Dear midges,
I hate you.
I hate you more than the sheep
that shit in my unit
at night.
more than the wind
that flaps the tarp
and showers me with rain
and poo
more than the nettles
that bend in my path
and sting through my clothes
more than the rain
the sun
the fog
the bog
I hate you.
Stupid midges.
Friday, July 28, 2006
Thursday, July 27, 2006
"And Where was Enkidu?"
Yes, I'm on vacation and I'm reading Gilgamesh. Ok, I'm not really on vacation, I'm technically in school, but since everything we do here is so much fun it doesn't seem very school-like. Besides, I feel I have to make up for that terrible chick-lit book that I got sucked into last week. That was the mental equivalent of eating a twinkie. Gilgamesh, while not really a huge workout, is certainly a lot healthier - like an evening stroll that stretches the legs and gets the blood flowing again.
Speaking of health, the pub is trying to kill me by overfeeding. Today the weather was positively Oregon: drizzle, mist, wind, fog, wind, rain rain rain. After work, I washed the mud off my hands and went straight to the pub and ordered a hot whiskey. Then I ordered roast beef which turned out to be huge and yet so delicious that I couldn't stop eating it, even long after I'd been full. And then they told me that they had brownies...... lord above. I didn't move for a full twenty minutes. Then I ordered a beer. I love this place.
Scol Acla is still going on, which means there are tons of musicians in town and a bunch of cute little kids learning to play traditional instruments. There's music every night into the wee hours. Tonight promises to be a particularly late night, so I'm going to have a nap and a shower before I head out again.
Yesterday I saw a pirate castle, so that's more than likely going to be my next post! Aren't you excited!
Speaking of health, the pub is trying to kill me by overfeeding. Today the weather was positively Oregon: drizzle, mist, wind, fog, wind, rain rain rain. After work, I washed the mud off my hands and went straight to the pub and ordered a hot whiskey. Then I ordered roast beef which turned out to be huge and yet so delicious that I couldn't stop eating it, even long after I'd been full. And then they told me that they had brownies...... lord above. I didn't move for a full twenty minutes. Then I ordered a beer. I love this place.
Scol Acla is still going on, which means there are tons of musicians in town and a bunch of cute little kids learning to play traditional instruments. There's music every night into the wee hours. Tonight promises to be a particularly late night, so I'm going to have a nap and a shower before I head out again.
Yesterday I saw a pirate castle, so that's more than likely going to be my next post! Aren't you excited!
Monday, July 24, 2006
Cairns, Caves and a Madman
JULY 15TH (getting around to copying from my journal... slowly.)
Yesterday I crawled out of bed at 7, still wincing over my horrible sunburn and still sniffling with my cold. I was stiff and sore from kneelig in my unit the past two days. It was Saturday, but we were going on fieldtrip to Sligo and were to meet Jackie at 8am. As soon as we left I realized that I’d forgotten my wallet and my first time off the island and therefore my first chance to hit an ATM was blown.
We drove about 2 hours to a place called Carrowkeel where we met a madman named Sam.
Sam, like many archaeologists I’ve been lucky enough to meet, seemed to know everything about everything. His vast amount of knowledge was just amazing. I probably only picked up a 1/10th of what he said, but this time there was no accent to blame (although he was a Dubliner and I caught some slang like, “yer man.”); I understood every word, it was just the sheer overwhelming amount of knowledge he spilled that prevented me from picking up all of it.
I call him a madman because the first thing he asks us after we left the safety of Jackie and the bus was, “everyone’s quite fit, right? And no one’s afraid of heights?” What the hell is that supposed to mean? we were all thinking.
He took us straight up a mountain along a tiny little path fraught with holes and rocks and a long fall on the right side. We got to the top, sweating and panting, to find a huge pile of rocks. It was Carrowkeel L, one of the many Carrowkeel passage tombs. Sam proceeded to talk at length about the geology of the area, the particular geology of this tomb, the layout of the tomb and types of layouts of other tombs. Then he gave us a panoramic tour of all the other cairns within sight, which turned out to be many. Carrowkeel’s cairns are marked “A, B,” etc, and they’re already up to Y. Out in the distance he pointed to another set, whose name I can’t remember, and said that there were 70 more little ones discovered around it. There were also more sets he pointed to around, as well. I need to find a more detailed map or I’ll never remember these things.
