Home Sweet Home

Liz
Today is my last update from Ciutadella, Menorca, Spain. The only ones left from session 3 are Tab, Brittany and I which is ironically how this trip started. This post won't be very long or decorative in language but more of a farewell. The underwater archaeology students are already here and there are 8 of them. When I walked in today it was odd seeing strangers in our residency which has become our home for the last three weeks. I felt funny walking into the shower room and seeing other people climbing into shower stalls that weren't my friends. It's sort of like, "why are strangers eating our food, sitting at our table and sleeping in my friends' beds?". The realization that we're leaving came with the introduction of the new group.

Yesterday was totally uneventful. We all hung around the residency and I napped for an hour sometime in the afternoon. If I haven't mentioned this before, nothing is open on sundays here. Not even grocery stores. People here hardly work at all, actually and a lot of the time things don't open when they're supposed to simply because whoever runs it doesn't feel like it. It's kind of crazy. We watched Indiana jones as a group as our last night and hung out on the roof till 1am. It was a great last night. Today we went into Mahon with Amanda, Nicole and Ashley. We shopped and then hit the beach. The water was beautiful. Unfortunately we parted ways with the girls because they were staying the night in Mahon to catch an early flight tomorrow. It was sad leaving them. Hopefully we will all get together again someday. Tomorrow morning we leave for Scotland and if I am able I will update but I am not certain on internet connections. So for now I bid you Adieu!
Survived an archaeological dig,

- Liz
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Courtesy of the Helpdesk . . .

Liz
Just for you, Helpdesk!! Miss you all. :)

Wandering Spain in Indiana's infamous hat,

- Liz
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"It Belongs in a Museum!"

Liz
Allo!

Hm, it's been a while, hasn't it? Let's see if I can pick up where I last left off and remember everything that has happened since.
Digging went by particularly slowly this week. Dragging ourseleves out of bed was a serious challenge. It probably had to do with lack of sleep considering most of us were up throughout the night many times. Wednesday night I awoke to someone banging around in our bathroom at 3am. If I haven't mentioned this before, the washroom
has the noisiest doors I have ever heard. There is no option but to slam them and once closed you must crank a metal knob to lock it which is equally loud. Someone was clearly having issues with the door that night because it kept closing and reopening several times. In the morning when we were all eating breakfast, Fernando emerged from Rex's bunk room and surprised us all. Later from my incredible deductiable skills I discovered he had crashed at our residency after breaking up with his girlfriend the night before. He was the mysterious person slamming doors the night before. That day ended up being insanely hot and sunny so sitting in the sun digging turned out to be fairly strenuous. I am also covered in weird mosquito-like bites though I'm not sure what they are. They are fairly swollen and have been there a few days now so I haven't a clue what insect has sunk his teeth into me but it is an unpleasent presence. Ontop of the bites our site is infested with caterpiars. These hairy creatures are everywhere. The road leading up to the museum is a different colour due to the amount of bug guts that have been smeared across it. These caterpillars, pretty coloured as they are, are irritants to human skin. They cause very itchy horrible rashes. Jo, our dig site archaeologist, has made it our mission to kill them when seen near any of us. I felt kind of bad slaughtering them until I got a nasty rash on my arm. This week we also had something new in the lab. We were given bags of bones (when I say bones I mean fragments of bones) and had to identify each one and record it. Not only identify but record the side of the body (so right ulna, left 4th rib, etc) but also gender and age it. Unbelievably difficult. There is a great human bones book she has which I may scavange off amazon when I get home later and then further educate myself. I managed to name a few which I was proud of. Yesterday was our last dig day. We got off the bus and sat on benches waiting for our team leaders when Fernando stepped out and approached Manolo, the museum cat, and reached for him. The way he approached him was strange and I only realized he was trying to stealth the cat once he grabbed him successfully by the scruff (just so you know this cat is like 19 years old) and walked him over to me and plopped him down on my lap and said "Manolo kill you!". I have no idea why he did that but it was hilarious. I also got a deserved slap on the arm later from him for yelling "holy shit". Fernando makes us all laugh because he's kind of crazy. Later that morning my team lifted a human skull from the ground. It was one of the most exciting experiences. I was on my hands and knees in the grave scraping around the head and removing arms and ribs to clear away the area for block lifting the head. There were shells and bugs inside the large fractured opening on the top of the skull. It was pretty surreal. Don't worry, I have photos. It was the perfect way to end our final completition of a grave. After returning for lunch we toured all the sites around the museum including an excavated military camp and the other dig site, the Roman City, who the other half of our group had been working on. We got to explain our own tombs to the rest of the group, take some photos and say our goodbyes to our dig. Pulling out of the museum parking lot was sort of sad. I looked back as we drove away and let it sink in that I have officially completed a life's dream. It's hard to believe it's already over. I have done something no one else will do. No one else will excavate the same tomb I did. They will never uncover the Same person or remove the same bones. Or have the same discoveries we made put in a museum. It was a truly unique experience. The chances of me coming back to this island are zero to none. I will probably never see Jo, Cristina or Fernando again. Nor will I ever visit the Ecomuseum of Cavalleria again. I have decided I want to do more. I am excited to see the other opportunities life presents me and the new places I will travel along with the new discoveries and people. It's sad but thrilling.
Last night after we finished lunch and shopping we went out as a group for our last dinner all together. Nina leaves later this afternoon while te rest of us are here till Monday or Tuesday. We got all dressed up and ate at a very good and fairly inexpensive restaurant. We then headed to or cave bar and listened to jazz till about 1am before we all headed back to cash in. It was a great ending to a great trip. I am ready to go home and sleep in my own bed and see the people I miss but I am not ready to leave. Parting is such sweet sorrow, I guess.
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Underwear - Lost in Translation

