Day 50

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Day 50

This morning I got up just after 6:30am; it was really hard to wake up and I really didn’t want to go digging today. But I pushed through and got all my stuff together. I chatted on skype with my sister and boyfriend for a little bit, while Isabelle came over for breakfast and we got ready for the day. I boiled us eggs for lunch, like yesterday since we haven’t gone grocery shopping because of our Athens trip and the weather’s been too dreary to venture out into town after the dig, and I packed crackers and my last orange for my lunch. We left our place just before 7:30, and made it down in time. There was only about 10-13 of us, and the rest of our group, 2 girls out of the 4 of us decided to stay home sick; as if I wasn’t feeling lousy from being sick and I wouldn’t kill to sleep in, but whatever, that’s their choice. Jenn and Lisa had fevers last night at dinner, so they stayed back too.

At the trench it was pretty quiet, considering almost half the group was home sick, but Ada and I got tons of work done. We took down a full 2 feet of top soil, that was really mucky and clumpy like poop, and found some prehistoric pottery that Geoffrey said was very rare and a great find. I skinned my left finger somehow, and noticed it close to break time while I was blowing my nose (almost 2-3 times an hour). At break I ate with the group and afterwards Geoffrey put some polysporin on my cut and bandaged it up with gauze and tape (make-shift bandaid since they were all used up in our first aid kit from other injuries this term). We got back to work, and boy was it a good work out! Ada and I were sweeping away the topsoil like no tomorrow and I could feel the nice burn. Just after 12noon we got the baby burial ready to be finally photographed, rid of all the insides and cleared the fallen rain from yesterday. Then we each poured libations to Persephone and Artemis in memory of the baby remains we found there and took up all the pithos to close the basket on that. We were finally done with the A14 burial basket and could, from now on, concentrate on our own trenches. After that it was just before 1pm so we packed up for the day and headed back to Poros.

I got off the bus in town and went grocery shopping with Mae and Sara; we hit up Lionitus’ for yogurt, cheese and sliced ham, and then the produce store for eggplant, potatoes, apples, oranges, green beans, tomatoes, and a red onion. I felt accomplished and well-prepared for the next week’s meals to come, now that I have a well-stocked fridge and Lisa bought me bananas in exchange for my makeup pads, that I brought without realizing I wouldn’t be wearing makeup for the whole trip. We had a small snack at the good corner café; I had a ham and cheese pie, but I really want to try a potato pie. Mae had it and it looks delicious, not healthy at all, but something to try for sure!

We headed back after that, and it was about 2:30pm or so. I got back home, went to Isabelle’s to get my key back (she needed a few things from my room to start packing for her Paris trip tomorrow), and then I came back to my place, unpacked my groceries and took a nice warm shower (I was filthy from the sludge mud at today’s dig). I did some dishes and Isabelle came over to keep me company and I updated my blog while she did some more prep for her trip tomorrow.

Close to 4pm Isabelle left for Neil’s to print out a few pre-departure things, and I left just before 5pm for the classroom for our Greek language tutorial with Stella. It was a fun, but small class; only about 7-10 of us were there. We went through our birthdays and our horoscopes; in truth it felt more like a hangout day instead of a Greek class because she barely spoke much Greek today and just went through our astrological signs and personality matches.
After class, Isabelle and I headed straight to Geoffrey’s to help with dinner. We were blown away by his place; it was like walking back into Canada, there was hardwood, grass outside, proper furniture and space to breathe (unlike our small places)! He had just finished frying up the bacon, and kept the fatty oils in the pan for the pasta. We helped with some chopping for the cabbage salad (a traditional Greek dish for the winters when lettuce goes out of season: sliced cabbage and grated carrots tossed with olive oil and balsamic vinegar. He was out of olive oil, so I quickly walked to the nearest grocery store (the fresh produce place) and grabbed a bottle and some barbeque chips because they’re his favourite and he was cooking dinner for us! When I returned, he and Isabelle were outside snacking on some nuts, and we started to prep more for dinner. Shortly Lisa, Jenn, Neil and Lainey showed up and we got the pasta together: boiled the pasta till it was al dente, put it into the pan to soak up the bacon fat, then tossed it in a egg, bacon, cheese sauce. The heat from the pasta cooks the egg, without scrambling it, and instead turns the entire mix into a nice white oil sauce. After that was done, we put it into a big pot and sprinkled it with a hard cheese and let it melt as we helped to prepare the chocolate soufflé dessert. Geoffrey, being a past pastry chef and working in an Italian kitchen, melted some chocolate into a sauce pan, separated the egg yolk from the white (2 parts white to 1 yolk), then we helped to whip up the egg whites into a nice meringue, and stirred in the yolks into the melted chocolate mixture. Once they were both ready, he slowly folded in the white meringue into the chocolate mix; which allows for the entire thing to stay airy and light. He then buttered a baking pan and poured the chocolate mixture in and set to bake at about 150 degrees. Once we were finished, Jerry arrived and we set up the table outside on his enclosed outdoor patio. Geoffrey had Neil buy some wine, and we drank a nice dry red with dinner. The pasta and salad were AMAZING! And despite the poor dessert presentation (it didn’t come out quite as nicely as Geoffrey had hoped), the dessert was to die for too! Jenn and I helped to clear the plates and got away with doing the dishes, despite Geoffrey’s orders. Once we were finished, Jenn, Lainey and I headed home because we were pretty tired and it was already 9pm by the time we had dinner, 10pm for dessert, and it was already close to 11pm when we started to walk home. It was the best idea to walk home because it turns out Isabelle and Lisa didn’t leave until 12midnight and we were SO full that our bodies needed some exercise before bed. We got home before the storm started in the middle of the night, and I slept peacefully.

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