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.
Saturday, August 2, 2008
Decision
Ok, so I've reached a decision (and it's only taken me 7 weeks to get here).
I should have acknowledged earlier on how hard it was to get updates posted, I'm just so tired after digging all day I don't have the energy to sit in front of a computer and type for a couple of hours.
So, I'm not going to update until after the dig is over and I'm back in the UK.
The digging finishes on Wednesday and then the final day is Thursday. I'll probably be flying out of Rome on Friday or Saturday (depending on flight times and prices).
I know on my itinerary it says that I am planning to spend a week or so travelling around Italy, however, I've done a bit of travelling while on the digs at the weekends and am ready to be back in an English speaking country for a while.
Therefore, I think I'm going to head back to Edinburgh. You may remember that I missed a couple of days in Edinburgh because I was sick with the flu, which meant that I really didn't get to see as much as I would have liked to of the city.
I think I'll probably have about 5 days in Edinburgh and then travel to Dublin for a few days and then head towards Faversham for my dig with the Kent Archaeological Field School.
I will attempt to use some of my time in Edinburgh to sit down and update the rest of the Vignacce dig info.
Until then...
I should have acknowledged earlier on how hard it was to get updates posted, I'm just so tired after digging all day I don't have the energy to sit in front of a computer and type for a couple of hours.
So, I'm not going to update until after the dig is over and I'm back in the UK.
The digging finishes on Wednesday and then the final day is Thursday. I'll probably be flying out of Rome on Friday or Saturday (depending on flight times and prices).
I know on my itinerary it says that I am planning to spend a week or so travelling around Italy, however, I've done a bit of travelling while on the digs at the weekends and am ready to be back in an English speaking country for a while.
Therefore, I think I'm going to head back to Edinburgh. You may remember that I missed a couple of days in Edinburgh because I was sick with the flu, which meant that I really didn't get to see as much as I would have liked to of the city.
I think I'll probably have about 5 days in Edinburgh and then travel to Dublin for a few days and then head towards Faversham for my dig with the Kent Archaeological Field School.
I will attempt to use some of my time in Edinburgh to sit down and update the rest of the Vignacce dig info.
Until then...
Monday, July 21, 2008
Rome continued....
I think this is the furthest behind I’ve ever been. I think I can mainly blame it on being so exhausted after digging every day. I’ll try to make the post as brief as possible…………
The last post left off just before we were going to visit the Imperial Fora and Museums, so I shall pick up from there.
On Tuesday (24th) we had our site visit of the Imperial Fora and Museums. The Imperial Fora are forums that were attached to the main forum of Rome. These forums were built by certain emperors. The forums are: The Forum and Markets of Trajan, the Forum of Augustus, the Forum of Caesar, the Forum of Domitian/Nerva, and the Forum of Peace (Vespasian). There is a new museum constructed partly within the Forum and Markets of Trajan where we started our visit. The museum has been well layed out and is very modern. It was surprisingly empty of tourists, which is always a nice thing.
On Wednesday (25th) we had a meeting in the main office where we received information on the site, the method of excavation and received our site information packs. It was rather exciting hearing about the site and learning that we would be visiting the site on Friday morning before we started the dig on Monday.
On Thursday (26th) we had a visit of Ostia. We met Albert at Pyramide train station – although our group was rather late because some nameless people slept in. Ostia was a harbour town at the mouth of the Tiber, 30 miles from Rome. Ostia is an interesting site. It’s rather similar to Pompeii in a lot of ways. Much of the town in still remaining, with mosaics still in place, but is less well known, so there are very few tourists around.
After the tour, some of us hung around Ostia for a while longer. Neal was really interested to see one particular building that had housed a cult of Mithras and a large statue had been uncovered. We set off to find it. Neal was in the lead with the map, but he quickly led us to the wrong place, so I took over and we managed to find it. Unfortunately it wasn’t entirely open, there was some orange tape type stuff blocking the entrance, but it was easily ducked under and we kinda snuck in to see the Mithraeum. Cults of Mithras were always located underground, to attempt to copy a cave atmosphere. We had to head below ground and it was very damp and creepy. We felt adventurous afterwards!
After leaving Ostia we headed back to the apartment and spent most of the night cramming for our test the next day. I can’t remember if I mentioned it before, but after the 2 weeks of site visits, Darius would set a test for us to test how much we had learnt over the past 2 weeks. We were all pretty stressed about the prospect of a test, so we’d been studying for the past couple of nights.
The test wasn’t scheduled until 4:30pm on Friday (27th) and in the morning we had a site visit of the excavation. We met Albert at 9am at Lucio Sestion train station and then he escorted us to the site. We met Dora - the project coordinator, Jeff - one of the trench supervisors, Chris - another trench supervisor and also Neal and Steve’s professor at Carthage College. At our site visit we were divided into 2 groups – trench A and B. Trench A consisted of Indira, Pascal, Steve, Sam, Andreas, Jay, Jess, Mike (Brickhouse), Big Mike and myself. Trench B consisted of Katie, Kristin, Ashleigh, Julia, David, Ted, Neal, Pete and Alex. In trench A we would be excavating new areas of the site attached to the southern end of the bath complex. In particular we would be exploring the newly uncovered Caldarium, a praefernium, and excavating yet unknown areas of the site. It all sounded very exciting and we couldn’t wait to start on Monday.
After the site visit we headed back to our apartment and continued to do some final cramming for the test that afternoon.
Finally it was time to head to the office for the test. We had 2 hours for the test and I used every minute of that time. I was surprised that the test was harder than I’d thought it would be, but I managed to answer every question and was relatively happy with how I went. It would have been a hard test to set because we’d learnt so much in such a short period of time and everyone had different backgrounds. Some people have never studied ancient history before, some have done some ancient history/archaeology units, and some have completed/nearly completed a degree in classics.
After the test was over Indira and I stopped to get a crepe on the way back to the apartment in celebration. A crepe is like a very large, thin pancake that is cooked to order and is spread thickly with Nutella (a chocolate spread) then folded up so you can eat it while walking. They are absolutely delicious and I think a mighty good way to celebrate.
A lot of people went out that night to celebrate having done the test by drinking large quantities of alcohol. I wasn’t in the mood, so I didn’t tag along, and I’m glad I didn’t because most people didn’t get back until about 5am and then they missed going to the catacombs.
On Saturday (28th) morning, those of us who hadn’t been drinking, decided to head out of Rome to the catacombs. There are catacombs all around Rome, extending for miles underground. The catacombs are Christian cemeteries that were constructed underground once they started running out of room to bury people. They are very interesting and creepy places, so we wanted to see them. Pascal, Steve, Neal, Big Mike and I headed out in the morning to visit one of them. We caught the train out to the closest station and then had to figure out how to get to the catacombs from there. We knew that the majority of the catacombs were located about 2 miles from the train station, but we couldn’t figure out which bus to catch to them. As none of us felt like walking, we decided in the end just to catch a taxi. It turned out to be the best idea, because it was quite cheap when split between 5 people.
