On my way

Well, it's been one whole year since I've been able to enjoy international travel once again. Even if my last trip didn't end as well as I had hoped , I'm very much looking forward to this trip to Turkey for a few reasons.

• I will have officially been to Asia, since Turkey is technically mostly in Asia and partly in Europe.
  
• I will be starting what I entered graduate school to do... my dissertation project for my degree.
  
• I will be getting to do some amazing things, meet interesting people, and hopefully have a great time while I am working.
  
• I do NOT have to pay for the majority of my trip this time, thanks to my overseeing professor.
  

I will be taking an overnight flight from Buffalo to Istanbul July 28th, arriving in the morning July 29th and spending 4 days in Istanbul traveling on my own around the city. After that I will have to take a 8-10 hour bus ride out to Konya (another city in Southcentral Turkey) to be picked up by another bus to be taken to where I will be residing for the month of August. The archaeology site I will be working on is called Çatalhöyük (pronounced Sha-tal-who-yuk). This site is well known for being one of the largest and best preserved Neolithic sites in the world, with an approximate occupancy period of 7500 to 5700 B.C.E. Though it is known for this time period, I will actually be concentrating my project on another time period found directly on top of the older Neolithic site. There was a Late Roman/Early Byzantine (400 A.D) cemetery found directly on top of parts of the Neolithic settlement, and this has already been partially excavated. No one has really worked on this material, since they are all there for the older stuff, so I got permission to work on it. The schedule of a typical day is as follows:

• Wake up at 6:30AM, eat a light breakfast, and walk to site to start excavation work at 7AM.
  
• Breakfast break at 9:30AM until 10:00AM.
  
• Lunch break from 12:30PM until 1:15PM.
  
• Shower break from 3:00PM until 5:00PM.
  
• Laboratory work from 5:00PM until 7:00PM.
  
• Dinner at 7:00PM.
  
• After Dinner, finish any laboratory work or notes for the day until bedtime.
  

This is every day except for Friday, which is comparable to our Sunday. Fridays we will have the option to go into the city of Konya (about a one hour drive away), where we have a deal with the hotel there to hang out for the day and relax, go shopping, use the internet, etc.

I will be staying at Metropolis Hostel https://www.metropolishostel.com/index.asp for the time I am in Istanbul, and in the dormitory style building at the site itself. I will be using Skype and the internet every Friday, and hopefully will be purchasing a cell phone when I arrive in Istanbul. Please keep in touch, and I hope you check here often for updates while I am gone! Enjoy the rest of what's left of the summer!

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