Archaeotek Summer- Pathology Week

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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 by Friday, with the majority of the actual research for the papers! Eeek!
We have opened a new bag this week. Yep, all of the human remains here are kept in plastic grocery bags until we get to them and sort and clean them. And then they go back into clean, sorted, properly labeled plastic bags. It seems like an interesting way to spend the latter part of one’s decomposition. Anyway, our new bag has three people in it probably. And the first bone that we pulled out was a teeny tiny little clavicle about two inches long. And then a little femur came out, and two humerii that were, unlike the clavicle, not infantile, but definitely juvenile. We have babies and toddlers to work on for the rest of the program. Hmmm. I’m actually not sure how I feel about that. We wrapped up our pathology lectures this week, and I haven’t looked ahead yet, but I think I’ll be spending the weekend chilling out on our balcony reading and writing, and studying for our last quiz. I wouldn’t want to ruin my streak of good grades during the last week!
This week has marked the end of the honeymoon period that every new experience has and begun to show the stresses of the program in the group. Labs were somewhat more silent this week, with mistakes being more of a problem (though there were fewer because we have all learned SO much). This is mostly manifesting in the group dynamics as everyone seems to want to pull away a bit and have a little alone time, but there is none to be had when 17 are all staying in one house. So it’s been interesting. I don’t actually have any serious annoyances with anyone, but it’s difficult to arrange anything without stepping on anyone’s toes, so I laid low this week. The weekend will be really nice, as nearly everyone in the group has left for a whirlwind tour of Brasov and nearby castles. There are only three of us left at the hostel, which is lovely. I still have six weeks left in country so I feel like I’ll have time to do some exploring later, and I really haven’t spent much exploring time in the city. And oh, for a tiny moment of quiet!
So I know that I have mentioned the heat in every post so far, but seriously! It is MUGGY here! We have had rain hanging on the horizon for days now and it finally came last night, with intermittent glorious thunderstorms all day today. It is still hot, but I can run outside every once in a while and cool down under the showers. I think it’ll rain all day today and tomorrow, and start clearing up on Sunday. Yay! It was barely drizzling during our lunch break today, which we usually have in the square outside of our museum. Just last week they planted several gigantic flower pots and the trees (someone called them Chai trees?) blossomed, so the whole square smelled sweet and kind of spicy today, with that humid rain smell. I love the rain. That's it for this week, if I do anything awesome over the weekend I'll update. I might check out the zoological museum, which I've heard is quite epic. And the botanical gardens, as they are huge!

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