My New Year Began in the Fall

As a 27-year-old student, it seems a bit childish to still be measuring my life according to the school year calendar. Even when I am finished as a student, my life will continued to be measured this way as I will hopefully have a career in higher education with life beginning each Fall and ending each Spring (with a nice long limbo period in the Summer months). This approach also makes more sense to me as I have a Fall birthday, so looking at a new year beginning every November simply works well!

The thought of aging crosses my mind, but it seems so far away that I do not pay it much mind. I think about my parents and family aging, and that is more unsettling and real. Television shows always have that character who realizes their parent or co-worker is developing Alzheimer's or dementia. These stories break my heart, not for the characters, but for fear that it may happen to someone I know. We get hung up on the negative and ugly side of aging instead of accepting that it is a natural and inevitable part of life that can sometimes be beautiful.

I stumbled across an article about a photographer who is struggling with accepting her mother's dementia. She found that by capturing the lives of older animals on her camera, it helped her be at peace with the aging process and her own fears of developing such an illness. Some of these images are quite touching. They show age and decay, yes, but they also show experience, tenderness, and an unappreciated beauty in wrinkles and wear that our society deems negative. While these photos do not take away the fear completely, they do show that aging is not always something bad, but can be a marker of pride illustrating the fullness to which a life can be lived.

If you do not wish to read the article, here is a direct link to her website: Elderly Animals


**Addition 4/19/12**
Another sort of interesting article connected to aging and death came across my path recently titled, "Top Five Regrets of the Dying." As I have realized on many of my travels, it is not about the destination, but the journey and all the mayhem along the way that really creates the experience and the memories you take away from it. We often forget that, and, for those at death's door, realize it too late in life to do anything about it. So, check something off your bucket list, take a vacation with your family, call a friend, and take some time each day to do something that makes you truly happy.

C’est Fini

As I am heading back to the States on Tuesday for my Ami’s wedding, this will be my final post for this trip. The last week of excavations at Vix (last week for me that is) was by far the best for me. I was talking to one of our field supervisors last Saturday night when I mentioned I have had quite a bit of experience in the field and was a trench supervisor at my last excavation. I also tried to phrase, in the most polite way possible, how much I hate cleaning postholes. My supervisor was quite pleased with this knowledge and said on Monday I would be working with the documentation team come Monday.

I’m sure after reading my post about cataloguing artifacts many of you realized how much tedium and organizing I can endure. Documenting a site is quite similar to this. You must make notes about every unique feature discovered on site, such as a posthole or a pit for example. Information collected varies, but often includes color of the soil, placement in the site and relationship to other features, a list of objects discovered there, soil composition, etc. as well as sketches of the feature from above and in profile or section. This is the sort of thing I have been doing for the past week. The first part of the week, myself and two to three others who also had previous excavation experience worked on documenting and measuring profiles of all of the postholes we had been cleaning. We did at least forty in one area alone and probably another twenty at least in another area of the site. I coordinated the work and did the official measurements of these features. After we finished this toward the end of the week, another student and I started the documentation for a group of new postholes discovered recently that had not yet been noted. Despite some rain and a few issues with a compass that didn’t point north (think ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’) the work moved along quite efficiently and I enjoyed helping to keep it all running smoothly.

I noticed I was in a much more cheerful mood doing this sort of work. I love excavating, but I don’t feel like I accomplish anything when I move maybe twenty buckets of dirt a day – this is much less than I am used to, but the site isn’t that deep meaning there isn’t as much dirt to move. I had a strong sense of accomplishment doing this work that others don’t like or can’t do quickly. The two supervisors I was assisting by doing this work appreciated it as well. They would like me to come back next year in a more official role on the documenting team, which would be fantastic for many reasons. This has to be discussed first with the site directors, but if they are ok with it, then I shall return to Vix again next summer!