Liz
Si!

Yes, i know that's not actually a spanish greeting. It's all I hear all the time, though and it's one of the only Spanish words I have learned. So time for an update since it's been a few days. First I will tell you about our day trip to Mahon. Some of us got up early to catch the 10am bus into the city. As we approached the bus stop i saw the long line up and my hopes sank. And as I had guessed we weren't allowed onto the bus because there was a lack of space. Although I'm convinced the driver was just bitchy because we couldn't speak Spanish and all I could communicate to him was the group of us were 6 people. He turned us away and then I watched as he let on about six other people simply because they weren't travelling together. It worked out in the end for the best, though because we were able to rent a car for about the same price and had more freedom. We aimed to visit the gin distillary and the museum but because of the crap hours both were closed when we arrived in the middle of a Saturday. We shopped around and I picked up a few things for some special people back home. We did eat lunch down by te port which was really nice. We walked for about 4 hours that day and by the time we got back we were pretty tired. We opted for buying pastries to soothe the weariness. We had our regular tea time after dinner and spent the evening reading, talking and prepping for going back to work the next day. Sunday we were reluctant to get up and all passed out on the bus ride there. We spent both the morning and afternoon digging. I have ended up with idiotic tan lines and have not only glove and sock tan lines but also a stripe across my lower back and circles around my eyes indicating where my sunglasses had been. I successfully dug another trench but also smoked myself in the knee with a pick axe. I have a lovely bruise as a result. Last night the room was incredibly hot so sleep was scarce again and today dragged by slowly. Our energy levels have dropped as a group but I think we will recover by tomorrow. Or at least I hope so. Nina fell on her face on our way up to the dig site and I just missed it. It's too bad, really, that would've been quite funny. I have also managed to lose three pairs of underwear. I shoved about 7 pairs in a friend's laundry bag and I only received four pairs back. It's a good thing I brought crappy underwear but i really want to know where it went. The woman who does our laundry cannot speak English, not even a little so I can't even ask. It's really comical, actually. Some of the girls think she took them home, others think they blew off the roof where she hangs the laundry. Maybe they're in someone's yard, someone else's home or lost in a black vortex of missing laundry. I say they're lost in translation and I have accepted I will never see them again. There have been moments I wish I could document better. That is all for now because I am tired. Goodnight Ottawa!
Travelling with three less pairs of panties,

- Liz
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Die Another Day

Liz
Bonjour! (thought I'd change it up a little)

