http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/TeesaRo/ Travel adventures in journals and photos from TeesaRo en-us Sun, 27 Dec 2009 20:01:58 +0000 Sun, 27 Dec 2009 20:01:58 +0000 I am one of the two last Americans standing in Vescovado di Murlo today and tomorrow we will be no more. While the last few days of each season are horrible in the sense of needing to clean up the evidence of seven weeks of dirty excavation people read cleaning fridges that should be burned throwing away stuff people left behind bringing the tools down from the site and shutting downcover http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Italy/Tuscany/Siena/blog-426638.html Apologies for the lack of updates but the drive toward the end of the season is always a crazy one.Epic beach trip to Castiglione della Pescaia happened and even though it was gorgeous the only picture I took was of my excellent seafood pizza. Shows where my priorities have turned as of late.There was a return trip to Massa Marittima and a successful entrance into the OPEN archaeological museu http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Italy/Tuscany/Siena/blog-425211.html A weekend of epic length we got Monday off of course gave ample opportunity to do epic things. And epic things I've done. Saturday was a trip to Chiusi to view me some urns which I hope to focus upon for my dissertation and the trip started off right with a nice bout of carsickness on twisty Italian roads. The museum was great but we ended up having to pay full entry price even though so http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Italy/Tuscany/Siena/blog-421110.html Apologies for the lack of blogging but work has been plenty and sleeping is consuming the majority of my free time. Anyway this past weekend involved a journey north to see my first real opera a performance of the Barber of Seville in Verona's Roman Theater. Best possible way to be introduced to opera. The adventure started off right with a stop at the Autogrill near Bologna for lunch. Ther http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Italy/Veneto/Verona/blog-418544.html Greetings allBig week at Scavi We've had serious rain problems nearly the entire time we've been here and all the trenches in the main excavation area have been absolutely flooded as in 60 cm of standing water. Bucket brigades have helped but it's been taking way too much time only to be thwarted the next day by more rain.In comes the motopompa.Our architect went to an interesting read s http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Italy/Tuscany/Siena/blog-415330.html Greetings from Vescovado. Today is Palio day the crazy awesome horserace in Siena and I opted to stay in Vescovado watch the race on TV from the commy bar then go to dinner in the next town over after the race.We've had a few torrential rainstorms the past week or so along with an epic one last night so much of excavation has consisted of bailing the trenches out from all the rain water. http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Italy/Tuscany/Siena/blog-414415.html Ciao a tutti We've just finished our first week of work for the 2009 season and the weather has totally thrown everything for a loop. We've had relatively cold temperatures plus plenty of rain thereby turning the entire site into a huge mud pit punctuated with large holes full of standing water. It's slowgoing with heavy clumps of dirt to lift tools getting coated and shoes caking and s http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Italy/Tuscany/Siena/blog-412757.html Greetings from FlorenceMom and I are having a blast during our whirlwind tour of Italy. So far we had three days in Rome one in Assisi and now we're in Florence. Day 1 in Rome included the Colosseum the Forum the Palatine Hill the other Imperial Fora and the Circus Maximus. I was super confused and probably scared my mom by being utterly incapable of finding an entrance to the Forum. Ye http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Italy/Tuscany/Florence/blog-408847.html I'm at T minus four days to blast off on yet another Etruscan adventure now my seventh but this time will be very very different. And by different I mean way more awesomer. Mom retired and I'm taking her to Italy on her first trip there so she can say hey to the Pope and see the funny things her crazy daughter likes to do like dig large holes in the ground and write about broken pottery.Ou http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Italy/Tuscany/Siena/blog-406013.html In less than 12 hours I will be heading stateside after this monthlong adventure in China. Today in Beijing began with a trip to the Yonghegong Tibetan Buddhist Lama temple the biggest one of its kind in China. I've never seen anything like it in my life and a Guiness Book of World Records plaque confirms that the major statue of Buddha measuring 26 meters tall was carved from a single tree http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Beijing/blog-363724.html I am currently in Beijing until tomorrow morning when I will fly back to the states and I'm missing the people from my project already. I was extremely fortunate to participate in an amazing project with a hilarious caring diverse group of people. We were American Chinese German British Italian South African and Taiwanese and somehow we could all make this work.One of the members of ou http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Sichuan/Chengdu/blog-363525.html Apologies again for what will not be an illustrated blog entry but I haven't had the opportunity to get photos from anyone yet. So I am including a photo of two short trees covered with gold wrapping paper making them look more like pineapples than anything else. Anyway today is my birthday the big 28 and I never thought I would spend it in southwest China on an archaeological dig. The da http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Sichuan/Chengdu/blog-362712.html ME Of course.So let me give a little leadin for this one. I drank an expired canned coffee drink that I bought at a grocery I was unaware of the expiration date at the time of consumption and let's just say it's has had dire digestive consequences. Spicy Sichuan food did not help the situation. So after subsisting on two bowls of rice a day for three days because I had to work out in the http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Sichuan/Chengdu/blog-362009.html Internet access is becoming more sparse as is my spare time to obtain it but I was absolutely stunned today to realize that it's already January 10th and I will be flying home on the 16th. The entire time I've been here I have been semiaware of the date but never the day of the week. We work six or seven days on one day off and that day off has been different each time.My professor took eig http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Sichuan/Chengdu/blog-362006.html Sorry for the absence from blogging but I've been walking through fields digging holes sorting out pottery and covering myself with mud for the past five days. Anyway New Year's Day in Chengdu was fantastic. We got up late hit the hotel breakfast right before they closed it then popped over to the Starbucks. Tasted just the same and the prices are just the same as they are in America. http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Sichuan/Chengdu/blog-360336.html So after a loooooooooooooooooooong dinner composed entirely of different varieties of mushrooms and copious amounts of beer and wine eight of us stayed in Chengdu for the night. We wanted to do karaoke but all the places were filled so we headed for the hotel instead. Because dinner was mushroomsonly we were starving and went to the 24hour McDonald's. Yes at the turn of the New Year I wa http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Sichuan/Chengdu/blog-359162.html Happy New Year's Eve from Pi Xian We're going into the big city to stay the night and have a nice dinner then do some sightseeing and hanging out in the Starbucks to use the wireless. I've been drinking freezedried Nestea coffee for the last week and a half. I purchased a coffee milk tea thing from the big grocery. It' was shrinkwrapped so I figured it would be ok. Nope. It's a cup that http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Sichuan/Chengdu/blog-358650.html Yes we did come here for reasons other than the panda population. We are doing a survey archaeological project in Pi Xian Pi County in Sichuan province. Chengdu is the closest big city but this city isn't small. We have two types of field teams. The first is the survey team a line of people spaced evenly apart will walk fields together picking up pottery on the ground and scraping the si http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Sichuan/Chengdu/blog-357738.html Even though we were in Chengdu for one day and night I was relieved that we had time to go see the Chengdu Panda Breeding Center. It was a cold and gray day and a lot of the things in the park were closed for the winter but there were plenty of pandas about. The first thing we saw was a huge group of female peacocks and the first few panda enclosures were empty but then we hit the jackpot. http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Sichuan/Chengdu/blog-357470.html Merry Christmas everyone We FINALLY have internet at the hotel and I apologize for not updating the blog. I will do multiple installments about the past week in the next couple days.So...my prof made it on our plane from Seattle to Tokyo to Beijing and we arrived around 10 pm some day last week...I am totally confused about time right now. We took a taxi to BeiDa Beijing University and s http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Sichuan/Chengdu/blog-357189.html