Not much to share about the rest of the week. I’ve been trying to enjoy the time I have left with my new friends. While I hate having public co-ed toilets and showers, living with a large group of guys and girls my own age makes me feel like I’m back in freshman year at college. We do silly things, such as chasing each other around with mattresses, breaking into each other’s rooms in the night to tickle-and-dash, or hug mobs when someone looks like they need one. It’s all silly and fun and makes me forget I’m a grown up for a little while. Despite the language differences, we generally all understand one another and have shared so many laughs I can’t believe it. We are here in a different world for a short time without responsibilities and a fair amount of time on our hands to do what we want whenever we like. Many people here say they come to excavate at Vix as their vacation and I’m starting to understand why. There are great people here and unlike any other excavation I have been on, there is no drama – everyone just wants to have a good time eating, drinking, talking, and laughing with one another. I’m hoping I can bring some of these good feelings home with me and that I take time out to enjoy myself a little more, especially when life starts stressing me out. Aside from the many useful archaeological contacts and friends I’ve made, I think the best part of this trip for me has been retreaving some of my silliness and ability to relax and not take myself so seriously all the time. I see now that I can still get things done even if I take some time to enjoy life and the people I share it with.

Thanks for following along this summer! If all goes well, I will be reporting to you all again around the same time next year!

"Allez la France!"

Excavations continued this week with a little less rain finally, though we’ve still had to start and stop several times because of the weather. It has been quite cold too, which is surprising. I woke up this morning with a bit of a sore throat which has been going around the French-German team. I’m hoping it’s just because I went to bed late last night and not that I’ll actually have a cold for my last week of excavation…

The excavation itself has been a little under-whelming much to my surprise. Instead of moving many wheel-barrows full of dirt each day, I fill maybe twenty buckets of dirt in an entire day. I’ve been digging post-holes (the holes which held the framing for a house) for two weeks now and am bored to tears with it as are most of the others working at the site. These post-holes are cut into the natural soil, which is rock. I clean the dirt (mostly mud with the rain) and debris out of these to make them ready for photographing. 

It’s the same thing every day, though sometimes I get to “spice it up a bit” by cleaning a ditch instead. Some graves were found, but they are early medieval and only a few people have been excavating these. It has been quite difficult to go from being the person in charge/responsible for an area and all of its data collection and paperwork back to a person who is merely there to move dirt. I feel no connection to the site as I don’t know what is even going on here. I expressed these feelings to one of the supervisors who is responsible for all of the note-taking and it sounds like he may put me to work this week with more of the mental work, which would be a nice change. Here’s hoping. 

Despite the monotonous work, I am enjoying myself over all. We get coffee breaks and ice cream breaks which is nice. I can listen to my French lessons or music on my iPod if I like, which helps the day pass a little more quickly. If I’m actually working near others, we have entertaining conversations while we work. We were all so miserable on Friday that we wrote a song about being miserable in our ditch and it turned out quite good!

I’m not sure why, but we had the excavation party in the second week of excavations and also on a Thursday night. I haven’t been drinking much at all this excavation, probably because there is so much drinking going on around me all the time, but the others more than made up for it that night. We were divided into teams based on country (German, Austrian, Swiss, and the French legionaries which included me, some Germans and the actual French because there weren’t enough for a full team) and had to play archaeological games such as tossing a trowel into a bucket, a blindfolded girl pushing a wheel-barrow with a boy inside around a series of obstacles, and a pick-axe toss. I didn’t even want to participate, but got stuck doing the trowel toss – and no, I didn’t make any into the bucket.

After this was the wheel-barrow race. We needed three girls from each team to participate and a quick count revealed we only had two girls on the French team and I was one of them. I finally agreed to do it one minute before the race began and quickly threw on some sneakers which looked pretty funny with my dress. I got up to the wheel-barrow and got ready to start when they told me I had to be blindfolded. I was in the first race, so I didn’t know this was coming and all of the directions for the games were only given in German leaving the French team quite clueless about most of the rules. I managed to get around and back, though it’s a bit difficult when the person giving you directions speaks only French… I was thankfully finished with the games after that race. We were still short a girl and they wouldn’t let our other girl go twice, so we dressed up one of the French guys in a skirt and sweater and he played for us – we had no other options! We ended up tieing with the Austrians for third place, which was fine with us since we really didn’t care that much. We just cheered a lot and waved our baguettes, French flags and pirate flags while shouting ‘Allez la France!’ (Let’s go France!).

