The change of lifestyle in the past week has been quite dramatic. I am now working full time in England at a country pub/ restaurant in an area called Milton Keynes, about an hour North West of London. I never thought I would ever do bar work or wait on tables, but here I am working 40+ hours a week doing exactly that at The Wavendon Arms. The place is actually very nice. It is aimed at probably the middle aged, slightly upper class and so we dont have many problems when it comes to bad behaviour or over drinking. People are mostly out to have a good meal with their families, a few drinks with some good friends or conduct some business meetings. The restaurant has a great atmosphere, and is really quite a pleasant place to eat and the bar is very comfortable. I actually wish we had a few more bars like this place around Sydney, as it is really a great place to have a good social drink.
I have had to make a conscious change in the state of mind I have been in for the last 3 months. I am no longer in tourist mode. As a result, I am trying to slip into some sort of routine. The reason I am doing this is mainly to save money. I can't afford to go out and spend money on travelling all around England at the moment, especially considering how expensive everything is over here. This is somewhat helped by a combination of the work at the pub, and a research paper I am in the process of writing for Mitrou.
The work at the pub isn't too difficult. Mostly, it is about customer service and efficiency. I have had plenty of experience in customer service from working at Mobil for 2 years back in Sydney, and the principles are exactly the same. The efficiency however can only come from experience, but I am trying to learn as fast as I can. The most challenging thing is memorizing the entire menu offered at the restaurant, so that I know exactly what people are talking about when they ask me questions. The wines list is also quite challenging but I am slowly getting the hang of it. Needless to say the accent is helping things tremendously. It is a point of conversation with customers, and makes you a lot more interesting. I am milking it to the max!
The interesting thing I have noticed about England, is that the english spend most of their time thinking about what they could be doing if they were anywhere except england. Right down the road from where I am staying they have a huge indoor snow slope where you can ski, and also an indoor skydiving centre. There is also, slap bang in the middle of the shopping centre, a large sandbox equipped with umbrellas, beach balls and lifeguards. Incredible.
Well thats all from me right now. I really don't have much to write about as I have slipped into a routine here that doesnt involve much excitement. Im not quite sure what people would like to hear about, so suggestions would be appreciated.
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Goodbye Mitrou!
Leaving Mitrou and Tragana was really really sad. Saying goodbye to all the villagers who had been taking care of us these past 2 odd months gave us a constant desire to just stay one more week. Saying goodbye to the Mitrou crew, however, was much harder and was really actually quite depressing. We have gone through a lot together. We have had to deal with the challenges of archaeology and its joys. We have worked side by side for 2 months to the point where we were literally dropping where we stood to sleep. As a group, we have been baptised through fire (thats not an understatement with the sun the way it was!). Saying goodbye to these people now, many of whom I probably wont see again, was really really sad.
The final week of archaeology was terrifying. A kind of madness gripped the entire camp. DIG DEEPER DIG DEEPER DIG DEEPER seemed to be our mantra. We had to reach our goals. Every trench had to work harder than ever before to get to the point where the site needed to be at the end of 5 years of excavation. We needed to work hard in order to secure funding for another season. We needed to work hard in order to gather as much information about the site as humanely possible. As a result we began staying after hours to work. This gradually increased into some trenches staying open from 6am till 7-8pm almost every day. On top of this, we had our final exams to prepare for and some of us had research papers to work on. Needless to say, very little spare time, and VERY little sleep was available. Especially that considering it was the last week, we wanted to go out many nights just to hang out with everyone.
The final week of archaeology was terrifying. A kind of madness gripped the entire camp. DIG DEEPER DIG DEEPER DIG DEEPER seemed to be our mantra. We had to reach our goals. Every trench had to work harder than ever before to get to the point where the site needed to be at the end of 5 years of excavation. We needed to work hard in order to secure funding for another season. We needed to work hard in order to gather as much information about the site as humanely possible. As a result we began staying after hours to work. This gradually increased into some trenches staying open from 6am till 7-8pm almost every day. On top of this, we had our final exams to prepare for and some of us had research papers to work on. Needless to say, very little spare time, and VERY little sleep was available. Especially that considering it was the last week, we wanted to go out many nights just to hang out with everyone.
