Day 30

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Day 30

It was the last day of excavations for the week, which means it’s the last time this week that I had to put on my dirty dig clothes, change and I skyped with my parents before I headed to the bus. When we got to the site, it was really windy and the sky was filled with clouds and just a little bit of blue clouds, with the sun trying to peek through. It was windy all day and the sun disappeared for the good part of the day. Our burial group was busy revealing the inside of the pithos burial; which meant 1 person poking around with a souvlaki stick in the pithos grave, and the other 3 of us picking through dustpans filled with the dirt, small bits of pottery and tiny shards of bones all mixed together. We didn’t have any sifters, so it was all done by hand. We took stretching breaks and took turns in the pithos. It was windy, so we got pretty cold and I had my windbreaker on all day. It was a very unusual day; it was super windy and cold, and then just before break a guy from our group, Joe, slipped and fell down from his trench (the one right above ours) into ours. He hit his tailbone against rocks and a hoe, and hit his head against the handle part of the hoe. Once everyone, including my prof noticed what had happened, Makis, the mayor of Poros who was luckily visiting at this time, started his car up and drove Joe to the hospital with a girl who knows first aid and our prof.

This incident kind of shook us, and we took our lunch break. Neil was left in charge with Gioria and Caliopie. A lady who attended our lamb roast and whose restaurant we ate at on the first week brought us cookies from the bakery, which we ate at break. I think I saw her drive there with her friend and they packed the soil we tossed to the side into some bags; the soil’s pretty fertile, lots of roots and what looks like onions and weird potatoes grow in it, so I’m guessing she’s using it for her own garden? Regardless, the cookies were a great dessert for lunch (my regular sandwich and fruit). I had about 4-5 cookies! Hahaha, I know I sound like a pig, but in my defense the cookies were small and there was more than 3 cookies per person.

After break, we slowly got back to work. Since our prof was gone we worked a bit more cautiously, but regardless with 20 minutes to spare I somehow uncovered something that looked circular, unbroken and was blue-ish gray, rather than a clay color like all other pottery we find. It was at the bottom of the pithos grave I was cleaning out. So since we weren’t going back to the site until Monday, today is Wednesday, then Neil decided to make an executive decision and excavate the piece out before we left. This one bitchy girl had a problem with taking a few minutes out of her time to take it out and she kept insisting that it was ‘time to leave’, even though really, she’s not getting paid to be there! There aren’t really any set times to be at the site! Our prof just allocates 5 hours on most days, and some days we even leave earlier, so I didn’t see the big deal with staying a bit longer.

In fact, the pithos is so small and the find was so mysterious, that all 3 people in charge came to help me while others watched or helped to pack the rest of the materials away for the day. I felt like I was performing a surgery with everyone looking over my shoulder, and some stupid people who kept asking me ‘what is it?’. Like I’m suppose to know while excavating the item out! Finally, after a little tug by Neil, and one last sweep from me, the item just popped out. We replaced it back into its original position, took elevations and then photos of the item in the burial. Then I was given the honor to pick it up with my own two hands. As I took it out, you could see bits of long bone poking out from both sides. And from Neil’s tug, some bone broke. When I picked it up and brought it to the sun, we could see that it was 2 silver baby bracelets with bone still in the hole held in place by compact soil. Everyone was SO excited because it meant that we could age the burial and it meant that the child belonged to a rich family (adding to the history of the graves). We quickly packed up, made sure the burial was covered with wheelbarrows and plastic wrap (since we’re not coming back till Monday and there’s a good chance of rain this weekend), and got onto the bus. By this time it was only 1:20pm, so I don’t know what that girl was bitching about taking up so much time and ‘why can’t we do this next week, wah wah wah…’.

Vasilis drove us back to our apartments, we took showers and then I met up with Isabelle to walk down to the Metaxa’s place (Makis, the mayor of Poros, and his wife Hettie); they had invited us all over for a late lunch. Along the way we met up with Neil, Gioria and our prof, and they all congratulated us both on the find and our prof has promised us chocolate or a beer on him for the great find! He was disappointed he couldn’t be there when we unearthed it and found it, but he now knows that we’re totally capable to handle the site on our own if there’s an emergency. Which I’m glad he knows; he’s such a sweet man and he always looks like he’s worrying about a million things at once.
When we got to the Metaxa’s almost everyone else in our group was there and food was laid out already. So Hettie came out with hot lentil soup, the best my prof has ever had, and we began to serve ourselves the fresh homemade food. We had spanikopitas, tomatoes, cheese, sliced meats, potato salad, bread and soft drinks. At then end of the meal, we helped to clear our plates and then Hettie came out with slices of almond honey cake that’s basically a baklava cake with almonds inside to make it crunchy!! It was delicious! I don’t have much of a sweet tooth, but I almost finished it all! Other girls on the other hand have a MAJOR sweet tooth, so they had 2 slices each and one girl even helped me to finish my piece after her 2!

After lunch, we were SO full, that some girls were thinking of taking a nap. I on the other hand, once we walked back to our apartments, quickly talked to my parents on skype since our conversation didn’t work very well this morning. Once they had left, I caught up with my sister on skype some, then when she went off to school I caught up on some emails, Facebook, photo uploads and tagging, and updating my blog.

Just before 8pm, Isabelle came knocking on my door because we had planned to go out for dinner with a few people and she was hungry. I packed up and got dressed for the rain. We met up with everyone else eventually in Lisa’s room next door and we all headed out around 8:45pm…later than agreed time, or on time for Greek standards. About 10 of us ventured into the rain and went to the Hercules building to see if Neil, Gioria and Caliopie wanted to join us for dinner. They agreed so we met them all at the Romantza restaurant. I had a gyro pita (pork souvlaki in pita with fries, tzatziki, tomatoes, red onions and deliciousness!). Since it was for dinner, they also served us bread with olive oil and vinegar, and for desert (since we go there all the time and brought even more people this time) they gave us 3 free plates of Greek doughnuts, like what Lisa ordered last time!! They were delicious and we were SUPER stuffed! We all pitched in to pay for Caliopie’s meal because tonight was meant to celebrate her last day with us. She was only subbing for Odysseus who had to go away for the week, so today was her last day in the field with us.

So in celebration, we all went to Kivatos for drinks and to see Vasilis. He had chips out for us and made some cozy seating for us inside since all his chairs outside were pretty wet from the rain all day. We ate, and some people drank. I was pretty tired by then so I didn’t drink…I was afraid it would have made me more tired. And we danced…Vasilis and his bartender helper encouraging us to dance of course. About 4 of us got tired around 12midnight so we said our goodnights, Vasilis, of course didn’t want us to pay, we said our goodbyes to Caliopie and the bartender offered us all a ride back to our apartments. Because he had been drinking earlier and we were used to the wet rains and winds from Vancouver, we thanked him for his offer but we decided to walk home. It didn’t take too long and Penny, our adopted dog, came along for the walk home too. I got back, changed, finished this blog and went to bed.

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