Today was our first day off. It was so exciting waking up this morning and knowing we had he whole day to ourselves. As an entire group we decided to rent two cars to take us around the island. Amanda and Tab know how to drive a standard so it was plausible for us to at least check it out. To our pleasant surprise it was only 30 euro per car so it cost us 10 in total which is the exact same as if we were to take a bus (bus far is just under 5 euro which is pricey). Anyhow the girls went to the car rental place for 9am. So then we set off on our day's adventure! Before I begin, I will first tell you there are no street signs. So maps were relatively useless considering we can't follow turns based on street names. We went mostly by memory of driving to the site and back, which was in the direction of our first destination. We hit the road and cruised towards the lighthouse. I was in Tab's car, which was the lead and somehow we lost them entirely. We turned and watched them continue to keep going straight. On our turn off we watched a man get out of the car and save a turtle. I was happy about that. Shortly after there was a snake curled up in the middle of the road who had disappeared on our way back. Unfortunately the lighthouse was closed so we couldn't go up it but the view was spectacular. The island looked amazing from that height not to mention how awesome the sea was. From there we headed to a monastery which sits on the top of a mountain. We almost died going up because the car stalled in the middle of a very steep uphill turn but we survived and will die another day. It was fun and a small place but beautiful none the less. Our last target was the beach where we planted ourselves the rest of the day. It was nice to sit and relax and tan. After returning to the house we were unproductive and just talked for hours. Tomorrow we hit Mahon which will be exciting. I'll keep you all posted, don't worry.
Surviving island adventures,

- Liz
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the head bone is connected to the neck bone, the neck bone is connected to the shoulder bone...

Liz
Hola!

So I believe in my last post I discussed my first find of human remains. In the past two days it has increased. In our grave I have found two teeth and multiple other bones. Yesterday we started to lift out the full skeleton of the body found in another tomb. I lifted out all kinds of long bones, femures, humus, radius.. I even pulled out a part of the sciatic notch. We ended up digging for lost of the days, morning and afternoon. I sunburnt the crap out of myself, weird blotches on my legs and arms. It looks ridiculous and now that it's turning into a tan it just looks like I haven't showered in days and am covered in dirt. At least I'm tanned? After out dig Nina and I went shopping. Have i mentioned that the Spanish girls don't eat? I swear I don't know how else they are so thin. All the pants are made for people who are stick thin. Even my archaeologist supervisor says that clothes here aren't made for normal people. I did end up buying a shirt but that's about it. I bought Tab a scarf for her birthday and Nina picked up a cake. So we celebrated in style, with all the intention of going out that night for drinks but 11pm came around and we were all passing out. The only accomplishment I made was painting my toe nails with Nina. Today was our excursion day so we got to sleep in because we had no where to be until 11. For our excursion we visited Talaytoic archaeological sites. It was awesome. The site was an entire city. Some of those homes incorporated caves as part of the house and we were able to go into it. I took tons of pictures. After that we were set free onto this beautiful beach even though the wind was nuts. Apparently the north wind that hits the island is really dangerous so we went to the south to avoid the wind storm. After getting back to the house we forced ourselves to go out. We found a jazz cocktail bar that was built in a cave. It was so cool. It was really relaxed and the atmosphere was great. I had the best strawberry daiquiri of my life. Tomorrow we are renting a car for 30 euro and exploring the island. I will post more later. Goodnight Ottawa!

- Liz
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Bones and Grave Digging

Liz
Hi everyone!

I know it's been a few days so I apologize but I've been pretty tired. Anyhow I will recap as best I can and try to keep this short since it's 11pm here. So after my last post that night we went out as a group. We wandered around the port as the sun set and I tried to get some decent photos but I'm not sure any of them turned out. It was so nice to go out as a whole group and hang out and get to know each other. We are eight girls sharing basically a two bedroom flat, we better get to know and like each other. We had sangria and I hated it. But at least I can say I had sangria in Spain! We ordered tapas to go with it and I got to eat all re olives I wanted (I had been craving them all day). Our night ended a little later than I had hoped but it was a good experience none the less. We woke up pretty drained yesterday, to say the least, and our lead archaeologist just laughed at us as we wielded pick axes at 830 in the morning. Brittany and I peeled off all the surface layer of dirt in our trench and got down to the bedrock. I was pretty proud of us, it was quite deep and about 8ft long, if not longer. I feel like a weird mix between a gardener, landscaper, contruction worker and an archaeologist. However after our tench was completed we moved onto our very own grave. Only the top inch of the tomb stone was exposed so ours was brand new and we have it all to ourselves. We started digging around the outside of the tomb to reveal the outline which is really neat. It's slabs of cut rock that form an outline of an entire tomb. It's almost stereotypical looking. The grave seems oddly small and I'm not quite sure how they fit people into it. We didn't get the finish outlining it yesterday but we went out again as a group for gelato and explored the cathedral of the island. I spent hours trying to upload some of my photos onto facebook so you can have a look at them on my page if you want. They aren't the greatest and I haven't filtered through them yet so I apologize. Anyway today we spent the entire day on the dig site. We finished the outline and are now scraping back the superficial layer. I have officially found my first bone. And no, unfortunately I have not run into the undead, Dad. It's a small bone and I'm not sure where it comes from and Jo wasn't sure either but I'm still excited. I'm actually excavating a real tomb! I feel like a bit of a grave digger, though, not going to lie. Spain is turning out to be quite an adventure but nothing too crazy. We may go kayaking this weekend and visit a convent that is on the highest point of the island. So far that has been my trip. Doug, thanks for passing it on and tell my TC group I say hi (as well as to the rest of YG, please). I miss and love you all and goodnight!!

