Another week gone by and I’m still happy as a clam… or as an oyster here in Galway!  Oyster’s are one of the main products out of Galway Bay, and all around the county they’re gearing up for the various Oyster Festivals.  The festival in Galway city starts next Thursday so we’re going to try to go on Friday when most of us don’t have any classes.  We had originally planned to go to Munich for Oktoberfest but we have a CEA trip to the Aran Islands planned for Saturday, and after talking to one of our german friends here she told us that Oktoberfest is really just a huge, over priced tourist trap that the locals don’t even go to.  We may still try to go the next weekend but I think at this point we’re planning on going to Paris or Berlin instead. 

So this past weekend we ended up on a spontaneous tour of Southern Ireland!  The original plan was really quite simple: the girls wake up super early on Saturday morning, take a 4.5 hour bus ride to Cork, take a taxi to Blarney, kiss the Blarney stone, take a taxi back to Cork in time to catch the last bus back to Galway at 5:45.  By Friday night this had morphed into: drive to Blarney with an irish friend (thus cutting the journey time in half), spend the day at the castle, drive to Cork, meet up with a friend of mine from UMD who is studying in Cork for the semester, spend the night in a hostel, explore the city on Sunday, and be back by the afternoon.  Saturday came and the first half of the plan went perfectly.  Then, as we were preparing to head back to Cork, we decided to go for a drive to explore the countryside… unfortunately the “tomtom” GPS system we were losing was not very reliable and we ended up horribly lost, driving around rotaries 8 times trying to decide which exit we needed, driving miles out of the way when we could have just made a u-turn, and finally ending up almost 2 hours away from Cork, in Killarney.  It was already getting late so we decided to just stay the night in Killarney, a tourist-y town along the Ring of Kerry.  It wasn’t by any means what we had originally planned, but sometimes spontaneous adventures are good, and we certainly made the best of it!  Unfortunately for me, I came down with a pretty bad cold Saturday night and spent the car ride back to Galway pretty miserable.  Thankfully I was able to stop in a convenience store near the bed and breakfast before we set out to get myself some cold medicine and tissues… “man-size tissues,” to be exact, because they didn’t have any normal sized tissues.  As miserable as I felt being sick, we all got a laugh out of the man-sized tissues… each one roughly the size of a small dog.

Sunday night started “Fresher’s Week” here at NUIG.  Whereas in the US freshman tend to show up on campus earlier than everyone else for orientation and such, here they start a week later.  They have all finally moved in and, lucky me, Corrib Village appears to be Fresher central.  Since classes haven’t picked up as much for them yet, they’ve been very noisy, coming and going at night (I know, I know, I sound like an old crone complaining about those young hooligans making so much noise) and, while usually I would be more understanding, they’ve taken to breaking into the apartment buildings and pulling the fire alarms.  They got our building Sunday night, when I was sick and trying to sleep.  The alarm system isn’t tied to any sort of response team, so we (all us boring old folf who wanted to be awake for classes on Monday) had to shuffle out into the cooooold night air and call security to come shut the alarm off.  Sadly, security was already busy taking care of other issues across Corrib Village so we were stuck waiting for almost half an hour.  Thankfully things have calmed down at least a little bit since then.

Other than those little bits, everything is flowing very smoothly here.  I have a nice little schedule for each of my days, going to classes, getting readings done, running errands (though grocery delivery means I don’t have to walk 40 minutes with heavy bags!), and exploring the city.  A friend and I went on a quest for a bookstore and stumbled upon the most fabulous little bakery!  Now, it isn’t much of a “classic” bakery with cupcakes and such, but it does have some yummy breads and a few pastry type things, and the most delicious sandwich station!  Whoever comes to visit is getting dragged to it.  You don’t get a choice haha.  I ended up getting a southwest chicken wrap kind of sandwich, and me and Dennis bought a loaf of banana bread to split.  It was yummy, but nowhere NEAR as good as mommy’s banana bread!  Plus, they put some kind of strange raisin-type fruit in it… I think it’s called a sultana or something.  Not my favorite but still pretty good.

Now some of my friends and I are planning to go see a movie tonight since we can get a good student discount, and my roommate’s professor practically made seeing “Inglourious Basterds” an assignment.  And really, what kind of friend would I be if I made her go all alone?! 

So that’s my life here so far!  Still having an amazing time and soooo glad I get to be here all year!

 

<3>

 

PS my address while here is:

 

Lauren Earl

91-4 Corrib Village

Newcastle

Galway

Ireland

 

(PPS- if you ever send anything that can’t fit through a mail slot, please let me know!  They keep larger items behind the front desk but apparently it’s “too difficult” to send us an email or something if we get mail.)