We picked the Callisto catacombs as my guidebook said they were the largest and some of the best to visit. The taxi dropped us off at the entrance to the complex (which was 1000m from the catacombs entrance – there were distance signs every couple of hundred metres letting us know that we were getting closer!) After a rather long walk under the hot sun, but along a lovely tree shaded road, we reached the catacombs. We bought tickets but then had to wait for quite a while. They only let so many people go into the catacombs at a time and you can’t wander into them on your own, you have to go as part of a guided group, as the catacombs are mazes and you would get lost. Finally we were allowed to go into the catacombs. Our guide was the English language guide, although I must say that her English wasn’t particularly good or easy to understand at times. The catacombs themselves were refreshingly chilly inside, which was a lovely change from all of the hot weather we had been exposed to since arriving in Rome. The tour didn’t last very long, only about 40 mins, but it was very interesting. No bodies remain in the catacombs any longer, but all of the openings were bodies would have been are still there, which is rather creepy. It turned out to be a really interesting tour and I’m glad we went to visit the catacombs.
When we left the catacombs we had the long trek back to the main gate. This time we weren’t able to find a taxi, but we managed to figure out that there was a bus that we could catch that would take us back to Circus Maximus and from there we could catch a train back to Barberini station right near our apartment.
Most people had only just woken up when we got back from the catacombs, although it was mid afternoon. Some people decided to head out drinking again that evening (to Campo de Fiori of course), so as you can imagine not much happened on Sunday (29th). Some people managed to drag themselves out of bed and head to the catacombs.
Sunday night was an early one because we had a very early start the next day for our first day of digging.
We have to be at the site at 7:30am every morning. It is about a 40 min journey from our apartment to the site in total, so we have to leave by quarter to 7:00am if we want to get there on time. Because of this early start we have to be up at 6am to get ready – much too early in my opinion, but as they say ‘needs must’.
For now I am going to leave it there as it is already late and I have an early start in the morning. I will attempt to get the rest posted over the next couple of days. I know we aren’t completely caught up, but at least it is a start.
The last post left off just before we were going to visit the Imperial Fora and Museums, so I shall pick up from there.
On Tuesday (24th) we had our site visit of the Imperial Fora and Museums. The Imperial Fora are forums that were attached to the main forum of Rome. These forums were built by certain emperors. The forums are: The Forum and Markets of Trajan, the Forum of Augustus, the Forum of Caesar, the Forum of Domitian/Nerva, and the Forum of Peace (Vespasian). There is a new museum constructed partly within the Forum and Markets of Trajan where we started our visit. The museum has been well layed out and is very modern. It was surprisingly empty of tourists, which is always a nice thing.
On Wednesday (25th) we had a meeting in the main office where we received information on the site, the method of excavation and received our site information packs. It was rather exciting hearing about the site and learning that we would be visiting the site on Friday morning before we started the dig on Monday.
On Thursday (26th) we had a visit of Ostia. We met Albert at Pyramide train station – although our group was rather late because some nameless people slept in. Ostia was a harbour town at the mouth of the Tiber, 30 miles from Rome. Ostia is an interesting site. It’s rather similar to Pompeii in a lot of ways. Much of the town in still remaining, with mosaics still in place, but is less well known, so there are very few tourists around.
After the tour, some of us hung around Ostia for a while longer. Neal was really interested to see one particular building that had housed a cult of Mithras and a large statue had been uncovered. We set off to find it. Neal was in the lead with the map, but he quickly led us to the wrong place, so I took over and we managed to find it. Unfortunately it wasn’t entirely open, there was some orange tape type stuff blocking the entrance, but it was easily ducked under and we kinda snuck in to see the Mithraeum. Cults of Mithras were always located underground, to attempt to copy a cave atmosphere. We had to head below ground and it was very damp and creepy. We felt adventurous afterwards!
After leaving Ostia we headed back to the apartment and spent most of the night cramming for our test the next day. I can’t remember if I mentioned it before, but after the 2 weeks of site visits, Darius would set a test for us to test how much we had learnt over the past 2 weeks. We were all pretty stressed about the prospect of a test, so we’d been studying for the past couple of nights.
The test wasn’t scheduled until 4:30pm on Friday (27th) and in the morning we had a site visit of the excavation. We met Albert at 9am at Lucio Sestion train station and then he escorted us to the site. We met Dora - the project coordinator, Jeff - one of the trench supervisors, Chris - another trench supervisor and also Neal and Steve’s professor at Carthage College. At our site visit we were divided into 2 groups – trench A and B. Trench A consisted of Indira, Pascal, Steve, Sam, Andreas, Jay, Jess, Mike (Brickhouse), Big Mike and myself. Trench B consisted of Katie, Kristin, Ashleigh, Julia, David, Ted, Neal, Pete and Alex. In trench A we would be excavating new areas of the site attached to the southern end of the bath complex. In particular we would be exploring the newly uncovered Caldarium, a praefernium, and excavating yet unknown areas of the site. It all sounded very exciting and we couldn’t wait to start on Monday.
After the site visit we headed back to our apartment and continued to do some final cramming for the test that afternoon.
Finally it was time to head to the office for the test. We had 2 hours for the test and I used every minute of that time. I was surprised that the test was harder than I’d thought it would be, but I managed to answer every question and was relatively happy with how I went. It would have been a hard test to set because we’d learnt so much in such a short period of time and everyone had different backgrounds. Some people have never studied ancient history before, some have done some ancient history/archaeology units, and some have completed/nearly completed a degree in classics.
After the test was over Indira and I stopped to get a crepe on the way back to the apartment in celebration. A crepe is like a very large, thin pancake that is cooked to order and is spread thickly with Nutella (a chocolate spread) then folded up so you can eat it while walking. They are absolutely delicious and I think a mighty good way to celebrate.
A lot of people went out that night to celebrate having done the test by drinking large quantities of alcohol. I wasn’t in the mood, so I didn’t tag along, and I’m glad I didn’t because most people didn’t get back until about 5am and then they missed going to the catacombs.
On Saturday (28th) morning, those of us who hadn’t been drinking, decided to head out of Rome to the catacombs. There are catacombs all around Rome, extending for miles underground. The catacombs are Christian cemeteries that were constructed underground once they started running out of room to bury people. They are very interesting and creepy places, so we wanted to see them. Pascal, Steve, Neal, Big Mike and I headed out in the morning to visit one of them. We caught the train out to the closest station and then had to figure out how to get to the catacombs from there. We knew that the majority of the catacombs were located about 2 miles from the train station, but we couldn’t figure out which bus to catch to them. As none of us felt like walking, we decided in the end just to catch a taxi. It turned out to be the best idea, because it was quite cheap when split between 5 people.
