moving into the 21st century.
The O'Connell monument is quite interesting because it is full of bullet holes. The bullet holes come from the 1916 rebellion when a group pushing for independence from Britain took control of the General Post Office and held the city by force for 5 days. During that time much fighting took place between the rebels and the English and it was during this time that much of the city centre of Dublin was destroyed and the statue aquired its bullet holes. The rebellion wasn't a success and the leaders were taken to Kilmainham Gaol and executed by firing squad over a period of 9 days.
Apparently there had been talk over the years of patching up the bullet holes on the O'Connell monument, but it was successfully argued that they too are a part of the history of Dublin.
After O'Connell Street I decided to wander along the Northern side of the river Liffey to the Ha'penny bridge. There is a lovely boardwalk that runs along the northern side of the river and right at the start of it, at O'Connell Street, there was a coffee shop, so I bought myself a hot chocolate and strolled along the river. The Ha'penny Bridge wasn't far from O'Connell Street (nothing is, Dublin is a rather tiny city) so it didn't take me long to reach it. The Ha'penny bridge is only of the earliest bridges in Dublin. Officially it's name is the Liffey Bridge, but nobody calls it that. Instead it is known as the Ha'penny bridge. It is known as such because, for a period of a hundred years, there was a toll of half a penny to cross the bridge. So, it became known as the Ha'penny bridge and the name has stuck.
I'd been planning to head back to my hostel after I'd walked across the Ha'penny Bridge. My hostel is on the South side of the river and between the Ha'penny Bridge and O'Connell Street. However, it was a nice day and the rain was still holding off, so I decided to head to Grafton Street. Grafton Street is the main shopping street in Dublin and certainly the most expensive. The street is pedestrianised and is a popular place to find buskers and today I wasn't disappointed. I passed at least 4 different groups of buskers. It certainly isn't what you're used to in the way of buskers. Most of the music that was being played was classical and very good quality. I even passed 3 boys, who couldn't have been more than 15. One was playing a banjo, the other a guitar and the last one was playing a violin. They were playing traditional Irish folk music and it was lovely. I think you would have loved it Uncle John.
After I'd spent a bit of time wandering along Grafton Street, peering into all of the shop windows and forcing myself not to go inside (except for the bookstores, the call was just too strong to resist), I headed back to the hostel. I think I picked the right time to come back as it wasn't long after that it finally started to rain.
It's been a rather pleasant afternoon and a nice introduction to Dublin. I think I'm going to stay in Ireland until my next dig starts in Faversham, Kent - which is around the 20th. Hopefully I'll be able to get over to Galway or Cork, not entirely sure yet.
Anyway, this was supposed to just be a quick update to let you know that I'm in Dublin.
Typically for me I just couldn't help myself and kept on writing!
Toodles for now.
More over the next few days.
Sunday, August 3, 2008
A few photos
Mum requested I post a couple of photos, so here goes.
This is the Venice group. We're standing in front of the church used as the exterior for the Venetian library featured in the movie Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. We planned to find this church while we were in Venice and on our last day (as we were racing to the train station because we were running very late) we finally located it. The funny thing was that we'd had to walk past this church several times a day to get to our hostel and had never realised it was the one we were looking for! As archaeologists, how could we resist having our photo taken in front of the church featured in Indiana Jones!
This is me in digging outfit swinging the pickaxe. Notice the sunhat combined with hardhat for a lovely look. Apparently I look like a natural with the pickaxe.
This is Steve (of the Chicken Fried Rice) who is modelling my hat and I am modelling his.
This is myself and Indira, rather drunk, after having slipped down the steps of the fountain in front of the Pantheon. If you look closely you can see the water on my skirt.
This is the Venice group. We're standing in front of the church used as the exterior for the Venetian library featured in the movie Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. We planned to find this church while we were in Venice and on our last day (as we were racing to the train station because we were running very late) we finally located it. The funny thing was that we'd had to walk past this church several times a day to get to our hostel and had never realised it was the one we were looking for! As archaeologists, how could we resist having our photo taken in front of the church featured in Indiana Jones!
(from left to right: Steve, Sam, myself, Neal, Andreas, Jess and Indira)
I hope that's enough for now. I have plenty more photos, but I am only able to upload a couple at a time, so I hope they will tide everyone over for a while.
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