A Day in the Life

I'm So, it's been a few days of silence on my end, but for good reason. The overwhelming nature of my recent adventure has taken about a week to get acclimated to...plus I'm just REALLY tired in the evenings.

I'm sure you've been wondering what one of my typical days is like, a budding archaeologist. Well, maybe. It begins with the sun, both of us rising around the same time, 6:00 or so, in order to make breakfast that begins at 7:15. The roosters around wake up then as well, providing a nice, natural alarm clock. It's hard to leave my comfy bed, but the promise of new surprises beneath layers of soil draw me out. 

Messy messy in the mornings

I pull my previous day's work clothes from the line, as I have one pair of shorts and two tanks that I rotate through, with one leisurely outfit in the evenings. You don't really need much living here. 

Off to breakfast at the local restaurant/bar, Girus, where we eat all of our meals beneath the terrace. Along the way, we greet our new friends, stray neighborhood dogs, which walk us through their territory in the day and to our gate home at night. We pass the local's houses along the way as well, of course, with their lovely gardens and grape vine terraces. They're so beautiful and well-kept. 

Bar/Restaurant/Cafe Girus

Meals are served buffet style!

My usual breakfast, similar to home! They serve regional sausages as well, but  not the biggest fan, haha. So I stick to my bread and eggs. 

After breakfast, we go wait on our buses at the stop, which then take us to Halmyris, about 3 km away. Once there, we all fill our water jugs and head across the field, weaving wheelbarrows, shovels, hoes, hand axes, and trowels through the old trench walls, making our way to the current location. 

The well on site! A taste to get used to...it's quite "soft" tasting for water but deliciously cold, so we lap it up! Today, the weather was wonderful, about 75 with a nice breeze, windy even. Cloud cover blocked the heat of the sun as well, making for quite pleasant conditions. It's so much easier to enjoy working outside when you aren't being drained of energy by a big ball of fire! The past four days have been extremely hot, especially for Romania. I found myself glancing at my watch every few minutes, desperate for 11:00 which is break time, and a cold sip of that fresh well water, which had grown hot in my bottle by then. Yet today, with the wind, the clouds, and some great headway in our trench, it was 11AM before I knew! So wonderful!

Break is taken back at the same well, with fields of sunflowers and corn behind it, as well as our storehouse. 

After digging for a while, we leave at 1:00 to wait for the buses to bring us home. Lunch at Girus, then showers at home, the afternoon is ours to do what we wish, usually spent chasing dreams in our sleep. 

Today, I discovered a nice little tidbit about our home, Casa Halmyris. If you run the shower too long, all the water in the whole house runs out! I was washing not my clothes (yes, by hand!) in the shower, and ran it out of water...oops. So Shelley went to another place where our friends are staying and showered, while I waited at Casa, napping. The weather was so nice, I stared outside on our large porch. 

However, I moved inside and slept for a nice little while. I'm not sore, surprisingly, but my thumb muscle will be magnificent by the end of the month. It's been extremely sore, as well as my forearms but of course from lack of strenuous exercise. I expected to be reminded of how out of shape I am, but not in my hands! Amazing! All that gripping, digging, pick-axing, carrying dirt buckets and rocks, and tedious trowel-work has helped me appreciate all the little things Dad taught me. How to hoe, carrying water buckets and scooping feed. I certainly have stood out a bit that way! Being a southern farm girl is an anomaly on this trip, and everyone loves my accent, hahaha. So thank you Tennesee for that, thank you Dad for teaching me skills most of these city folk don't have a prayer of knowing, and thank you Mom for teaching me how to make Spaghetti sauce, our dinner of choice tonight! I love and appreciate you all and the South more than I ever thought possible. It's amazing the things you learn that you never expected. I love my home and where I come from even more after being here, and I wish everyone could grow up like me!

Dinner tonight was thrown together, as the restaurant isn't open on weekends. Several of us (Me, Katie, Greta, Helen, Jess, and Adam) made spaghetti with ingredients we hoped tasted well, as none of us speak any Romanian. It turned out great though, and we hung out on the back porch, enjoying the food and swapping some great stories. I'm so blessed to be here. 

Tonight is a "house party" at Casa, as we have two birthdays to celebrate! Tomorrow, we're going to Constantea to learn more about the Romans influence on the region. I'm so excited!

Disclaimer: I can't post pictures of the Dig in progress or discuss any finds we might have on here. Because it's part of an ongoing Dig, the rights belong to the universities that fund it. I'm sorry!

Long live Tennessee and America! 🇺🇸