We picked the Callisto catacombs as my guidebook said they were the largest and some of the best to visit. The taxi dropped us off at the entrance to the complex (which was 1000m from the catacombs entrance – there were distance signs every couple of hundred metres letting us know that we were getting closer!) After a rather long walk under the hot sun, but along a lovely tree shaded road, we reached the catacombs. We bought tickets but then had to wait for quite a while. They only let so many people go into the catacombs at a time and you can’t wander into them on your own, you have to go as part of a guided group, as the catacombs are mazes and you would get lost. Finally we were allowed to go into the catacombs. Our guide was the English language guide, although I must say that her English wasn’t particularly good or easy to understand at times. The catacombs themselves were refreshingly chilly inside, which was a lovely change from all of the hot weather we had been exposed to since arriving in Rome. The tour didn’t last very long, only about 40 mins, but it was very interesting. No bodies remain in the catacombs any longer, but all of the openings were bodies would have been are still there, which is rather creepy. It turned out to be a really interesting tour and I’m glad we went to visit the catacombs.
When we left the catacombs we had the long trek back to the main gate. This time we weren’t able to find a taxi, but we managed to figure out that there was a bus that we could catch that would take us back to Circus Maximus and from there we could catch a train back to Barberini station right near our apartment.
Most people had only just woken up when we got back from the catacombs, although it was mid afternoon. Some people decided to head out drinking again that evening (to Campo de Fiori of course), so as you can imagine not much happened on Sunday (29th). Some people managed to drag themselves out of bed and head to the catacombs.
Sunday night was an early one because we had a very early start the next day for our first day of digging.
We have to be at the site at 7:30am every morning. It is about a 40 min journey from our apartment to the site in total, so we have to leave by quarter to 7:00am if we want to get there on time. Because of this early start we have to be up at 6am to get ready – much too early in my opinion, but as they say ‘needs must’.
For now I am going to leave it there as it is already late and I have an early start in the morning. I will attempt to get the rest posted over the next couple of days. I know we aren’t completely caught up, but at least it is a start.
Saturday, July 5, 2008
Update time
I was planning on a long update post tonight to pick up from where I left off. However, we have to be up at 6am tomorrow morning (even though it's a Saturday!). We are heading down to Naples for the weekend to visit Pompeii and Herculaneum. Our train leaves Termini station at 7am, so it is yet another early start. Because of that I am heading straight to bed now and will attempt to post an update on Sunday night.
Ciao for now.
Casey.
Ciao for now.
Casey.
Thursday, June 19, 2008
Glasgow to Rome
I'm sorry that I haven't posted anything in 12 days, it's been rather chaotic with everything that's been going on. I will try to get everything into one post and I apologise if it's ridiculously long.
I am finally in Rome and the Villa Vignacce program has begun. Before I can tell you about that I need to finish telling you about Glasgow.
Where my last post left off it was my second day in Glasgow and I was waiting to meet up with Gavin to explore for the day.
We headed out around lunch time for the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum. It's not particularly close to our hostel but the walk was nice.
When we reached the museum we split up and agreed to meet after a couple of hours.
The Kelvingrove is a very interesting museum with a diverse collection.
There is a full-size Spitfire plane suspended from the roof above an exhibit of stuffed animals from all over the world - slightly bizzare.
In one room there are hundreds of different sized heads suspended from the ceiling all with differing facial expressions. I was quite intrigued by this exhibit and was very curious to its purpose. I finally found a small plaque connected with the heads and all it said was that it had been created by someone in events management and that's it.
There was a room dedicated to the work of Charles Rennie Mackintosh. Charles Rennie Mackintosh was an artist, designer and architect. He is probably best known for designing incredibly straight-backed chairs that look decidedly uncomfortable. Mackintosh is well known for designing the Willow Tea Rooms - which were popular in early 1900s Glasgow. In the Kelvingrove museum there are examples of the many designs that Mackintosh designed for the Willow Tea Rooms (the decor changed quite regularly). His design aesthetic appears to be influenced quite a lot by his wife, and many of his designs incorporate whimsical, flowing patterns paired with rigid furniture with simple, clean lines.
One painting that you have to see when visiting the Kelvingrove is Dali's Christ of St John of the Cross. The perspective is from above, looking down at St John on the cross floating above the earth. It's really trippy, not that that is surprising!
There are quite a few exhibits detailing the history of Scotland - one of which looks at the recent history of Mental Health in Scotland and the problems still faced by many women in abusive relationships. It is quite interesting.
One exhibit that I thought was quite brilliant was a display of swords. It wasn't done in a conventional way, instead there were lifesized figures created out of many metres of wire grasping swords in different positions. It was quite innovative and much more interesting than just seeing a standard display of swords.
All-in-all it was a very interesting museum in a gorgeous building and one that I would recommend people see if they were in Glasgow.
After the Kelvingrove, the plan was to head to the Fossil Grove, but it turned out that it's only open Thursday-Sunday so instead we headed back into Glasgow to go to the Willow Tea Rooms. You can't visit Glasgow without stopping at the Tea Rooms. The design of the tea rooms is an original Charles Rennie Mackintosh design. It is absolutely gorgeous. Gavin and I sat down and shared a pot of tea and each had a scone with jam and cream. Delicious!
Our last stop for the day was Glasgow Cathedral and the Necropolis. We only saw the outside of the Cathedral but it was very impressive. We headed to the Necropolis across from the Cathedral. There are some amazing monuments in the Necropolis (which seems to be the highest point in Glasgow), most of which are emulating the Greco-Roman style. Because of the position of the Necropolis there are great views across Glasgow.
We headed back to the hostel and went our separate ways for dinner. We met up again in the chill out room and watched some of the soccer - Switzerland vs Turkey. The game was hilarious because it was pouring with rain and the ground was waterlogged. The players could not run with the ball or if they kicked it it would come to a complete stop after a couple of feet. We had a great time laughing our heads off at the misfortunes of the players and the complaints of the commentators.
Gavin was heading off the next day for Oslo, so we said goodbye before I headed off to bed. It was really nice having someone to explore Glasgow with.
The following morning I had to do lots of laundry! As I didn't have anything presentable to wear while the laundry was being done I didn't leave the hostel until lunchtime!
I went to George Square to see the City Chambers and then sat on a bench, ate my lunch and watched the world pass by.
I've discovered that there isn't a lot to see in the centre of Glasgow. Most of the sites are out of the centre in the suburbs. It can be a bit frustrating because the public transport is not tourist friendly.
I decided that I wanted to go to the Fossil Grove (as I hadn't been able to the previous day). I figured out which train station was closest but knowing which train to take was interesting. From what I can tell there are 3 train networks in Glasgow. The first is the metro, which serves the city centre, then there is the above ground which serves the surrounding suburbs and there is another above ground which is more of a cross country network. Of course if you're not a local it's hard to know which one you need.
