Byrnesy
Jenny Byrnes Joined: April 9th 2008
Logged in: January 17th 2012
Logged in: January 17th 2012
Travel Blog Posts
Sweet Temptations
Sorry again for the very delayed post - I blame school. On with it! We got one day in Bangkok on our way back to Hawaii, and so I convinced a few people in my group to go out site seeing and shopping. We went to see the Grand Palace complex. It is surrounded by stone walls on all sides, enclosing the royal residence and temples from the surrounding bustling city of Bangkok. The complex was built in 1782 under the direction of King Rama I, where he would live and work. Though, it is only used sometimes for social functions now and as a tourist attraction of course. We got there in enough time to very quickly run through and snap photos of the temple area, and then had to leave after about an hour. ... read more
Every good photo needs a majestic mountain in the background...
Xin chào, one of the few Vietnamese phrases I learned during my time there, is a general greeting such as "hello." From our drop off point to our site, we passed through part of a village with many children who would greet us with this phrase, though later on they learned to say hello or aloha. Our site was on the side of a small mountain, and we had a relatively short hike through a village to reach it. Due to regulations of the organization I'm employed with, I can't post certain photos, so the only photos I can show you are posted here. We ended up closing our site a few days early, and got to spend them in Hanoi which was super nice. We had Thanksgiving there, and they arranged for more traditional items ... read more
Crabs
While traveling to our site, we stop in a few cities on the way there. Going from Hawaii to northern Vietnam via military transit is different, but is nice because you don't have to worry about the smaller travel details (or any travel details, besides showing up on time). The other nice part of traveling military air, is that you're in a big cargo place (C-17), so once you have reached altitude you can crash on your sleeping bag/air mattress on the floor. Anyway, we stop in Guam to refuel, then spend a night in Pattaya, Thailand, and another night in Hanoi, Vietnam, and then teams split off to go to their final destination. We were put on a helicopter (Mi-17), which was not as awful as I had anticipated. It was cloudy, so we didn't ... read more
Kaua'i south coast
I had the pleasure of having my two good friends come to visit me while I have been in Hawaii. They stayed with me and we also took a trip for the weekend to Kaua'i - one of the other islands of Hawai'i. We had booked a snorkeling boat ride that went around the Napali Coast side of the island. Unfortunately the water was not very good for snorkeling that day, too turbulent and cloudy, although we still tried! The best thing besides the scenery was a bunch of blue dolphins that went by the boat. They would occasionally jump and do flips and twists in the air, pretty cool. It was a pretty decent day for that - since Sunday ended up raining most of the time we tried to go to the beach. Though ... read more
Top of Diamond Head
Although I don't usually post anything when I've visited places in the states, the next couple months will be different since I am working in Hawaii! I have been to Hawaii before - about 4 years ago, and did a few tourist things around the island (O'ahu). This time, since I have a bit of money to work with, I hope to do more! Even if my fun is restricted to the weekends, it will be a good time. Thus far, I've been able to go to Wakiki beach (which I can walk to from my house), Diamond Head Crater, Koko Head Crater, and Kaua'i. Besides drinking Mai Tais and going to the beach, I do actually have to work during the week.... bummer. I'll be in Hawaii until late October - then shipping off to ... read more
Working hard?
This year, I really didn't get to travel at all while I was at the site. All work, and no play. Though, I do have some decent photos from excavating this year. Enjoy!... read more
Asikli Hoyuk
Finishing up during the last few days in the field always involves lots of drawing (which I had to do two trench section drawings by myself... I was very glad to be done), photos, and brushing. The excursion we went on a few weeks ago was to a few other archaeology sites, and apparently I had already been to them in Cappadocia, but it's always better when you get a guided tour from the site director. Sorry for the delay on getting this up... due to the semester starting and other issues it took a little while to get this together. Panoramic picture is from the dig house on our site. Not too much else to say other than we ended on time this year. The big finds for our team would be finding our first ... read more
Carpet!
I have been at the site working for the last week, and it has already been great so far - well, for me. Two Byzantine burials, although slightly disturbed, have come up and I have been working on them. It is fun! There is another burial we can see the top of, that we will also have to take out in the next week. Otherwise, we have half of a new crew this year, some from Cambridge, one from Buffalo and another from Berlin. We had our "theme" party last night, which was cowboys, indians, and red shirts - as politically incorrect as you could get, the better. Most of the women went as indians, there were some good costumes - although i didn't bring my camera, hopefully i'll post some of the photos next week. ... read more
Derinkuyu underground city
Today I had booked a second day tour with Rock Valley Tour group, which I have been very pleased with the service they have for the price. A lot of the tours here are run in big bus groups with one tour guide for 45-50 people! Today's group was a Japanese women traveling the world for the next year, and a family from Alfred, NY! They are the first Americans I have run into in the last week here, and they happen to be from western NY. Our tour started with the Derinkuyu underground city, which is the biggest underground city in this region. It was pretty cool - both temperature wise and site seeing wise. This underground city goes down 85 meters - or approximately 280 feet. The earliest parts of these undergrounds cities were ... read more
Red 
Green 
Where I live 