- Liz
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Girls Who Like to Dig in the Dirt

Liz
Hola!
Last night it rained. And when I say rained I mean poured. And when I say poured I mean it was pretty much a hurricane. Our window got blasted open several times in the night and I had to get up and close it. I think our room is facing the north which is apparently the side with the strongest winds so all the houses face south. And a a side note, nothin ever dries here. It's really humid and damp all the time. After 24hrs my towel hadn't even dried. All our stuff is damp so even though we shower daily we never really feel clean. Once I get home, I am having A nice long bath. Anyhow after a night of storms we got up for breakfast which consisted of pastries. I know that sounds good but honestly, all I want is fruit, some toast and some eggs. As a group we have decided to hunt out a breakfast place for our days off. But today, because of the rain we had quite an adventure. Upon arriving to the museum we headed off down our regular path which quickly came to an end because there was a stream where there hadn't been before. Our two leaders, Christina and Jo turned us around. Fernando saw us and would not have any of it. He turned us around and found an alternate route. He was determined to get us there. It was like an obstacle course. Not only was it freezing we has to first trudge through long tall grass, in the mud, and then came the rocks, fallen trees, beaver dams and thick brush. Fernando kept yelling 'Jungle! Jungle!' in his thick Spanish accent because hardly speaks a word of English. He also asked us at one point if we were photographing this 'experience' which I was. I felt like Indiana Jones or Lara Croft. Seriously, as strenuous as it was, it was wicked fun. Our dig site was fairly washed out with mud and deep puddles everywhere. Brittany and I were assigned an area to clear off of top soil rocks and once we finished that we started to dig our tench which is shaped like a grave. We managed to make it about 7 feet long and about 4 inches deep. It took an hour to clear off the rocks and then two and a half to do the trench. It was grueling but fun. Although all we found was a small piece of pottery. Once we headed back for snack/lunch we were given a lecture on bone excavation. We had to lay out a cast skeleton and idenify the bones. Then we got to learn how to clean the bones. I pulled out a fragment of a lower jaw with a tooth still in it. It was awesome. It. Was probably from the Visigoth period which is about 57 AD. I loved it. We also got to tour the little museum we work for. This afternoon after fieldwork I passed out for three hours. I think I'm still jet lagged and messed up from three days of traveling. We have only been here three days but I feel like it's been weeks. Anyway I'm still kind of tired and out of it but hopefully I'll spring back. All of us are sore from all the labour we're doing. We are getting to know each other nicely so I'm glad for that. I hope all is well in Ottawa and goodnight!