It took a while, but I finally figured it out and bought myself a ticket to get out there. I got off at the stop I needed and the map said it was only about 1km to Fossil Grove. I followed the map and soon discovered that a road I needed to cross was infact a highway that couldn't be crossed on foot, at least not where I was. My guidebook said that the Fossil Grove was located opposite Victoria Gardens across this highway. I was looking for a way to cross the highway, so I was wandering along the edge of Victoria Park when what did I come across.... Fossil Grove. Turned out that my guide book was wrong and the Fossil Grove was located within Victoria Gardens. I wasted a lot of time looking for it and then stumbled across it by accident. *sigh*
Anyway, Fossil Grove is a small area of 350 million year old fossilised trees that were discovered during digging work in Victoria Gardens.
What happened is that 350 million years ago the land that the trees was on was flooded which caused the trees to die. The part of the trees that was above water level eventually disappeared. Of the remaining part of the tree, the core rotted away leaving behind just the bark still in the shape of the original tree and then over the years limestone was washed into the centre of the trees and when the water drained away it solidified and the bark of the trees eventually became coal - leaving behind a perfect replica of the original tree stump. The soil level eventually covered the trees until they were excavated about a hundred years ago. It's rather amazing. There are these large tree stumps emerging from the ground, and even the roots of the trees have solidified so you can get an impression of how massive these trees once were. The trees are all one type - a now extinct tree known as the Clubmoss.
The Fossil Grove is located in a small building and it feels cold and damp and ageless.
After the Fossil Grove I headed back to the hostel and attempted to figure out what I wanted to do on my last full day in Glasgow and how I was going to navigate the public transport system.
So, the plan was to visit Paisley, the University of Glasgow, the Hunterian museum and gallery which is within the uni, and the Burrell Collection if I had time.
I caught the train to Paisley (only about a 15min ride). I know some people are thinking why would you choose Paisley, well the McAllister's came from Paisley so I had to pop there for a quick visit.
I'd heard lots of terrible things about Paisley, but I was pleasantly surprised. It wasn't as bad as I had thought it was going to be. Ok, so it's not the prettiest place I've ever seen, but you can tell that they are trying their hardest to update the centre and make it more attractive.
My main stop was Paisley Abbey. The Abbey dates from the 12th century and is rather stunning, certainly not what I was expecting to find in Paisley.
Within Paisley Abbey is the grave of Marjorie Bruce, Robert the Bruce's daughter.
I didn't stay long as I had a lot I wanted to see, so I walked back to the train station and headed into the centre.
I managed to find a bus that would take me to Glasgow Uni, so I hopped on. The main uni building is very impressive and looks as though it has been standing for several hundred years. I found out that it had only been constructed in the 1870s and had been built in an earlier style to represent the true age of the university, which was considerably older.
Once at the uni I signed up for a 2pm tour and then headed to the Hunterian museum. The Hunterian is an odd collection. It is named after William Hunter, a physician who was a teacher and former student of Glasgow uni, and it is his personal collection. There are many medical specimens of oddities amongst humans and animals as well as a large collection of Roman and Greek coins and many other bizzare bits and pieces. It was unusual and I don't know that I particularly enjoyed it. I'm undecided at this point.
I had a quick look at the building the archaeology department is in. It's not the nicest building I've ever seen.
I walked back to the main building to meet up with the tour. There were only 3 of us on the tour - myself and a French couple. We were shown around by a young girl who is about to graduate. It was only an hour long, so it was a very quick tour. We visited the main gates, the Hunter memorial, the lecturer's square (where the professors originally lived), the Cathedral (we couldn't go in as there was a wedding taking place at the time), the front of the University building, which actually is at the back, we went inside the main building and into the room which housed the university court (which would try students accused of crimes such as plagiarism), into the graduation room (which was smaller than I had imagined it would be - it's smaller than Winthrop Hall), down into the quad, then we snuck into the Cathedral for a really quick look as the wedding had finished, and then the tour ended.
After the tour I headed over to the Hunterian Art Gallery (not to be confused with the Hunterian Museum). The Art Gallery was the personal collection of William Hunter again, but it is housed in a different building across the road from the main University building. The Art Gallery contained a large collection of Roman, Greek and other coins and much of the works of art are portraits. It was a diverse collection.
Connected with the Hunterian Art Gallery is Mackintosh house.
Mackintosh house is a reconstruction of Charles Rennie Mackintosh's house. He used a lot of white in the design of his house but it doesn't make the rooms feel cold and sterile, instead they feel warm and welcoming. It was really quite interesting.
I had been hoping to see some of the Burrell Collection, but I was completely out of time. So, I just headed back to the hostel to attempt to repack my suitcase for the next day.
The restaurant sat us upstairs in a small dining room that we had to ourselves, which was really nice. It turned out that the food was as good as I remembered it and it was really cheap. In fact it was cheaper than most of the other restaurants we'd eaten at so far. It was a great meal and we spent ages laughing and chatting.
After the restaurant people wanted Gelato, so I lead everyone to Piazza Navona (which wasn't far) to a great little Gelato place I'd been to before and then everyone wanted to go to Campo de Fiori to find a pub. After we'd lead them there, Indira, Ted and I walked back to the apartment.
I am finally in Rome and the Villa Vignacce program has begun. Before I can tell you about that I need to finish telling you about Glasgow.
Where my last post left off it was my second day in Glasgow and I was waiting to meet up with Gavin to explore for the day.
We headed out around lunch time for the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum. It's not particularly close to our hostel but the walk was nice.
When we reached the museum we split up and agreed to meet after a couple of hours.
The Kelvingrove is a very interesting museum with a diverse collection.
There is a full-size Spitfire plane suspended from the roof above an exhibit of stuffed animals from all over the world - slightly bizzare.
In one room there are hundreds of different sized heads suspended from the ceiling all with differing facial expressions. I was quite intrigued by this exhibit and was very curious to its purpose. I finally found a small plaque connected with the heads and all it said was that it had been created by someone in events management and that's it.
There was a room dedicated to the work of Charles Rennie Mackintosh. Charles Rennie Mackintosh was an artist, designer and architect. He is probably best known for designing incredibly straight-backed chairs that look decidedly uncomfortable. Mackintosh is well known for designing the Willow Tea Rooms - which were popular in early 1900s Glasgow. In the Kelvingrove museum there are examples of the many designs that Mackintosh designed for the Willow Tea Rooms (the decor changed quite regularly). His design aesthetic appears to be influenced quite a lot by his wife, and many of his designs incorporate whimsical, flowing patterns paired with rigid furniture with simple, clean lines.
One painting that you have to see when visiting the Kelvingrove is Dali's Christ of St John of the Cross. The perspective is from above, looking down at St John on the cross floating above the earth. It's really trippy, not that that is surprising!
There are quite a few exhibits detailing the history of Scotland - one of which looks at the recent history of Mental Health in Scotland and the problems still faced by many women in abusive relationships. It is quite interesting.