 Last Saturday a group of us went to Bibracte, an important archaeological site for Gallo-Roman history. We decided to change it up this week and go to the medieval city of Troyes. Before we left, The Hobbit, the French girl, our blonde German boy, and I went to the Douix and had a picnic breakfast with croissant, homemade jam, baguette, juice, and fruit. It was quite lovely and there were ducks there that day too, so they enjoyed some breakfast as well. We usually have the same breakfast every day in the cafeteria making this a nice change.

After this, we hopped into the Red Fox (a car) and were joined by our driver who looks like Sigmund Freud’s twin. We made our way through the hilly countryside to the city and spent the day walking around. As it is a medieval city, there are a lot of old buildings, many of which look like they might tip over if you leaned against them – they are very tilted and sagging, but still standing! We had some Lebanese food for lunch since there was a vegetarian with us and it seemed like the best option for all. We ate in a small park next to a fountain and then met up with another group which included TSP, another really nice German girl who I like and a few others. We visited the cathedral and after the museum which has some regional archaeological finds on display. The other group left after the museum, but our car walked around for a bit, visited some shops, and had some ice cream. It was a really perfect day from start to finish with a lot of laughing and joking, good music in the car, and perfect sunny weather. It certainly rates up there as one of my favorite days I hope to remember always. The rest of the night was pretty quiet and I got caught up in conversation with some friends until about 5AM. Overall, it was a very perfect day!

This morning was a bit rough because we were getting up early to go to another flea market. I was in the Red Fox again with ‘Freud’, TSP and the French girl. We were following the car that had the map and was supposed to know where this place was, but they somehow managed to get us lost in the woods and countryside making the drive about 45 minutes long. After we arrived, everyone walked around really quickly and wanted to leave about 15 minutes later. This happened last weekend to the French girl and I who are slow and like to look. We hide when we notice them waiting for us so that we can take a bit longer. This flea market was too small to hide for long and we reluctantly left shortly after. The drive home took only 15 minutes because we saw that it should have been a direct line between the cities – oh well.

The rest of the day was fairly uneventful. I napped for about 3 hours, ate dinner, and then went to visit a local cemetery at night. I am in the home-stretch so-to-speak, and finish my time at Vix this week. Hopefully it will be a more interesting week for me and the others! So long, for now!

“The [American] Cheese Stands Alone”

Well, excavations began on Monday and went better than I anticipated. “Why do I say that,” you might be asking. The weekend was a bit rough for me after I arrived back in Châtillon. There were a bunch of people at the school when I returned, none of whom I knew. I put my stuff away and came back to introduce myself to German speaking folk (we have Germans, Austrians, and Swiss all staying at the school, so I had no idea where this group was from). It was pretty awkward even though they all spoke English easily. Turns out they were from the Swiss team and there was even a Vikings fan among them. After a short while, I saw a German I met from the week before return to the school with his son. I went to say ‘hello’ and ended up chatting with them most of the night since I sort of knew them and they are on my team. After they decided to turn in for the night, I returned to the Swiss who were still up. I’ll chalk it up to the excessive drinking they were doing, but they weren’t as welcoming as before and some decided to go off on a long tangent about American politics (as if I have any control over that) as well as the general stupidity and ignorance of many Americans (and yes, some points were valid). There was one member of their team who did have enough honor and kindness to defend me and my country (he was actually born in another country but grew up in Switzerland and his family is quite fond of the States I learned). After a short time I grew tired of hearing about NASCAR and Chuck Norris, so I went to bed and tried not to think about it anymore.

I woke up the next morning feeling quite enraged and wronged. I decided I’d try to focus my attention on my database, which worked for a few hours, but by 3PM I was still feeling quite annoyed. I resolved that I would tell the Swiss guys who bashed my country and its people that if they want to continue to believe America is made up of only the stereotypes presented in movies and TV that they were as ignorant as the Americans they complain about. I also had to tell myself to not seek out drama before the excavation even began, especially with people who work on a different team. I decided if it was brought up again, I would use my thoroughly planned comeback at an appropriate time. 