Slainte!

Here I am, a week into my Irish adventure, and life couldn’t be better.  Sure, the apartment isn’t great, and the weather (with the exception of today) has been cold and rainy, but then I look out my window and see the Corrib river in my backyard, and the green green grass, and usually a rainbow, and the ruins of an old church (yeah, archaeology nerd), and giant swans swimming, and leprechauns playing… really, how could I not be happy here?

           

            I arrived at Shannon airport last Tuesday…1.5 hours ahead of schedule, which was VERY nice because, really, who likes spending more time on an airplane than necessary?  I made it through customs and immigration fairly quickly, and was met outside by Brian, the director from my study abroad program, and three others from my program: Dennis and Colleen, both from NJ, and Steve from Colorado.  Brian gave us all student bus passes, and we boarded the bus to take us to Galway’s city center.  Oops! First problem.  Apparently, in order to use a student bus pass you need to give them an Irish student ID card.  Obviously none of us had those yet.  The bus driver was a bit grumpy and threatened to kick us off at the next stop if the bus inspector came on.  Luckily he didn’t, because then we would have been stranded in a small town somewhere between Shannon and Galway. 

            Finally arriving at the bus station near Eyre Square, in Galway’s center, we got two taxi’s to take us to Corrib Village, the apartments we are living in.  The two guys took one while Colleen and I took the other, along with Brian.  Unlike the bus driver, the taxi driver was very friendly, pointing out places to know (like grocery stores and pharmacy’s) and giving us fatherly tidbits (he has three daughters of his own so… even though Galway is safe, don’t walk alone at night, don’t leave your friends and go with someone you don’t know, watch your drinks if you’re out at a pub or club… the usual).  After we all got checked into our apartments (first impression: small, dirty, everything’s broken… well that’s just lovely) we met up again, joined by some of Steve’s apartment mates, a Canadian named Dylan, and a Luxembourgian (which is apparently the correct term according to Microsoft Word) named Laurent, and headed back into the city center, about a 15 minute walk through campus, across a bridge, and past a beautiful cathedral. 

            In town we stopped at Dunne’s so we could all buy sheets, towels, duvet covers, jackets (because the guys didn’t think it would be cold in Ireland…), and everything else we couldn’t fit into our bags when we packed.  After some shopping and exploring, we stopped in at a pub for our first pint!  It was nice sitting and talking with my new friends, just getting to know each other a bit better.  After sitting for a while, we set out once again to stock up on some groceries from the Dunne’s grocery store.  You know, the basics, bread, pasta, apples, and giant jars of nutella for the guys.  Enough to get us through the first few days until we could get some real shopping done.  Unfortunately, as happens with Ireland, it started pouring on our walk back and, try as we might, we couldn’t keep our bulging paper bags from disintegrating, resulting in a few casualties, led by the glass nutella, jar crashing to the ground.  The last ten minutes of the walk we were undoubtedly marked as outsiders, draped in sopping, shredded brown paper, with piles of things strategically balanced in our arms.  My crowning glory in all of this: I still had a fabric bag stashed in my purse to try to cut down on paper and plastic at the grocery stores at home.  Thank you, Pier 1, for providing me with this stylish (and inexpensive!) lifesaver!  I cannot even count how many times that little paisley bag has come in handy in just one week.

            We finally made it back, just as the rain stopped, and I met my new roommate!  Niki from Colorado, along with one of our apartment mates, Delphine, from France.  We met the other two in our apartment, Geoffrey and Guillaume, both from France as well, the next day.  Niki and Delphine were just on their way out to do some shopping of their own when I got back, so I spent the afternoon finishing unpacking, and just settling in.  We all met up again in the evening and headed back into the city center, to Market Street, for dinner.  After some delicious fish and chips we decided to head back and catch up on some sleep since we were all jetlagged and thoroughly exhausted.

            Over the next few days we all got together for CEA and NUIG orientations, city tours, and our own nightlife tours, visiting a different pub each night (because contrary to apparently popular belief, I have actually been embracing my Irish heritage and going to pubs!).  So far our favorites have been The Quays (pronounced like ‘keys’) and The Front Door/Sonny’s because of the great atmosphere in each.  I had an especially fun night at The Front Door when, within minutes of arriving, I feel a tap on my shoulder and hear “wait, Lauren?!?!”  I turn around and whom do I see?  Katherine Simpson, an old high school acquaintance who had moved away during our junior year.  As if that wasn’t cool enough, she tells me she had seen Mike Gardner, another guy we knew from high school, just minutes before.  We see him heading upstairs a few minutes later, so we grab him and have a mini high school reunion, at a pub in the middle of Galway.  How.  Cool.  After celebrating for a few minutes we left to rejoin the groups we had come in with.  Mendham was wonderful and all, but we’re here for the international experience, making new friends and all.  It’s nice to know I’ve got some connections to back home if I need them though (doubtful that will be necessary, but still comforting). 