One exhibit that I thought was quite brilliant was a display of swords. It wasn't done in a conventional way, instead there were lifesized figures created out of many metres of wire grasping swords in different positions. It was quite innovative and much more interesting than just seeing a standard display of swords.
All-in-all it was a very interesting museum in a gorgeous building and one that I would recommend people see if they were in Glasgow.
After the Kelvingrove, the plan was to head to the Fossil Grove, but it turned out that it's only open Thursday-Sunday so instead we headed back into Glasgow to go to the Willow Tea Rooms. You can't visit Glasgow without stopping at the Tea Rooms. The design of the tea rooms is an original Charles Rennie Mackintosh design. It is absolutely gorgeous. Gavin and I sat down and shared a pot of tea and each had a scone with jam and cream. Delicious!
Our last stop for the day was Glasgow Cathedral and the Necropolis. We only saw the outside of the Cathedral but it was very impressive. We headed to the Necropolis across from the Cathedral. There are some amazing monuments in the Necropolis (which seems to be the highest point in Glasgow), most of which are emulating the Greco-Roman style. Because of the position of the Necropolis there are great views across Glasgow.
We headed back to the hostel and went our separate ways for dinner. We met up again in the chill out room and watched some of the soccer - Switzerland vs Turkey. The game was hilarious because it was pouring with rain and the ground was waterlogged. The players could not run with the ball or if they kicked it it would come to a complete stop after a couple of feet. We had a great time laughing our heads off at the misfortunes of the players and the complaints of the commentators.
Gavin was heading off the next day for Oslo, so we said goodbye before I headed off to bed. It was really nice having someone to explore Glasgow with.
The following morning I had to do lots of laundry! As I didn't have anything presentable to wear while the laundry was being done I didn't leave the hostel until lunchtime!
I went to George Square to see the City Chambers and then sat on a bench, ate my lunch and watched the world pass by.
I've discovered that there isn't a lot to see in the centre of Glasgow. Most of the sites are out of the centre in the suburbs. It can be a bit frustrating because the public transport is not tourist friendly.
I decided that I wanted to go to the Fossil Grove (as I hadn't been able to the previous day). I figured out which train station was closest but knowing which train to take was interesting. From what I can tell there are 3 train networks in Glasgow. The first is the metro, which serves the city centre, then there is the above ground which serves the surrounding suburbs and there is another above ground which is more of a cross country network. Of course if you're not a local it's hard to know which one you need.
It took a while, but I finally figured it out and bought myself a ticket to get out there. I got off at the stop I needed and the map said it was only about 1km to Fossil Grove. I followed the map and soon discovered that a road I needed to cross was infact a highway that couldn't be crossed on foot, at least not where I was. My guidebook said that the Fossil Grove was located opposite Victoria Gardens across this highway. I was looking for a way to cross the highway, so I was wandering along the edge of Victoria Park when what did I come across.... Fossil Grove. Turned out that my guide book was wrong and the Fossil Grove was located within Victoria Gardens. I wasted a lot of time looking for it and then stumbled across it by accident. *sigh*
Anyway, Fossil Grove is a small area of 350 million year old fossilised trees that were discovered during digging work in Victoria Gardens.
What happened is that 350 million years ago the land that the trees was on was flooded which caused the trees to die. The part of the trees that was above water level eventually disappeared. Of the remaining part of the tree, the core rotted away leaving behind just the bark still in the shape of the original tree and then over the years limestone was washed into the centre of the trees and when the water drained away it solidified and the bark of the trees eventually became coal - leaving behind a perfect replica of the original tree stump. The soil level eventually covered the trees until they were excavated about a hundred years ago. It's rather amazing. There are these large tree stumps emerging from the ground, and even the roots of the trees have solidified so you can get an impression of how massive these trees once were. The trees are all one type - a now extinct tree known as the Clubmoss.
The Fossil Grove is located in a small building and it feels cold and damp and ageless.
After the Fossil Grove I headed back to the hostel and attempted to figure out what I wanted to do on my last full day in Glasgow and how I was going to navigate the public transport system.
So, the plan was to visit Paisley, the University of Glasgow, the Hunterian museum and gallery which is within the uni, and the Burrell Collection if I had time.
I caught the train to Paisley (only about a 15min ride). I know some people are thinking why would you choose Paisley, well the McAllister's came from Paisley so I had to pop there for a quick visit.
I'd heard lots of terrible things about Paisley, but I was pleasantly surprised. It wasn't as bad as I had thought it was going to be. Ok, so it's not the prettiest place I've ever seen, but you can tell that they are trying their hardest to update the centre and make it more attractive.
My main stop was Paisley Abbey. The Abbey dates from the 12th century and is rather stunning, certainly not what I was expecting to find in Paisley.
Within Paisley Abbey is the grave of Marjorie Bruce, Robert the Bruce's daughter.
I didn't stay long as I had a lot I wanted to see, so I walked back to the train station and headed into the centre.
I managed to find a bus that would take me to Glasgow Uni, so I hopped on. The main uni building is very impressive and looks as though it has been standing for several hundred years. I found out that it had only been constructed in the 1870s and had been built in an earlier style to represent the true age of the university, which was considerably older.
Once at the uni I signed up for a 2pm tour and then headed to the Hunterian museum. The Hunterian is an odd collection. It is named after William Hunter, a physician who was a teacher and former student of Glasgow uni, and it is his personal collection. There are many medical specimens of oddities amongst humans and animals as well as a large collection of Roman and Greek coins and many other bizzare bits and pieces. It was unusual and I don't know that I particularly enjoyed it. I'm undecided at this point.
I had a quick look at the building the archaeology department is in. It's not the nicest building I've ever seen.
I walked back to the main building to meet up with the tour. There were only 3 of us on the tour - myself and a French couple. We were shown around by a young girl who is about to graduate. It was only an hour long, so it was a very quick tour. We visited the main gates, the Hunter memorial, the lecturer's square (where the professors originally lived), the Cathedral (we couldn't go in as there was a wedding taking place at the time), the front of the University building, which actually is at the back, we went inside the main building and into the room which housed the university court (which would try students accused of crimes such as plagiarism), into the graduation room (which was smaller than I had imagined it would be - it's smaller than Winthrop Hall), down into the quad, then we snuck into the Cathedral for a really quick look as the wedding had finished, and then the tour ended.
After the tour I headed over to the Hunterian Art Gallery (not to be confused with the Hunterian Museum). The Art Gallery was the personal collection of William Hunter again, but it is housed in a different building across the road from the main University building. The Art Gallery contained a large collection of Roman, Greek and other coins and much of the works of art are portraits. It was a diverse collection.
Connected with the Hunterian Art Gallery is Mackintosh house.
Mackintosh house is a reconstruction of Charles Rennie Mackintosh's house. He used a lot of white in the design of his house but it doesn't make the rooms feel cold and sterile, instead they feel warm and welcoming. It was really quite interesting.
