Claren

Excerpts from Journal and Field Journal Jan 6th "North towards Rio Ibanez from road. Began 500m apart and steered by GPS. Had to start line .61mi from my way point because of cliffs and stinging caterpillars. Worse than yesterday. Crossed road and headed up ridge number one. Many fallen trees. Top clear but the way down on the other side was very steep. "Marco" from valley bottom. Heard both Justin and Cami but saw only Justin. They are WAY off their line...Bottom very marshy. Hit another ridge, up, down, across, up again. Made it to my waypoint at about 2 pm. Beautiful spot. Open meadow. Waited 1.5 hours, no sign of anyone. Considering the previous encounters, I had little trust that they would make it here. Dropped down into valley and walked out towards river intot ... read more

Hello dear readers, here I am again, struggling to learn how to use the spanish keyboard. Anyway, I made it safely to Coyhaique with about half of the group. We all met in Santiago, as three of them had missed their connections and one was supposed to be on my flight anway. Another joined us at the airport and (happy day) all my luggage came through. Others were not so lucky. Patagonia is breath taking. It is different and familiar and exciting, comforting, dramatic, domestic, and any number of other positive superlatives. I cannot fairly describe what the country side is like here. We drove from a flat plain up through ridges dotted with funny round evergreens that were bent by the wind (sound familiar?) into mountain passes that were stunning, granite walls rising straight up, ... read more

Today is the end of the third week here in Romania, with one week left before I head over to another part of town where we’ll be staying for the remaining five weeks of digging. Well, where I’ll be staying for those five weeks. One of the girls here, Elizabeth, is joining me for three weeks, but other than that I think the turnover is pretty quick, so I’ll be a veteran to the new kids by the time I leave! Of course, this program isn’t finished yet, and I shouldn’t get too far ahead of myself, as next week looks like it’s going to be brutal also, as we still have all of the same lecture hours, lab hours, and Friday quiz, but we also have a 15 page paper and research presentation to do ... read more

I had a great day yesterday, preceded by a good Friday. Our discussion on Friday was great, and a nice break from the morning lecture, and then our quizzes were not as bad as I was anticipating, although I haven’t got the grading back. I’m more familiar with the bones that we are working with, to the point of actually identifying a few of the bones, which was really cool. I'm getting more confident in the labs and preparing myself for the lectures better so that I'm not overwhelmed during the note taking. Yesterday was even better. We went on an arranged tour thing with one of the hostel people, which was fun because it was just the seven of us and the guide, who was a really awesome, chill guy. He took us to a ... read more

June 6th The train ride was beautiful, and I tell you what, our room is so gorgeous! I was expecting pallet-style beds in a dorm room, and instead we have an awesome attic apartment to the three of us with our own really nice shower (it has jets!). Apparently it was just renovated. It's kind of nice that the three of us have stayed together (Jaclyn made sure of it) but there are already serious cliches based on who managed to meet Budapest, and it would have been nice to mingle a little more in terms of rooming together. Ah well. At least I'm not rooming with a monster, so that's nice. The whole group is here now. There are nineteen of us, including another student from UW! Weird! Her name is Tessa. Our intro to ... read more