Through the crazyness of the final week, some extremely interesting finds were made. While these finds were not made within our trench itself, they are very important for the future of the site. Firstly in one of the trenches inside our biggest building uncovered so far, a beautifully crafted gold ring was found as well as links to some sort of gold chain. This was the most significant item of gold uncovered at the site in all the 5 years of excavation and is extremely exciting. It means that wealthy people were roaming around Mitrou 3500 years ago, and is further evidence for the importance of our site in the Bronze Age. Even more exciting was what was excavated in the final 2 days of digging. A HUGE block of stone was uncovered within the same building, standing vertically upright. No one knew what it was. Upon further exploration of the trench, side slabs were also found, and the evidence for a foot slab. The entire structure is very big, almost 5 metres by 2 metres. It is very similar to the smaller cist graves found all over the site, except for its size, and it MAY be possible that this is a giant sized one. What is interesting is that we are pulling a lot of bronze jewelry from this area, and also found a pretty cool gold leaf. We could be sitting directly on top of a HUGE cist tomb. No one knows yet... As for our trench, we managed to uncover another penguin quite deep down in probably Middle Bronze Age levels. ONce again, the Olive Grave delivered on quality and this cist provided us with an amazingly preserved skeleton of a small child, and a beautifully intact pot without as much as a scratch on it!
After leaving Tragana on Sunday, me and 4 of the other guys made the trip into Athens and checked into our hostel. We finally found a place to eat (the place we wanted to go to was closed, or so we found out after trekking halfway across Athens to get to it), and parted ways with Jessen and Josh who had decided to sleep in the airport for their flight the next day. Doug, Alex and I were certainly ready to go to bed but we had made a sacred pact together. We were going to go see 'The Dark Knight', even if we had to die trying. We almost did. Once again the trek around Athens began as we tried to find a cinema. It was raining (very inconvenient when you are walking around), so all the rooftop cinemas were obviously closed. We had to walk all the way into central Athens to find a regular cinema complex. When we finally found one, we were met with the nasty knowledge that the next session was 2 hours away. We were at the verge of giving up and going to bed when we rallied and decided to wait the 2 hours inside the cinema waiting area. Im glad the movie was so good, or I would have fallen asleep :p
In the morning it was time to say goodbye to Greece and head off to England. I travelled into the airport with Doug and Alex and said our goodbyes. I arrived in England, and had to negotiate the underground system with very limitted directions from my pub. Eventually, after a few hiccups, I arrived in Wavendon at The Wavendon Arms and was greeted by some of the staff, given some beer and food, and then given the run down on how the place operated. Ill include more information about the pub after my first shift tonight. After saying hi to everyone, I was taken to the staff house and managed to settle in to a comfortable bed in liveable conditions (much better than I have been coping with recently :p). Seemed like a 5 star hotel I tell you!
Sunday, August 3, 2008
Thermopolae
Thank you to everyone who has been commenting on my blogs and also for sending me emails. I may not have time to reply to every one in kind (which is what this blogspot is for) but you can be reassured that I read and love every single one of them. Thank you for keeping me updated on the happenings back home, and please please please continue to do so. I love them.
Now back to the action.....
Things are now starting to wind down. We have started to do that silly little game of 'this is the last time we will etc etc etc..' which is rather depressing. However, with the knowledge of only haveing a few dig days left, a type of energy has creeped into our work and we are moving very fast. We want to get as much as humanely possible done as this is the final year for this season of excavations at Mitrou. What will follow is a research season, and perhaps a few small dig years which will certainly not be on the same scale. After this year, large scale excavations on the island will cease until everything is published.
The mood in our trench this past week has been strained to say the least. We were working towards our primary objective of uncovering the pink marl floor all week long, but it seemed that every single centimeter of soil we uncovered from the trench, something appeared that delayed our progress. If it wasnt a new set of walls, it was a pebble surface (that bane of our trench rears its ugly head all too often). If it wasnt a pebble surface, it was a plaster one (which to be honest was very cool!). We were also affected by external influences, all too often that of a lack of sleep which affected our pace. We have been trying very hard to cram as much into our trip as possible and I think this has now started to take its toll on our bodies. We are always tired. For these reasons I think that we have been a little snappy and strained. The abundant amount of surfaces that have occured within the trench has also made it extremely difficult to understand what exactly is going on. This manifests itself in long periods of us just sitting around staring dumbly at the baulk or trench trying to make some sort of sense of it.
This mood was overcome by the end of the week though. On Thursday afternoon, we FINALLY managed to get down to the level of the pink marl floor. All of a sudden our mood completely changed. We had reached our goal! We started excavating down to the surface, trying to trace it out, and had no trouble finding it. The soil just lifts itself off of it in chunks. I was happily going along when all of a sudden, the soil was no longer behaving like it was before. The surface was gone. The pink marl floor was preserved in patches. Very small patches. It also only extended into our trench about 15 centimeters. If you had to look up anti-climax in the dictionary, you would see 'see LG790-079, Mitrou, Tragana, Greece'. We werent happy, but I dont think anyone really cared. This is what archaeology usually is. A constant anti-climax dotted with a few short spurts of excitement. You live for those short spurts :p
The weekend found ourselves on our final field trip of the season, and for me one of the most exciting ones. We were going to go visit the ancient battlefield of Thermopolae. This was the site of one of the most famous battles in all of history. I can go on about this for an absolute age, but I will just give you the general jist of it. Basically, thsi is the site where 300 Spartans and around 3000 other Greeks made a stand against the hoards of Persia numbering probably around 200 000 (but this is jsut an estimate. The actual numbers range from as little as 150 000 to as many as 2.5 million). Whichever way you look at it, the Greeks were vastly outnumbered. They were sent there to delay the Persian advance for as long as they could. Basically it was a suicide mission. They held the pass against the Persians for 6 days and 3 days of fighting. The Spartans and the Thespians held their ground to the last man and allowed the rest of their allies to get away safely. They also bought time for the Athenians to be evacuate Athens. Leonidas and his 300 became the symbol around which the entire Greek resistance rallied and were able to ultimately drive out the Persian invaders, setting on course history as we know it. The battle and the selfless acts of sacrifice performed there mean many different things to different people.
