Iceland

When I was approved for Sabbatical, a lot of friends wanted to go with me on trips.  Amy went to London with me, Julie to Jordan and Ecuador.  Mindy met me in Greece, and Kim went to San Diego (with bonus visit in Barcelona).  My mom went to Berlin, and my parents both to Italy.  I certainly had company in my travels, but three great friends from work still wanted to do SOMETHING.  All along I'd said that Iceland would be my last stop on the way home, and they flew over to meet me there.

Kudos to these ladies, they handled all of the reservations.  I was completely tapped out of trip-planning energy by May.  We stayed in two different AirBNB cabins, one on the south coast and one outside of Reykjavik.  We rented a car and explored the south coast and the Golden Circle for five days at the end of July.

Iceland is expensive- $18 for soup lunch expensive- but having a cabin with a kitchen made it a little easier on the wallet.  I fell in love with skyr for breakfast (it's basically yogurt).  We also cooked pasta and tacos for dinner.  The last night we made "Icelandic nachos" with leftovers.  It was great.  Our lunches out were simple but hearty.

The first day we picked up the car and drove down along the South Coast road.  We stopped at the Lava Center and Skogafoss, a huge waterfall.  We walked to the base, and then climbed the stairs up to the top and walked along the river a bit.  Since everyone was jetlagged, we made it an early night with just a trip to the grocery store and checking in to the cabin.

The next day, we set out south for the Sólheimajökull, a glacier where we could hike right to the edge and touch the ice.  It was pretty dark and dirty, but still massively impressive.  I can't believe how much it had shrunk back from the parking lot.  Gah, global warming is so real and painful!

Next, we went to the blank sand beaches.  We ate lunch in Vik, then drove further west to the Fjadrargljufur canyon.  The drive went through lava fields covered in moss.  It looked the the trolls scene from Frozen, honestly.  We got out for photos a few times, then once we got to the gorge we walked up to a few viewpoints.  After dinner, since the sun was still brightly shining, we went to the  Seljalandsfoss, a huge waterfall with so many rainbows.  We walked behind the falls, climbing all over the rocks and getting very wet and dirty.  Yay, raincoat!  Yay, rainbow!  Yay, sun at 9:30 pm.

On our third day, we took the ferry to the Westman Islands.  We did a walking tour of the town, had lunch, and then went to the Volcano museum. The island had a huge eruption in 1973, which buried houses and dramatically enlarged the island.  The museum showed the impact of the eruption on life, and had excavated some of the buried houses.  It was pretty cool.  We switched cabins that night, and enjoyed the hot tub at the new location.

Day 4 was the Golden Circle. We drove north to Thingvellir, where the North American and European continental plates collide.  We could walk through the rift created by shifting plates.  It's also the site of the early settlers (Vikings?) Althing, or democratic-style community meeting that governed the island for thousands of years.  There weren't any real remains, but lots of information about the history of the site.  Further along we stopped at Geysir, where we stood in the rain for 30 minutes looking at the wrong thing (grr) before eventually seeing the geyser, and Gullfoss, where we walked down in the rain to see a big waterfall.  As the rain let up, we arrived at Secret Lagoon for a soak in the hot spring for a few hours.  That, that was heavenly.  The last stop of the day was a Kerid, a crater formed from a collapsed volcano.  We walked around the rim.

Our last day we went in to Reykjavik. We did a walking tour that went through the old port, the traditional homes, the seat of government, and up to the big church.  We ate hot dogs on the street corner, and took photos of Leif Erikson's statue at the top of the hill.  We shopped and had soup in breadbowls for lunch. It was a perfect last day in Iceland.

I can't believe that this was the end of my sabbatical.  I'm not ready for it to be over.  I'm not ready to go back to being in one place for week after week.  I'm not ready to hear only English.  I've loved my year on the road.  It's been the experience of a lifetime. 

Day Trips from Stobi

Part of Field School were weekend excursions, which showed us some of the sites in Macedonia and northern Greece.

First, we went to Lake Ohrid, on the west side of the country.  The water was beautiful and great for swimming (once you got past the snakes!).  We started with a walking tour of the city and then ended up down by the shore.  We had a great lunch and then got some time in town too.  All in all, it was a great day.  The lake was really beautiful and I could have spent a lot more time there.