Love,
Liz
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Major and Minor

Liz
Hola!
It seems I have plenty of free time, much more than I anticipated anyway. We were introduced to our course today and our free time is basically after 4pm on. I also fixed the comments section on here so you don't have to be a registered user to leave them. We were all introduced to the rest of our group today who showed up at midnight yesterday. They all had a horrible ordeal getting here and all of them lost their luggage and are still without stuff. I thought my traveling here was hecktic... Anyway there are 8 of us in total and we are all girls. Except for Rex who lives with us but he's busy working on an under water survey of a ship wreck off the coast. So our day started at 7am and took our ecomuseum bus to our dig site which is 45 minutes away. We had several lectures in the morning based on the site and the island. Fernando, the museum director, gave the talks in Spanish and one of the archaeologist translated. Menorca means minor which is the sister island to Majorca which means major. The museum itself is an old house that has been concerted. The view is.... Indescribable. The museum looks out onto the Mediterranean which comes in like a bay because the island is curved. To the left there is a penisula with an old english fortress and to the right penisula has an old light house built in the 1800s. Off the coast of the lighthouse there is an abundant of ship wrecks where other archaeological digs are taking place. I am really hoping we can visit the site at some point. Our dig is close to the English tower. The archaeologist told us it's a 10 minute walk which was a total lie because it's not 10 minutes and it isn't a walk. It about 15 minutes and it's a hike. There isn't a path, it's all just plants and many rocks so you have to watch that you don't twist or break your ankle. That and there are evil plants that stab at you as you walk by. Once on site, though it is worth it. I looked out over the cliff and it looked like something out of tomb raider because I swear I have seen this exact location in the video game. The dig itself is brutally hard. There are rows of grave already excavted but we are digging up new earth in search of more. I used a pick axe today for the first time. As out of shape as I am and as exhausting as it was, it was worth it. I loved every second and yet I am glad for the breaks we had. The rest of the day consisted of hanging out.

I also forgot to mention that on the flight to England I saw snow peaked mountains!! Anyway, that's all for today, ciao!

Love,
- Liz
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Sisterhood of the Traveling Hat

Liz
Hello everyone!
I have officially made it in one piece to Spain. It has been a bit of a rocky ride getting here, though. Let me begin by telling you about our journey so far. Okay, here we go.

I woke up early Monday morning to an excited phone call from Charlie who graciously informed me that it was finally my day to head out on my adventure. He then headed over to my house at 8am to spend the day with me. Unfortunately for him he had to deal with me being a stress ball. He, of course, was patient and supportive as always. Our flight got delayed from originally at 7 to 11:30 at night so I spent the day worrying about cancellations. It was a good day, though. Saw people before I left and spent the day hanging out double checking all my luggage and just trying to relax before take off. I told Charlie he didn't have to stay the extra time because it got pushed to so much later but because he is needlessly good to me he even took me to the airport to say goodbye. Now you may be wondering why the title of this post is the sisterhood of the travelling hat. I will explain. My lovely coworkers decided to buy me Indiana Jones gear for my trip. They insisted on me at least taking the hat and getting a picture of me wearing it on the dig site. Because I love them oh-so-much I took the hat even though there was no room in my bag. Therefore we had to take turns wearing it throughout the airports on our way here. We are now the sisterhood of the travelling hat. It suits us well, I think. Anyhow, our flight took an extra two hour detour to avoid the ash cloud so we flew over Greenland. Because i can't sleep on planes I got the opportunity to see sheets of ice lining the ocean. At first it looked like clouds until I look a little closer and noticed the separation between the broken ice sheets. It covered thebocean surface in an artistic swirl and added a sense of mystery to the bland blue water which was all that wad visible for hours. At least it added mystery for me. There is something about being up North that causes an uncomfortable, but not bad, sense of the unknown. I kept secretly hoping I would see some kind of marine life although i'm sure I was too high up to see anything. I wish I had attempted to take a photo but I was too tired to think of it at the time. When we touched down in London I felt like clapping I was so glad to get off the plane. As exhausted as we were we checked into or hotel and headed straight to the train station to go to Arundel to check out the castle. The train ride itself was worth the price of the ticket. English countryside is how I always imagined it to be. It s enchanting, really. Rolling hills and fields and breath takingly beautiful. The castle stole the show, though. It was gigantic and I could've spent an entire day there. The grounds alone were nothing like I've seen before. There was an old medieval keep and the stairs were narrow, steep, winding and would not have passed saftey tests in canada. I remember the castle but I hardly remember our trip around Brighton I was too exhausted. I promptly fell asleep at 9pm tuesday night. Today the airport was a zoo. Maybe it was because of all the ashcloud stuff but it's a miracle we caught our flight. We got a little lost wandering the streets of menorca but we made it to our residency safe and sound. Menorca is the most beautiful place I have ever seen. It looks like some kind of paradise or out of a fantasy novel. Anyway we didn't do a whole lot today but check out the streets and small shops. It is 11:30 here and we are due to wake up at 6:30am so I am going to go now. I hope everything back home is going well. Feel free to leave a comment just be sure to sign your name so I know who you are. I miss and love you all!

- Liz
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