            After almost a week of orientations, tours, karaoke (for international students), and exploration, we finally started classes on Monday.  So far I have only had two of my classes, but I couldn’t be more pleased with them.  This semester I will be taking three archaeology classes and two celtic civilization classes.  From now until mid-October I am taking Public archaeology and a course on Hunters and Farmers in Mesolithic and Neolithic Europe.  Once those end I will start a course called “Landscapes of Cult and Kinship in Early Medieval Ireland.”  The two celtic civ classes, “Families, Fili and Fools” and “The Stories of Medieval Wales” last the whole semester, though they only meet once a week on Thursdays so I won’t have either of those until tomorrow. 

            Tonight I’m going to an ISS meeting, the International Students Society, where we will think of activities to do during the semester to help bring the international students together, as well as introduce us to more Irish students.  Following the meeting we’ll be having an ISS meet and greet type event at a Pub back in the city center, complete with freebies and, most importantly, free food!  I’m getting terribly bored of pasta, though I’m certainly impressed with my creative ability to mix together whatever is lying around the kitchen and come up with a dish of carbohydrate-y deliciousness.  Other meals consist of spreadable cheese on toast, muesli and yogurt (my favorite breakfast) and, if you’re my roommate, peanut butter and trailmix sandwiches.  Meanwhile, my French apartment mate Geoffrey cooks amazing dishes like chicken cordon bleu, elaborate pasta dishes with fancy vegetable salads, and roast chicken… for LUNCH.  After laughing at our pathetic excuses for dinners he promised Niki and I that he’ll cook occasional meals for us, and he’s even taught us some easy and inexpensive delicious side dishes.  Should work out pretty well, I think!

            Now that we’ve all settled in, my fellow CEA-ers are planning our first excursion outside of Ireland… a trip to Munich for Oktoberfest!  Hopefully we can get all the details figured out and start another adventure!

            Now that this post is over two pages in Word (single spaced… more than I usually need to write for homework assignments!) I’ll leave off so I actually have something to blog about later!  I hope you’re all doing well and I’ll talk to you soon!

 

<3

Bon Azewa!

I don't have a lot of time for this post so it's going to bemostly bullet points. We're working longer hours because we have a lot to finish before our last day on friday!

So this past weekend was spent at Simleu Days, a street festival in a nearby town. It was SO much fun and I definitely think I made the right decision in going.

~Started off with lunch with Szolt's family (our Romanian-Hungarian team member) at his childhood home in Simleu. His mother made us an amazing meal of samale (stuffed cabbage), chicken, watermelon, and plachenta, a type of jam-filled doughnut. His 5 year-old neice was also there and she's just about the cutest thing ever. She wants to be an archaeologist so we were having a lot of fun chatting with her and telling her about Porolissum.
~Visited a medieval church after lunch. Lunch went really late though so we took a quick look and were out before6:00 mass.
~Headed to the festival, which wasn't very crowded that early. SPent some time wandering around, shopping, and finding WATER because it was almost 100 degrees out. We grabbed a couple tables under one of the tents and stationed people there all night so we always had a meeting spot/resting area.
~Ran into Stefan, who had invited us to his birthday party in Moigrad a few weeks ago. His friend's band was playing, so we watched them. Pretty good, though they admit they'll be better when they have a singer.
~Had the most fun when the next "band" went on...a duo called "Daggu and Kleo." Daggu had really long braids/dreads, and they were both lip syncing the entire time. They kept trying to pep the audince up but noon was very impressed. Then they brought out the free CD's to throw into the audience and people went crazy! We were really interested in hearing what their CD would sound like, so Ashley and I battled our way to the front and started dancing and pretending to know all the lyrics... it was really amusing. After quite a few tries I finally was able to grab a CD out of the air (thanks to all the frisbee practice we've been doing here!). Super excited, I ran over to show Ashley I had caught it, we celebrated, and then realized there were two different CD's. By the end of the concert we had managed to get a copy of each. Good thing we did too! The songs are terrible... one just goes "I like flowers, I like flowers" for an entire song. It's provided us with many laughs.
~Met up with an archaeology team working in Simleu, including the three who came to visit Porolissum a few weeks ago. We spent the rest of the nigth with them which was alot of fun.
~Watched some other bands... Desperado (Romanian cowboys), Cargo, and Iris. They were all really good. We ran into some of our friends from Moigrad and hung out with them during the concert.
~After the concert we went on the bumper cars! SO dangerous... they dont have a line so as soon as it stops everyone runs out onto the floor and fights over cars. I was halfway in one of them and actually got pulled out and then had my foot run over as the other guy got it. It was so chaotic, but you get really excited when you finally manage to find (and stay in) a car!