Needless to say, to visit the monuments there and also see the battlefield itself had a profound effect on me. Not only was I getting the worst case of Ancient History Tingles I have ever had, but I was actually almost choked up as silly as it may sound. It was really awesome to see various dedications and wreaths left at the foot of the statue of Leonidas and at the famous inscription 'Go tell the Spartans, passer by, that here obedient to their laws we lie'. People still remember and appreciate the sacrifice and hardship undergone by those brave men 2500 years ago.
Now back to the action.....
Things are now starting to wind down. We have started to do that silly little game of 'this is the last time we will etc etc etc..' which is rather depressing. However, with the knowledge of only haveing a few dig days left, a type of energy has creeped into our work and we are moving very fast. We want to get as much as humanely possible done as this is the final year for this season of excavations at Mitrou. What will follow is a research season, and perhaps a few small dig years which will certainly not be on the same scale. After this year, large scale excavations on the island will cease until everything is published.
The mood in our trench this past week has been strained to say the least. We were working towards our primary objective of uncovering the pink marl floor all week long, but it seemed that every single centimeter of soil we uncovered from the trench, something appeared that delayed our progress. If it wasnt a new set of walls, it was a pebble surface (that bane of our trench rears its ugly head all too often). If it wasnt a pebble surface, it was a plaster one (which to be honest was very cool!). We were also affected by external influences, all too often that of a lack of sleep which affected our pace. We have been trying very hard to cram as much into our trip as possible and I think this has now started to take its toll on our bodies. We are always tired. For these reasons I think that we have been a little snappy and strained. The abundant amount of surfaces that have occured within the trench has also made it extremely difficult to understand what exactly is going on. This manifests itself in long periods of us just sitting around staring dumbly at the baulk or trench trying to make some sort of sense of it.
This mood was overcome by the end of the week though. On Thursday afternoon, we FINALLY managed to get down to the level of the pink marl floor. All of a sudden our mood completely changed. We had reached our goal! We started excavating down to the surface, trying to trace it out, and had no trouble finding it. The soil just lifts itself off of it in chunks. I was happily going along when all of a sudden, the soil was no longer behaving like it was before. The surface was gone. The pink marl floor was preserved in patches. Very small patches. It also only extended into our trench about 15 centimeters. If you had to look up anti-climax in the dictionary, you would see 'see LG790-079, Mitrou, Tragana, Greece'. We werent happy, but I dont think anyone really cared. This is what archaeology usually is. A constant anti-climax dotted with a few short spurts of excitement. You live for those short spurts :p
The weekend found ourselves on our final field trip of the season, and for me one of the most exciting ones. We were going to go visit the ancient battlefield of Thermopolae. This was the site of one of the most famous battles in all of history. I can go on about this for an absolute age, but I will just give you the general jist of it. Basically, thsi is the site where 300 Spartans and around 3000 other Greeks made a stand against the hoards of Persia numbering probably around 200 000 (but this is jsut an estimate. The actual numbers range from as little as 150 000 to as many as 2.5 million). Whichever way you look at it, the Greeks were vastly outnumbered. They were sent there to delay the Persian advance for as long as they could. Basically it was a suicide mission. They held the pass against the Persians for 6 days and 3 days of fighting. The Spartans and the Thespians held their ground to the last man and allowed the rest of their allies to get away safely. They also bought time for the Athenians to be evacuate Athens. Leonidas and his 300 became the symbol around which the entire Greek resistance rallied and were able to ultimately drive out the Persian invaders, setting on course history as we know it. The battle and the selfless acts of sacrifice performed there mean many different things to different people.
Needless to say, to visit the monuments there and also see the battlefield itself had a profound effect on me. Not only was I getting the worst case of Ancient History Tingles I have ever had, but I was actually almost choked up as silly as it may sound. It was really awesome to see various dedications and wreaths left at the foot of the statue of Leonidas and at the famous inscription 'Go tell the Spartans, passer by, that here obedient to their laws we lie'. People still remember and appreciate the sacrifice and hardship undergone by those brave men 2500 years ago.
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