I had been hoping to see some of the Burrell Collection, but I was completely out of time. So, I just headed back to the hostel to attempt to repack my suitcase for the next day.
I was up early the following morning (14th June) to finish packing for my flight to Rome.
I grabbed my camera and took some final photos of the centre of Glasgow before I left.
I caught the train to Prestwick airport for my flight to Rome. I checked-in for my flight, but my bag was 5kg over the limit. RyanAir only has a 15kg luggage limit, which is tricky when you're travelling for as long as I am. My hand luggage was completely full, so I couldn't take anything out of my suitcase, so I had to pay 60 pounds for my luggage being overweight!
It's a huge amount of money, but unfortunately that's just the way Ryanair opperates. They have a really bad reputation for screwing people around and getting as much money as possible. I couldn't pay the 60 pounds right then and there, I had to go over to a separate desk and then once I had payed it I was told to push back in at the front of the queue to collect my boarding pass. I really hate pushing in - the line is sacred! And of course it was causing people to get pissed off, but there wasn't much I could do about it.
Oh well, at least I was on my way to Rome.
I ran into one of my room mates from the hostel in Glasgow in the airport. She was flying back to Barcelona that afternoon, so we chatted for a while which made the time pass more quickly.
An interesting thing with Ryanair is that they don't have reserved seating. It is very much first come, first served. I had priority seating, so I was one of the first on the plane and was able to choose my seat, which was good.
The flight wasn't too bad, it was only about 3 hours long. From the airport I caught the bus in to Termini station and then walked to my hostel. By the time I'd checked into the hostel it was 7:30pm.
It's not the best hostel I've ever stayed at - it was small and cramped, and the bedroom doors did not lock, which is a bit worrying when you've got a laptop and an ipod and everything.
I had a free day the following day to explore Rome. I didn't really want to do anything too touristy and I knew I would be seeing most of the sites with the dig, so I just decided to wander around Rome and see how much of the layout I remembered. I was surprised to find that it was very familiar and was pretty easy to find my way around again. I had to of course stop and see the Pantheon and have some Gelato in Piazza Navona.
I wanted to have an early night as the following morning was the big day - the start of the Villa delle Vignacce dig.
At 10am I was due to meet Lynda (program organiser) and 3 other participants inside Termini Station and then she would take us to our apartment. I was there early, of course, and Lynda was already there. 2 of the people due to meet us were instead going to meet us at the apartment, so we were only waiting on one person (Pete) to arrive at the train station.
Once Pete arrived the 3 of us headed off. We caught the metro to Piazza Barberini and walked the short distance to our apartments. My apartment is Via Rasella 134. We are in a great location - only 5 mins from the Trevi fountain.
David and Jay met us at our apartment and we headed upstairs. David, Jay and myself are in 134 and Pete is in 137. We all headed up to our apartment to be shown around and be given the safety lecture, etc.
The apartment is really nice. It houses 9 people in total in 4 bedrooms. Three bedrooms are 2 people and there is one triple room. Each bedroom also has it's own bathroom (which is great). There is a lounge area with tv and a quite well stocked kitchen with 2 fridges and a washing machine.
It's really nice and it's good that we all have our own space.
We got settled in and not long after Kristin arrived and after she got settled in the two of us went for a bit of a wander around and popped to the supermarket at the end of the street. Later that afternoon Indira and then Katie arrived. There were 6 of us in the apartment - the other 3 weren't due to arrive until the next day. Indira and I hit it off straight away. She's studying at Harvard and is absolutely lovely.
In the apartment Pete was in 2 other people arrived - Mike and Ted. The 9 of us all decided to meet up for dinner that first night. It was really nice. We had a few drinks at the apartment and then headed to a local restaurant and had a cheap dinner. It was really nice as we got to know each other in an informal atmosphere.
The following day our last 3 people arrived - Neal, Steve and Pascal.
Indira, Mike and myself decided to go for a wander to get a bit more familiar with our area and Indira needed to find somewhere she could buy an Italian sim card for her phone. We spent at least 5 hours walking around looking for a sim card place - it took forever and when we finally found one they told us there was a store located just around the corner form our apartment! *sigh* Oh well, it was fun and we found a great little restaurant for lunch.
We headed back to the apartment and got to know the 3 new people in the apartment before we had to head to the field school office for our orientation at 6:00pm. The office is based at Foro Traiano - it is one of the best locations, overlooking Trajan's column, the wedding cake, Trajan's forum and markets. It's pretty phenomenal.
At our orientation we met the other students who are staying further out of the city - there is Andreas (from Sweden), Sam and the second Mike in one apartment and then Julia, Jessica and Ashleigh in another apartment. We also met our 2 professors who would be showing us around Rome and teaching us for some of the dig.
After the orientation the staff took us all out for dinner in Trastevere. Dinner was great and I got to speak to some of the people from the other apartments. The big Italy-France soccer match was on that night, so after dinner all of the students headed to Campo de Fiori to find a pub to watch the game. I should mention that I have become designated navigator!
After leading Mike and Indira around Rome successfully the previous day and then leading both of our apartments to the office, they nominated me as the navigator. So, I had to find how to get to Campo de Fiori from the restaurant (luckily it wasn't far) and then take everyone there. I don't know that I like having this pressure!
The game was really fun and Italy won of course, so the locals went a bit nuts. There were fireworks and flares and then when we were heading back to our apartment, we saw heaps of Italians blocking off a street and not letting cars pass, and jumping infront of buses and stuff. They were having a great time and we were enjoying watching it.
We had to go past Trevi fountain to get to our apartment and as we walked past (at about 1am) a commercial was being filmed in front of the fountain. I think it was for Italian coffee. We stopped and watched for a bit before continuing back to the apartment.
The following morning (Wednesday) was the first day of our lectures.
I should mention something of the structure of the Villa delle Vignacce program first. The dig will take place over 7 weeks and we will be excavating the Villa delle Vignacce which is located in the 'park of the aqueducts'. The main aspect of the Villa delle Vignacce dig is the bath house (right up my alley). For the first 2 weeks, we aren't digging, instead the project director and other professors will be giving us a guided tour of ancient Rome. That is pretty exciting as they will be taking us to the Forum, Colosseum, Capitoline museums, Circus Maximus, etc. Then at the end of the 2 weeks we will have to do an exam to show that we have learnt something. Then for the following 5 weeks we will be excavating at the Villa delle Vignacce site.
So, on Wednesday we all headed to our meeting point for the day which was the entrance to the forum. We were met there by Darius Arya (the program director) who led us on a detailed tour of the Forum, the Palatine Hill (which overlooks the forum) and the Colosseum. Something that was really exciting was getting access to Augustus' house. Augustus' house has been known to archaeologists for quite some time, but has only opened to the public this past March. The house is actually the one that Augustus lived in while he was Emperor. It has been preserved really well because it was buried and forgotten about for a long time. Inside the house are 4 very well preserved rooms and the most amazing wall paintings covering every wall. The colours are amazing and they look as though they must have been restored, but in fact they are original and have not been touched by art restorers. It is phenomenal that something like this has survived as well as it has for 2000 years. If you've seen Pompeii, it's nothing on the wall paintings in Augustus' house.