Another trip took us to Bitola, another Roman ruin. We got to see some of the work from previous years of Balkan Heritage work at the site.  We also toured the museum and had a lunch of traditional Macedonian food.  There was a great eggplant condiment and not so good grape leaves.  I wish I liked them more but can't get past the bitter.  We then had free time to walk around.  I bought the most delicious blueberries in the supermarket.  Good times.

The next weekend we had two trips.  On Saturday we went to Skopje.  I'd seen a lot of the sites when I arrived in Macedonia, but it was fun to walk through again.  We went into the Archaeology Museum, which was fantastic. The building itself had some cool architecture, and we got to see some artifacts that our supervisors had found at Stobi. That was amazing.  After lunch we had free time, so I went to find a knock-off Gucci track suit with one girl, and then ate ice cream in the old bazaar neighborhood.

Sunday we crossed into Greece to see Pella and Vergina, the two capitals of the Ancient Macedonian Empire.  The museums at both were pretty phenomenal and had some remarkable artifacts.  The walk through Pella was a little hot.  Very hot.  Broiling.  Some good mosaics, but so hot.  I much preferred the cool dark of the Mausoleum museum at Vergina.  The grave goods on display there included some really fancy carved benches and a golden box with the sun of the Alexander's Empire.  The site held the tombs of Alexander's father and son. No one yet knows where Alexander the Great is buried.  If he was at all.  But that's a mystery for another day.   After the museums we ate Greek food, and of course, Oregano Chips, the best thing in Greece. 

Field School Stobi

I don't even know how to begin writing about my experience at Field School.  It was probably the most fun I've had all year.  I got to participate in some real hands-on history, learned so much about the Balkans and Roman history, and made some wonderful new friends.

But let me start at the beginning.

Field School was a dream of mine, to learn about the craft of archaeology outside of the classroom.  The program was organized by the Balkan Heritage Foundation, and based at Stobi, a Roman provincial capital in modern Macedonia.  We spent four weeks excavating in the morning and spending the evenings in lectures and workshops related to the finds.  We had lectures in history, pottery, coins, burials, and architecture.  We learned how to use GPS positioning in archaeology and how to work equipment like a total station.  We practiced pottery drawing and pottery reading (figuring out what the vessel was by the shard). We washed a lot of pieces of pottery, glass, and bone. 

My team worked excavating two 5x5 meter squares in an area between two previously excavated sections.  One part of our squares was a road.  That was pretty easy to identify and tedious but not difficult to clear.  We found a lot of animal bones on it. 

The other part of our squares was more interesting. It was at a higher elevation, meaning it hadn't been worked on before.  We dug down and first found a burned pit on the edge of the area.  Then we found the walls of a medieval era room. You could tell the age based on the type of wall construction.  THEN WE FOUND A BATTLE AXE!  No serious, in the room there was a medieval (probably Byzantine) battle axe along with another metal tool, probably a carpentry wood scraper.  They were huge finds and I can't wait to read the papers about how they change the knowledge of medieval life in Stobi.

The other teams found some rooms as well, though they were deeper and probably 6th century Roman.  I wish we could have kept working there.  It was so sad to walk away before reaching floor level.  I would love to spend summers there working for the foreseeable future. 

The whole project was just phenomenal.  The supervisors were 3 archaeologists who have working at Stobi since finishing grad school. They knew more about that site than I know about anything.  They each had their specialties but they worked so well as a team and were such great teachers.  The professor and TA from Queens University led the tech pieces of the dig. While that definitely wasn't my favorite part, they had great info to share.  The food was mostly delicious (loved the chicken and white gravy, loved the broccoli alfredo, loved the pork and risotto), except for mish-mash and sausage night. 

But what really made field school wonderful were the other students.  This group of mostly 18-24 year olds welcomed me, the very much older lady, with open arms.  They shared their drinks and games, their inside jokes, and their music freely.  I felt like I was back in college, and it was wonderful.  I loved my team of 6, who made getting up to the site not-miserable at 6:45 every morning.  I love that they made me use Snapchat, finally.  We hung out in the theater, or the Roman palaces at night and it was probably the closest I've ever come to stepping in to history. 

Ultimately, I was an archaeologist for a month.  I pulled a piece of history out of the ground and brushed away the dirt to show the lives of people in the past.  Someday, something I was a part of will be in a museum to teach others, and that's just the best feeling.  I can't wait to bring that into the classroom.