Just before dinner, the two French students I learned about arrived. I asked the girl if she would mind speaking French with me because I needed the practice. She was very welcoming and so we ate dinner together and chatted (as best I could) in French. The French boy came by shortly after we started eating and joined us. He asked where we were from in French (since we were already speaking it) and after I said I was from the States, he talked only to the French girl. I felt ignored for most of dinner so I excused myself immediately after I finished and went to my room where I proceeded to cry myself to sleep. I felt rejected by my peers, alone both linguistically and nationally, and like a victim of a great injustice – I know nobody did anything outright hostel to me, but I think after being on your own in a foreign country for three weeks, some things begin to feel a bit bigger than what they are. I was feeling frustrated by my lack of ability to communicate and therefore, even more isolated from all of these Europeans. I tried to tell myself that the excavation would start tomorrow and I would either meet new people who would be forced to speak in English since it is the language used by the French and Germans on the team, or I would take my rage out on the dirt.

My rational side proved to be right and the next day was better. The French boy, I came to realize within a day, is just shy and as with most of the French, he knows English well, but it afraid to speak it in front of a native English speaker. I also was reacquainted with two people I met last year – a girl from Austria who is very cool and friendly and a guy, who I shall refer to as ‘TSP’ that I taught to speak Minnesotan. They both remembered me which made me feel welcome and the French duo also continued to talk to me more and more throughout the day in both languages. I also met two other German boys who I shall refer to as ‘The Hobbit’ with whom I discuss movies and television, and the other as ‘Germany’. [These nicknames are intended to provide them with some confidentiality and have been acquired through the course of the week from various jokes which I will not even begin to try to explain here]. These are the people I wake up with, eat with, work with, eat with, work with, eat with, and socialize with in the evenings, usually over drinks or German-style ping pong. 

The latter is a most ridiculous and entertaining way of playing ping pong in which there are usually about six players to begin with who hit a ball and then run counter-clockwise to the other side of the table to hit again when it is their turn. It goes quite fast and if you miss a ball you are out until the next round. I was coerced into playing after they said I should play for the honor of America since I’m the only representative from my country. I agreed and immediately missed my first ball. TSP decided he wanted to represent Canada to inspire me to do better by beating my rival – it didn’t help, but it sure made the evening funny and others picked a country to represent as well. We ended up with America, Canada, France, Italy, Germany, Switzerland, and of course The Shire (for the Hobbit), all fighting for a win. I won once beating the Hobbit which was shocking to him because I am really seriously wretched at ping pong. 

Why have I been talking about ping pong for what seems like an hour? Well, its really the only thing there is to do around here in the evenings other than watching bad movies – its that or drinking which I cannot do every night of the week. We have also been rained out every single day this week except for Friday. Apparently this is really, really uncommon and super frustrating for all involved. I would definitely prefer excavating than waiting around to see if the rain will stop. It is also particularly difficult to excavate after it rains because the soil here is rock, rock that cracks every winter with the freeze-thaw or any vegetation growth. The soil falls between these cracks and it takes ages to clean, especially if it is wet because you can’t just brush it clean like I normally would do. 

For most of the week, the focus has been on cleaning this bedrock and for the Austrian girl and I, cleaning (making the borders more visible) post holes from a house. Tedious, yes. Pain in the back and knees, yes. Fairly boring, yes. Would I rather be doing something else with my day, no. It sounds a bit cheesy, but this is how I know I am doing what I should be doing with my life and that I am a good archaeologist. There is tedium, physical pain, and boring tasks in many jobs out there, but I wouldn’t put up with it and enjoy it in the long run like I do in archaeology. There are very few jobs that take you to far off places (everyone here can’t believe I came all the way from the States, though I think of Europe as being quite close now), give you a chance to meet wonderful people who are both so similar and so different from me, and let you play in the mud and make up songs about loving post holes. It just doesn’t happen. This American cheese who initially stood alone has bonded and melted into a giant fondue pot of diversity here in France and is now enjoying her time with new friends and colleagues.

P.S. Oh yes, here is the thing I mentioned before that I said would make you Iron Ages folks a bit jealous. I also think most of us don’t realize how gigantic the Vix Krater actually is, but this definitely illustrates its size quite well. That is the curator of the museum with me in the photos. The last one was our ‘politician’ photo!