We then trudged off through the heather and thistles to a few other older and more denegrated tombs where we were just able to discern the entrance and the location of the tombs withtin. As we were walking Chris asked about a large sinkole he saw to our left. Sam then explained about limestone sinkholes and limestone caves. Limestone, as we know from geology class, disintegrates with rain water. Plus, a few places have large slabs of slate, which is impermeable, so more rainwater falls off of these and lands in a concentrated spot on the limestone, eventually forming a sinkhole and then a cave.
After a bit more hiking he took us to one of these caves. He claims that around the world, year round, caves remain a stable 11 C. As it was a hot day, we gladly followed him down. To sound like a little kid for a second.... it was sooooooo cool!!!!! It was a large pit in the ground, not much warning at all if you just happened upon it while wandering in the hills. Below, when our eyes began to adjust to the dark, we cold see our breath. Sam began to tell us stories. He talked about everything from the erroneous image of Stone Age people as cavemen, about the Shamanic rituals involving caves across the world and time, the importance of art and acoustics, of drugs, geometric shapes, the influence of culture on how one interprets said geometric shapes. Man. So much knowledge.
We then hiked down to another passage tomb where we all crawled inside. He told some more stories and said that he’d actually spent the night in this tomb in order to get a feel for it. He said that even without drugs, the total darkness and silence started to make things weird. He then had us block off the doorway and just sit in the dark and quiet and reflect. Those two experiences alone, the cave and the tomb, made my entire trip to Ireland worth it.
We went into one more to where Sam dug out his stash of bones. Most of these tombs were excavated in 1911 in the utmost of haste. Everything was dugout as quickly as possible and no note was made as to the context, not even which of the three main tombs inside it came from, so keeping a pile of bones isn’t ruining the integrity of the site anyway. The bones were cremated human bones and one of which he believed to be the rib of a child. It’s a shame those excavators did such a shoddy job; bones aren’t preserved well in the peat, so they’re a rare find. The presence of a child’s bones is very intriguing in that children’s burials are usually separate from that of adults it would have been interesting to see the context in which these bones were placed originally.
The rest of the trip I was honestly a bit burned out. It was hot, I’d long since gone through my kleenex, my sunburn was killing me and even my stomach was giving me trouble. Sam did tell many more Irish myths, all of which were fascinating and now I need to read up on them.
We stopped at a pub a bit later and after a few sips of Carlsberg, I was feeling much better and Sam told us stories about the drinking habits of Irish archaeologists and particularly when NUI Galway used to be paired with University of Florida for a field school. The poor Floridians were not used to the level of drinking expected of them and the faculty and staff were up all night, long after the weary Americans had passed out. Sam said he would leave the bar at 4am and have to wake the students up shortly afterwards. He said the Americans were so hungover, perhaps still drunk, that they were “puking into context 32,” thus becoming the quote of the day.
We stopped at some expensive restaurant in Newfield at the recommendation of Jackie, but it turned out to not be very good. I felt bad expressing my distaste, as Jackie really wanted to take us for a nice dinner, but oh well. I still think he knows we adore him.
Rumor had it there was a party at Gielty’s and as soon as we got home at 11:30, I hurriedly changed clothes and rushed down. The place was packed, especially with all those boys between the ages of 18-35 that have been so absent the past week. In fact, it was a bit overwhelming; my head kept snapping around to stare at these strange creatures we know as men. There was a large continent of old men in the corner that Jenny immediately drug me over to see, as they were spontaneously bursting into song. The lyrics were unintellible to me, but everyone else seemed to know them and joined in. This continued all night long, even after the front had closed and we had to pretend that we really weren’t there. That stuff just doesn’t happen in the states.