It was definitely the highlight of the day.
Our tour of the Forum, the Palatine and the Colosseum was supposed to take only 3 hours (it took me all day to do just the forum the last time I was in Rome), but in the end it was 5 and a half hours.
After the tour (late afternoon - we didn't start until 11:00), Indira and I headed back to our apartment to get out of the sun and relax a bit. I think we all ended up having a cold shower.
Later that night most people headed to a pizza place 20m down the road from our apartment and had a quick slice of pizza. Indira and I headed back and attempted to get some of our reading done for the next day (we have a course reader for the first 2 weeks).
Neal and Steve got lost that night and when they finally got back to the apartment they didn't have any keys to get in and our buzzer from the outside doesn't work, so they had to sit outside for over an hour until one of our group came back to the apartment and was able to let them in! Poor guys.
The following morning we were due to meet one of the other professor's, Albert, at the Theatre of Marcellus at 9:00am for our next tour.
Our day consisted of a lecture on the geological formation of Italy and the layout of the seven hills of Rome, then a tour of the Tiber Island, the Forum Holitorium, the Forum Boarium, several temples and arches. It was a very interesting tour into a part of ancient Rome that most tourists probably wouldn't visit. I was speaking with Albert and he mentioned that the previous year they organised to take some students into the Cloaca Maxima (the first Roman sewer - built by the Etruscans) to have a look. Of course, because it is still used as a sewer today, there was all sorts of safety requirements and equipment they had to organise before they could go in, but he said that despite the smell it was fantastic. I would love to do that, but they aren't planning on doing it again, so I'm disappointed. I think if they offered it I would probably be the only one interested in actually doing it! Sad, I know.
After the tour ended we all headed back to the office to check email and stuff and then, as it was lunch time, Indira and I decided that we would take everyone to a restaurant nearby that we had found on our second day. Most of the group came with us and we had a great time. It's definitely a locals restaurant as we were the only tourists in there, so the food was great and cheap.
After that everyone headed back to their apartments and we agreed that we would all meet at 7:30 that night at the Trevi fountain and go out for dinner.
Later that night, while we were waiting for everyone to finish getting ready so we could go out for dinner, Steve and I were watching an Italian game show. It was really weird (mainly because we could only understand half of what was going on), but very addictive and it wasn't long until we were hooked!
Anyway, we headed out to meet everyone at 7:30. The problem with being in a group is that it can be hard to make a decision about where we want to go for dinner, as no one wants to choose something that someone else won't like. In the end I decided that we would head over to the Pantheon and find a restaurant over there. Even though we'd all been in Rome for at least 3 days, no one but me had visited the Pantheon yet, so I thought it would be a good idea to head in that direction. Of course the Pantheon looked spectacular at night all lit up with people dining in the piazza around it.
On the way to the Pantheon I'd pointed out a place to Indira where I'd had dinner the last time I was in Rome. When we were trying to decide where to eat, Indira suggested that we should eat at the restaurant Casey had eaten at before! Shit! It was 2 years ago and I had a feeling it was probably expensive - being so close to the Pantheon. Everyone agreed and on the way they were assuring me that I would be blamed if the food was bad and of course forced to pay for anyone who wasn't happy!!!! They're a funny group.
The restaurant sat us upstairs in a small dining room that we had to ourselves, which was really nice. It turned out that the food was as good as I remembered it and it was really cheap. In fact it was cheaper than most of the other restaurants we'd eaten at so far. It was a great meal and we spent ages laughing and chatting.
After the restaurant people wanted Gelato, so I lead everyone to Piazza Navona (which wasn't far) to a great little Gelato place I'd been to before and then everyone wanted to go to Campo de Fiori to find a pub. After we'd lead them there, Indira, Ted and I walked back to the apartment.
Friday was our tour of the Capitoline Hill and Museum. The museum is extensive - housed in two buildings. We spent a full four hours exploring the museum and we could have spent a great deal longer. One of the most impressive aspects of the museum is the view across the forum.
After the museum we popped into the office to use the computers and then went back to the apartment. While Italian food is fantastic, it was getting a bit expensive going out for both lunch and dinner every day, so when Indira came up with the idea of making egg sandwiches for lunch everyone was on board! I've never seen people so excited about egg sandwiches.
In the afternoon I decided to go down to the supermarket to grab a couple of things and ended up wandering and shopping for quite some time. I managed to pick up a couple of nice things!
We decided to pop out later for a quick dinner. Someone really wanted to have McDonalds, so we ended up going there. Not what I was particularly interested in having for dinner, but oh well. Certainly the most expensive McDonalds I've ever had!
As it was our first Friday in Rome, the decision was made to make a night of it - although we'd been out every night so far that week. We headed back to Campo de Fiori - there is a slight obsession with that place at the moment and I'm not sure why. We went to a couple of pubs and then most people wanted to go to a discoteque. So, we all headed over there, but neither Neal nor I were interested so we walked back to the apartment and ended up chatting and getting to know each other for quite a while.
Saturday morning we had no classes so we could sleep in - luxury! Going out for dinner every night was starting to get really expensive, so some of us (Indira, Steve, Neal and myself) had decided to get together and cook most nights. So, our plan for the day was to decide what we wanted to cook and write up a shopping list and then try and get everything we needed. We'd found that there was an international food store over near the Vatican and as most of what we want to cook is Indian, Thai, Mexican and the like, it sounded like it might be the place to go.
The shop is called Castroni's and is on Via Cola di Rienzo, which is a street filled with gourmet food shops. We found a supermarket to buy the essentials and then headed into Castroni's. It was fantastic! It had everything we could possibly want and was divided up by country. I even managed to find Vegemite!! Next time we go I'm going to see if I can find Tim Tams!
We bought enough food to last about 10 meals and it only ended up costing about 150 euros total, which is only about 40 euros each. That's pretty good for nearly 2 weeks.
We had to lug all of the food we'd bought back to the apartment via the metro, which was fun, but we eventually got there.
We decided that Steve was going to cook that night and he wanted to make Chicken Fried Rice - heaven! As much as I love Italian (and you all know I do), I was craving something Asian and this sounded perfect. Steve cooked and I assisted. Dinner was absolutely delicious. During cooking heads kept appearing around the door frame exclaiming on the wonderful smells and quite obviously angling for an invite, but we were cruel and didn't offer our food to anyone else! Mwahahahaha!
After dinner most of the apartment decided to head out, but Pascal and I stayed back. We ended up chatting for quite a while which was nice as I hadn't really had a chance to talk to him much at that point.