France - 1.5

This entry is titled as such because I am in between activities at the moment. Yes, that means I managed to finish my work at the museum on Wednesday. What I was initially told via email would be about 30 sculptures, 70 coins, and a few miscellaneous objects turned out to be 19 beads, 22 bracelets, 38 coins, 104 rings, 38 sculptures and some other miscellaneous objects. I catalogued the crap out of all of these and have anywhere from 3 to 15 photos per object, giving me over 1100 photos for this season of just artifacts! Not bad for a preliminary study and the fact that just about every other day new objects were found that needed to be included. I also re-measured about 100 objects once I acquired some calipers (I must say though, if I was off in my measurements from when I was using a ruler, I was only off by about a millimeter! Pretty decent I have to say).

Anywho, I wrapped up my preliminary study and said my good-byes for the year since I will likely be back next year – hopefully with better French! I asked permission from the museum for something I really wanted to have, but I will have to wait a short while before I tell you all what it was (my Iron Age archaeology friends will be a tiny bit jealous I think). I did promise the curator that in exchange for this thing I wanted, that I would spread some propaganda about how great the museum is! It is no lie, the Musée du Pays Châtillonnais is pretty fabulous! It is only about 2 years old and holds the famous Vix Krater that I blogged about last year. There are also great Gallo-Roman collections from the surrounding areas. It is definitely worth the visit if you are ever traveling in Burgundy. I did help a few Americans find what they were looking for in the museum my second to last day there, which proves it is possible for Americans to survive in that part of the country :)

After I concluded with my work Wednesday morning, I hopped a bus back to Dijon to stay with Sarah for a few days – a change of scenery was very necessary. She asked me if I wanted to see Harry Potter since it opened on Wednesday in France. Even though it was the dubbed version, I said ‘YES!’ because I remember enough of the book to get along and I can understand enough of the dialogue to figure out what’s going on. There was also so much action in this one that words weren’t really necessary. I ate some popcorn during the movie since I didn’t have time all day to eat. It was sweet though, not buttered and salted like at home, though the other option if available some places. It was ok, kind of like really, really light caramel corn with just a splash of caramel. It didn’t matter much because after I ate a proper dinner. Sarah is an amazing cook and often cooks for me when I stay with her – even if its fresh food her ability to combine amazing flavors and prepare them in a really appetizing way astounds me! 

Thursday was a national holiday in France, Bastille Day. It is like our Independence Day, but people lost their heads on that day in the French version (think Marie Antoinette and company). I was hoping there would be some celebrations/things to do or see in Dijon, but apparently most of the activities take place in the smaller surrounding cities. I was pleased to hear though that there would be fireworks! Sarah had to work, but her old roommate, Thomas, who I met last year offered to take me with he and his friends to see them by the lake near Dijon. I graciously accepted and got to see some really great fireworks – I sort of pretended in my head this was my belated Fourth of July celebration! Here are some of the photos from the hill where we were seated. It was quite lovely and bit chilly, but worth the wait:

The hill where we viewed the fireworks...

And the Grand Finale! 











On Tuesday night, before I left Châtillon, I changed from what I think of now as my third floor penthouse down to a lowly apartment so that I would be on the same floor as my excavation team. The room has most of the same features, except only one window and it is lacking the non-functioning shower. I have a better pillow, which made me happy! None of the other students had arrived yet when I left, but our artist for the site and a former archaeologist turned politician in Germany turned up this week as well as an old French ceramic specialist who looks at the Attic pottery from the site. We all had dinner Monday and Tuesday night at the director’s house where I was “encouraged” to try a glass of wine from the various different bottles we had each night. Ugh, you know you are getting old or you enjoyed your college years too much when you only get an acidy stomach without the buzz from three glasses of wine. Sigh. I was also told by my director that I need to practice my wine drinking as much as my French. We’ll see how that goes, ha!

So, now I shall hop on the bus again and return to Châtillon to begin the second part of my summer in France. Excavations begin Monday at the Early Iron Age site of Vix. We will be excavating a dwelling or two, which will be great because during all of my excavations, I’ve never looked at something as basic and as necessary as a person’s home. I am looking forward to it and am excited to meet the rest of the team. I was told I will probably not improve my French much because most of the other students are German, but a girl can hope! I have no internet now in my new room, so I will update when I can. Until then, thanks for following along and I hope to bring you all and update soon!