That's about all for this update... i'm out of time and that sums up most of the festival. Not much been going on in the trenches... started taking up the "tomb" only to realize the corner was a hearth. Slightly disappointing. 3 more days to excavate, then home sunday! Amazing how time seems to fly :(

Love and miss you all,
Pupici!

Lauren

Bon Azewa!

So this past weekend we took a trip up north to Maramures county, a more traditional part of Romania, well known for its woodwork. Each house in the region has these great big wooden gates in front, carved with rope motifs and, more often than not, religious symbols. It's amazing how intricate the designs could be, and they were all handmade. We also visited what was, up until a few years ago, the tallest structure completely made of wood in the world. It's a wooden church, no metal bolts, nails, or anything, standing 74 (i think) meters high. It was recently beaten out by another church, also in romania, that stands 102 meters. We planned on stopping to see that one as well but we got caught by a torrential downpour sunday afternoon and decided to skip it since we've already seen about 5 of these.
Sunday was pretty busy...we stopped in Sigethu and visited the communism museum that was erected in an old prison where political prisoners were kept. It was really interesting and kind of creepy, each prison cell was devoted to a different topic such as women prisoners, the arts in prison, etc. THey showed how one prisoner sewed a poem onto his bandage in morse code. Way cool. We also visited Elie Wiesel's childhood home, which was recently converted into a museum. It was pretty small because they're trying to renovate around water damage right now but since we spent so much time talking about it in school it was neat seeing more about his early life.
After Sigethu we drove for a few minutes and then took a short walk through some woods to a big river. "Hey, look across the river... see that? That's Ukraine! Let's throw rocks at it!" None of us actually hit it, but throwing rocks in a river is always fun :)
We continued driving and went to a town called Sarpeda, where they have the "Happy Cemetary." All the grave stones are painted blue and have caricatures of how the person died. Some of them are really funny and, though some were kind of sad, it's cool to see that they're willing to laugh about life, death, and everything in between.
Other than that there isn't a whole lot more to report. Trench work is pretty slow since Alexandru is going into crazy-mode, insisting he have total control over every decision made. Still opening new trenches so I spent all of yesterday with Bridget and two Romanians, Cris and Adi, digging and shoveling. Hardest work I think i've ever done! Over the past week I've also drawn a plan of a big rock pile (had to stay after work for 3 extra hours because it needed to get done ASAP and the doctorate students, Rob and Zsolt, needed help. Today I drew a profile which gives the strata of the trenches, and I also worked total station last week which uses GPS coordinates to plot exact points for each of the trenches and important features (it's what you see them use along roads when they're surveying land... same concept and equipment).
We also had a photo shoot yesterday! Some touristic magazine came by to do an article about Porolissum so we had to get back in the trenches and pretend to work (it was already technically lunchtime so we only pretended to work). That brings the count up to 3 Romanian publications so far... I already have one newspaper article from 2 weeks ago and i'm hopeing these other 2 articles come out soon so I can bring them home!
This weekend we're going to Simleu (pronounced Shim-lay-oo) Days, a festival in a nearby town. From what I've heard it's a lot of food, live music, and carnival-type activities. Eric (our director) has said it's a lot of fun so i'm really excited. Sadly, it's going to be out last weekend already!

Hope everyone is well at home!

Pupici! (Kisses!)

Bon Azewa!

So Val and I finally gave up on the pit of death Monday. We worked there in the morning but it was starting to dry up, so we handed it over to some other people :) Still managed to find some nice pieces of pottery before we passed it along though. Found a fairly large piece of a basin in another trench, too.
Tuesday we got caught by big rainstorms TWICE so that whole day was mostly a bust, and then Wednesday afternoon was also a big storm, so we stayed up at camp washing pottery. It's really fun when people are washing pottery and get excited about a particularly large or interesting piece and you look over, only to realize you had found it a few days ago. I found a couple of the really nice pieces so I was VERY proud of that. My next mission is to finally find a coin. So far the Romanian's are beating us, 4 coins to 3.
Today we finally started digging into what the Romanian director is certain is a tomb. Unfortunately, he showed up after the American co-director gave us the go-ahead and was not happy that we had started digging in. There isn't a whole lot of evidence that it's actually a tomb, but Alexandru is so certain it is that he was planning to have a camera crew onsite to film the uncovering of the tomb. He made us stop before we had gotten very far... hopefully I'll be able to continue with it tomorrow because we're all anxious to see what it actually is.

