Life in Romania is still crazily busy, but it is still amazing!

Over the weekend we went hiking a couple times. Saturday we went to find the Monk's Cave which was used during the time when free religion was illegal. The hike was overall very pleasant, though the very end, right before reaching the cave itself, was pretty rough. In the forest there was a near-vertical slope that we were actually crawling on our hands and knees to get up. It was very amusing hearing everyone else having as much trouble as I was...you just had to be careful they weren't above you and about to slide down on top of you! One of the guys had very poor traction on his shoes and slide hlafway down about four different times. The cave itself wasn't terribly exciting since it was pretty much just a hole in the rocks, but I think it was worth the trip.
On Sunday we went for a walk in the woods along the Romans trench and vellum defense line. It was cool being able to see the ditches and hills they had built 2000 years ago that were mostly still standing. We followed it through the woods until we reached the site of the watch tower, in the middle of a field. We rested there, watching a big herd of water buffalo grazing in the fields. On the way back we had to climb another pretty steep bit of hill...we decided to race each other up, one boy vs one girl at a time... sadly I got paired up against a cross-country runner and lost :(
In terms of actual excavation, we have found a lot more pottery and bone fragments. We have found a number of human bones, and are now fairly certain that the floor we uncovered may actually be the top of a tomb. A discrepancy in the floor pattern makes our supervisor, Eric, think the tomb was probably robbed at one point. That has been our main focus over the past few days, so we are still waiting on opening a new trench.
Our afternoons have been pretty full of soccer and football. Last week we went to have our first soccer practice before we take on the Romanians at the end of the season... we were walking along the roman road to the amphitheatre , dribbling and passing the ball, when me and ashley both tried to steal the ball... I lost and in true Lauren fashion was scratched, bruised, and bleeding before we even made it to our practice space. We also made up a new game, called "Madness." We still dont really know the rules but the basic objective is to distract someone with a socccer ball and a frisbee, then pelt them with the nerf football. With little contact with the outside world, it's a great way to amuse ourselves :)
Last on my update today: All our wishes seems to come true in Romania! A couple days ago we were really craving some Mac and Cheese... we come in for lunch and what has Teresa made us? Romanian mac and cheese! (Noodles with FRESH, local cheese). Then we thought about how much a cookie break in the middle of the morning dig would be...and then, during a break at our halfway point, Eric pulls out a box of cookies! Another day, after digging, we were talking about how much we would LOVE some gogoc, a type of donught, and Teresa brings us a huge plate of gogoc... this also worked with watermelon, nutella, and, amazingly enough, a Trampoline! Romania is such a magical place haha. We're almost worried about wishing for anything else...the Trampoline seems like a pretty good place to stop!

All in all, still enjoying every second of my trip! We should be meeting the rest of our team, the ROmanian students, tomorrow so i'm really excited for that, and then we'll be all set!
Hope all is well at home, i'll try to update again soon!

<3,
Lauren