At around 1am Neal, Steve, Ted, Indira and Jay came back to the apartment and then they started talking politics. I have never seen anything so scary in my life! Americans get very passionate and aggressive when discussing politics. Steve said to me that Americans don't discuss politics with their friends because you may not be friends at the end of the discussion! It was certainly entertaining and I kept well out of it and just observed. I don't think Australians get quite that aggressive when talking politics, at least not in general. In the end we didn't end up going to bed until 5am, which was a bit of a problem as we were supposed to be leaving the apartment at 10am and heading to the beach. After the hot weather we'd been experiencing the beach sounded like a wonderful idea.
So some of us were up around 10 (slightly later than we would have liked but we were up) and proceeded to drag everyone else out of their beds.
We weren't entirely sure how to get to the beach, but Julia (who is in an apartment with 2 other girls in the Trastevere area of Rome) had lived in Rome before, so she gave us directions. Unfortunately she wasn't coming with us, so it was a bit complicated. One of her room mates - Jess - was going to meet us at a place called Piramide.
So, Julia instructed us to walk to the Colosseum (a good 20 min walk with towels over shoulders, which was pretty funny) to catch a bus to Piramide. We wondered why we couldn't just take the metro, but we assumed she knew what she was doing, so we just followed her instructions. When we got to the Colosseum we realised that the whole street becomes pedestrianised on Sundays and therefore the buses don't run! Aaarrrrggggggghhhhhhhhhh! So, we called her and discovered that we could take the metro to Piramide from the Colosseum. We could have taken the metro from Barberini which is literally around the corner from our apartment and saved ourselves walking for 20mins in the hot sun. Oh well.
We arrived at Piramide and had to find Jess. Julia told us to meet her at the Post Office. We assumed that would be simple enough, everyone stayed at the train station and just Indira and I headed out of the train station to find her. Do you think we could find the Post Office? Of course not!
We wandered around for ages and finally got some really good directions from an English woman who worked in the cemetery. It turned out that we had walked straight past the post office and never noticed it. The post office had absolutely no signage on it, neither in English or Italian. It didn't even say 'Post Office'. We got there and Jess wasn't there. We called Julia who told us that Jess had left her phone at the apartment and had gone back to get it and wouldn't be there for another 10mins. So, we headed back to the Pyramid to wait.
Finally Jess turned up and we were on our way.
To get to the beach from Piramide you have to take an above ground train. Julia had recommended one beach, but we weren't entirely sure where it was, so we'd asked the woman at the cemetery if she knew of a good beach and she'd suggested we get off a Ostia Central and walk to the beach from there. That seemed straight forward, so we decided to do that. It took another 30 mins by train to get to Ostia Central and then from there another 15 mins to walk to the beach.
All in all we left our apartment at 10:40 and got to the beach at 12:45. 2 hours to get to the beach!!!!
The beaches in Italy are private, there are very few public ones. We were planning to look for a public beach to save us some money, but in the end we were so exhausted and hot that we just stopped at the first beach we found and payed 7 euros which got us access and a beach chair. It was pretty good.
The sand in Italy is grey (because of all the volcanic rock) and is boiling hot. You can't walk on it barefooted. I actually burnt one of my feet running to the water. The water was lovely though, and not at all cold. We spent a good few hours there.
Being the middle of the day, the sun was strong and I could feel myself starting to get pinkish after 3 hours so I decided to head back before I got sizzled. Neal and Steve are as pale as me (Steve burns so easily the poor guy) so they headed back at the same time as me. The trip back was quite a bit quicker, but still a good hour.
That night was the big Italy-Spain soccer match, so of course we had to head out and watch it.
We wanted to have a quick dinner beforehand and Katie and Kristin had found a place they wanted to take us to, so we headed there. Unfortunately it was closed so they chose another one, which ended up being a slight disaster. It was a bit of an American restaurant (called 'Wine and Grill') and quite fancy. The food was expensive as were the drinks and it wasn't very good. I've had much better from cheap, side street restaurants. I think I ended up paying 15 euros for a plate of pasta and water - that's about $25!
Anyway, after dinner we headed to Campo de Fiori (can you see a pattern emerging?) to watch the game. Indira really wanted to find a nutella crepe so we had to visit 10 gelateria's before we found one that would do it for her.
We got to Campo de Fiori and watched the second half of the game. It was 0-0 at the end of 90 mins so it went into 30 mins of extra time. At the end of that it was still 0-0. So it went on to penalty kicks, which is so nervewracking. In the end Italy lost 2-4. There were quite a few Spaniards in the crowd who started to wind up the Italians when they won so we decided to hightail it back to the apartment before a riot broke out (although I must admit that I was hoping to see a car flipped onto it's roof and on fire, but I wasn't lucky enough to).
We had to be at Largo Argentina at 9am this morning to meet Darius for today's tour. After Sunday night - and all of the previous late nights - it was a bit of a struggle getting out of bed.
The tour started at Largo Argentina, which is a Roman site consisting of 4 temples (and a large latrine!!!!!! Yay!!!!!) and it is also home to hundreds of cats. It sounds weird, but it's true.
Largo Argentina has become a sanctuary for abandoned cats. It's a wonderful enterprise and the cats have free rein over all of Largo Argentina (people can't acutally get down into Largo Argentina, so the cats are undisturbed).
We arrived there a bit early this morning so a few of us stopped and watched the cats going about their business. It was gorgeous - most were only just waking up.
Our tour started at Largo Argentina, which is where Julius Caesar was assassinated. To make sure that people couldn't gather at the site on which Caesar was murdered to plot against the senate, a huge latrine was built! I think that is hilarious and very intriguing for me. Of course I got quite a bit of shit from everyone else because of my love of ancient Roman latrines, but I don't care. I'm pretty used to it by now. I have to say that it was huge and I would love to explore it properly. I may have to go back later and have a better look.
The tour took us through the Campus Martius, past the theatre of Pompey, the theatre of Marcellus, the Saepta (huge hall 300m x 100m used for voting), the Mausoleum of Augustus, the Ara Pacis, the baths of Agrippa (yes that Agrippa) and the Pantheon (my favourite building in Rome).
It was rather a lot of walking, as it covered a rather large part of Rome.
Afterwards we made a quick visit to a bookshop and then back to the apartment to have egg sandwhiches - yay!
Most of this afternoon was just spent relaxing. Indira was cooking dinner tonight and she was planning to make Chicken Tikka Marsala - yum!
I assisted. I'm becoming very good at cooking rice on the stove - 2 meals in a row! Sounds like an odd thing to say, but I always do it in the microwave.
Dinner was absolutely delicious. We had Chicken Tikka Marsala, rice, and dahl. Tasty!
Tomorrow night is my turn to cook.
We've just had a lazy night tonight, not doing much. It's been quite pleasant.
Tomorrow is a tour of the Imperial forums and the connecting museums. Should be interesting.
Finally, I've caught up! What a relief. I will try really hard not to get so far behind again.
Toodles for now, will try to post again in a couple of days.
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