Hello from Zalau, Romania! Sorry this first post has taken forever but this is the first chance i've had with internet. We've been pretty busy our first week. We spent a few days in the city of Cluj where we explored and checked out some museums. It was really neat flying into the city because it is located very close to the carpathian mountians so the surrounding area is very hilly. It was cute to see little villages nesteled in the valleys.
Last friday, while walking around CLuj, I quickly learned that street lanes and stop lights are really just suggestions that drivers can feel free to take or ignore. It's a bit frightening, the drivers here are worse than the taxis to Foxy's! Saturday we drove from CLuj to Porolissum, stopping in another city called Turda along the way. Here we visited a museum that was closed for renovations, but since the archaeological community in Romania is so small we were able to get inside because our Romanian supervisor went to school with the museum's director. We also visited an old salt mine which was cooler than any other mine i've visited! (And yes, I have visited a couple of mines!) We also went to the local market which was a really interesting experience. You can get just about anything and all the fruits and vegetables looked delicious!
I also learned another thing: not finishing all the food on your plate is a BIG no-no. UNfortunately, though the food is absolutely delicious (i've yet to have a single bad meal), the portions are WAY too big!
After our Turda adventure we finally got to Porolissum. Sadly, we arrived during a torrential downpour. We all were so excited we decided to go exploring anyway. SO glad we did, too! The site is WAY bigger than I thought it was, and we had such a great time running around discovering places. Probably the coolest thing we found was the amphitheatre, which seated about 5,500 people when it was in use. We're planning to put on a play and/or talent show in it one night. :)
On sunday we had a day to relax. It was cold and rainy in the morning but by the afternoon it had cleared up enough that me and the other girls walked down to the nearby town of Moigrad. It's a very cute little town, and it made us laugh that all these rundown looking houses had giant satellite dishes attached to their sides. The walk took a long time but we enjoyed it. We were even lucky enough to see a chicken cross the road! We of course ran over to finally see why, exactly, she had done this. She wanted to peck at a brick. Not the most exciting outcome, but i'm glad I finally know the answer :) After our walk we went back to our camp and played with Pixie, our camp dog! He (yes, Pixie is a he) belongs to Teresa, who is the local woman that cooks all our DELICIOUS meals for us. We're all so happy to have a camp dog who wags for us whenever we come back from the fields!
We started Monday with an early morning "official" tour of Porolissum. After walking around a bit we were set to work cleaning some of the structures that are already on display. We basically had to clear trenches around the base of each structure to prevent too much plant life from growing and weakening the structures. While we were doing this we met a couple of tourists! They were both raised in ROmania but currently live in Pennsylvania. It was cool talking with them, and even cooler to see tourists exploring our home!
Tuesday we finally broke ground in the forum! The boys slept late so they had to spend the morning cleaning the last few structures, but us girls got to head down to the forum and start excavating. I love the walk down to site. We walk through these big, flower filled fields, surrounded by beautiful hills. It makes me want to sing like in the Sounds of Music. Sadly, we cant run and spin around like Maria because, as we quickly learned, the field is also full of a stinging nettle plant. I still have a couple welts on my ankles from where I accidentally rubbed against it. :( We began the excavation by sorting through some topsoil, in which we found a number of pottery and tile/brick pieces. My first official find(which I get to keep!... because it's pretty common) was part of a roofing tile. We also got to start troweling in the trench, which is more precise, and I found what looks like it will be a sizable piece of pottery vessel. Unfortunately I couldn't take it out because it extends into the layer below which we were currently working on. I was super excited to go back and get it out today, only to find that our Romanian workers had dug it out and demanded a day off work because they thought it was a good find. We still need to explain to them that you can't just pull things out of the ground but instead work in layers to determine chronological order. On the bright side, it IS a very nice piece. The whole bottom of a small jar. Today (wednesday) we also found the first coin! We haven't been able to clean it yet so we dont know the date but we're hoping to find some more in the near future!
Hopefully i'll be able to update gtain soon, but these trips into Zalau may be rather scarce, depending on how supplies and such are running. Everything is amazing so far and I miss you all but i'll see you in just over a month!
<3,
Lauren

PS- 1. Twilight is even more popular in Transylvania and
2. Our romanian supervisor kept telling us to beware of the mini draculas that were coming whenever it rained. We thought it was superstition. TUrns out he just forgot the wordfor "mosquito" :P