Although there hasn't been much else happening on site, we've had an adventure or two in the afternoons, after the "work day." The most recent of these, and to date one of the best, was an adventure down near the spring where we explored an abandoned, and reportedly haunted, house. Ashley, Bridget, Dara, Johnathan and I all hopped the gate (which was locked...and had rusty hinges...oops!) and headed up the steps to try the door...as we were heading up we heard funny noises coming from behind us... Sean was stuck on the gate. Naturally, we laughed at him for a while and then finally went to help him over. For some reason I was at the front of our line and went to check the door handle...locked. As I walked forward to check another gate I hear the door handle start to rattle. A bit freaked out I jump and turn around really quickly, only to see Bridget was also trying to open the door. We continued forward trying every door on every shed and every window but sadly everything was locked. BORING! Until, that is, we notice some fresh wood chippings in front of the shed... and some cups and jars in the kitchen window... and some fresh flowers in another window! But EVERY hinge was completely rusted. Slightly creeped out by all of this we decide to look around the other side of the house. We turn around and walk past the shed and what do we see? A half-unstuffed bunny NAILED to the wall. CREEPY! Naturally, we stopped and took a picture with it. It's probably cursed but we figured we had already hopped the fence, and picked some apples and peaches, so taking one picture wasn't going to curse us any more than the rest of that...
Our adventure pretty much ended there though... to get to the other side of the house we would have had to walk through a VERY overgrown garden and none of us were too excited to try avoiding all the nettles that were probably growing.

Other than that life at Porolissum is pretty low-key. We've been making a story line for a movie we want to film... basically a murder mystery... we have such an amazing setting it seems silly not to! And then this weekend we're taking a trip to Maramures county. We'll be going to a city called Baia Mare, where they have some nice museums, and some other small towns that are very traditional. I'm really excited for that! And then next weekend we're going to either Shimleu Days which celebrates a nearby archaeological site, or some of us might try to make it to Budapest. It's a bit of a trip but should be exciting!

I'll have tons to say about Maramures next week i'm sure.

XOXO
Lauren

ok, i'm going to try not to write such a novel this time...

Over the past week the excavation has yielded some interesting results...
What we thought was a tomb last week turns out to probably just be a late phase floor so we're a little disappointed about that. Alexandru, our Romanian director, really hopes to find a tomb though so when we uncovered some columns (!) on Thursday he decided that was probably a tomb...after we get the area cleaned up and documented a little we'll dig under and see what we find. Meanwhile, I spent most of the week working in the "pit of death." It is so far the deepest area of the site, and we've dug down almost 2 meters. Me and Val have been working and finding a number of large pottery pieces, most have rim pieces, rim and bottom, and even one that has part of a rim, an entire handel, AND part of the bottom. We also found the spout so it's a jug, we're hoping to find the rest soon. ALso lots of big bone pieces so we think it was a garbage deposit. After finding so many things we remaned it "Lauren and Val's Awesome Pit of Fabulous Finds."

We've also spent our evenings mostly hanging out on the west wall, which I can't remember if I mentioned it but is now my favorite part of the entire site. It's so peaceful and you can see all the hills in the distance. It's beautiful. We watched a big storm in the distance the other day and since there is so little light pollution we could see every bolt of lightening. It was soo cool to see, i'm going to try to bring my camera next time and get some pictures. We also like to go sit and watch the sunsets with a bottle of Uncle George's wine. I went to visit Uncle George the othe r night but he wasn't home. Instead Aunt Veronica, his wife, made us more gogoc and chated with us. It was lovely. Most of the families make their own wine, which is really neat. All the houses have grape canopies over the entranceway. We also were invited to one of the ROmanian workers houses for Crepes which was a lot of fun. We got to see her horse, water buffalo, and chickens, and then we learned to make crepes. It was really fun! It's so cool being able to interact with the locals here.

My last observation for this post: it's really neat seeing how they're all starting to develop the area. There is a lot of construction, especially near the city, and people are starting to build bigger and nicer homes. It's great to see the progress they're finally able to make!

Ok, off to lunch in the "big city" where everthing else is closed on Sundays...

Love and miss you all!

Lauren

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