We retreated then to the backroom where a 21st birthday party was taking place. At this point in the night everyone there was beyond wasted. There was dance music blasting and drunk people attempting to dance everywhere. Michael, the father of the bartender/owner, Alan, was grinning from ear to ear and boogying with the American girls like no other old man on the planet. (I ran into him this morning at the store, which his other son owns, and he blamed me for his sore legs.) I withstood this for about 3 seconds when it became apparent that I was nowhere near drunk enough to put up with it, so a few of us headed home. On the way were were haranged by a couple sets of obviously drunk Irish boys, but I didn’t mind. The entire island seemed to be out partying and at 1:30 or so when we were walking back, the results were just spilling out for their long walks home.
Yesterday I crawled out of bed at 7, still wincing over my horrible sunburn and still sniffling with my cold. I was stiff and sore from kneelig in my unit the past two days. It was Saturday, but we were going on fieldtrip to Sligo and were to meet Jackie at 8am. As soon as we left I realized that I’d forgotten my wallet and my first time off the island and therefore my first chance to hit an ATM was blown.
We drove about 2 hours to a place called Carrowkeel where we met a madman named Sam.
Sam, like many archaeologists I’ve been lucky enough to meet, seemed to know everything about everything. His vast amount of knowledge was just amazing. I probably only picked up a 1/10th of what he said, but this time there was no accent to blame (although he was a Dubliner and I caught some slang like, “yer man.”); I understood every word, it was just the sheer overwhelming amount of knowledge he spilled that prevented me from picking up all of it.
I call him a madman because the first thing he asks us after we left the safety of Jackie and the bus was, “everyone’s quite fit, right? And no one’s afraid of heights?” What the hell is that supposed to mean? we were all thinking.
He took us straight up a mountain along a tiny little path fraught with holes and rocks and a long fall on the right side. We got to the top, sweating and panting, to find a huge pile of rocks. It was Carrowkeel L, one of the many Carrowkeel passage tombs. Sam proceeded to talk at length about the geology of the area, the particular geology of this tomb, the layout of the tomb and types of layouts of other tombs. Then he gave us a panoramic tour of all the other cairns within sight, which turned out to be many. Carrowkeel’s cairns are marked “A, B,” etc, and they’re already up to Y. Out in the distance he pointed to another set, whose name I can’t remember, and said that there were 70 more little ones discovered around it. There were also more sets he pointed to around, as well. I need to find a more detailed map or I’ll never remember these things.
We then trudged off through the heather and thistles to a few other older and more denegrated tombs where we were just able to discern the entrance and the location of the tombs withtin. As we were walking Chris asked about a large sinkole he saw to our left. Sam then explained about limestone sinkholes and limestone caves. Limestone, as we know from geology class, disintegrates with rain water. Plus, a few places have large slabs of slate, which is impermeable, so more rainwater falls off of these and lands in a concentrated spot on the limestone, eventually forming a sinkhole and then a cave.
After a bit more hiking he took us to one of these caves. He claims that around the world, year round, caves remain a stable 11 C. As it was a hot day, we gladly followed him down. To sound like a little kid for a second.... it was sooooooo cool!!!!! It was a large pit in the ground, not much warning at all if you just happened upon it while wandering in the hills. Below, when our eyes began to adjust to the dark, we cold see our breath. Sam began to tell us stories. He talked about everything from the erroneous image of Stone Age people as cavemen, about the Shamanic rituals involving caves across the world and time, the importance of art and acoustics, of drugs, geometric shapes, the influence of culture on how one interprets said geometric shapes. Man. So much knowledge.
We then hiked down to another passage tomb where we all crawled inside. He told some more stories and said that he’d actually spent the night in this tomb in order to get a feel for it. He said that even without drugs, the total darkness and silence started to make things weird. He then had us block off the doorway and just sit in the dark and quiet and reflect. Those two experiences alone, the cave and the tomb, made my entire trip to Ireland worth it.
We went into one more to where Sam dug out his stash of bones. Most of these tombs were excavated in 1911 in the utmost of haste. Everything was dugout as quickly as possible and no note was made as to the context, not even which of the three main tombs inside it came from, so keeping a pile of bones isn’t ruining the integrity of the site anyway. The bones were cremated human bones and one of which he believed to be the rib of a child. It’s a shame those excavators did such a shoddy job; bones aren’t preserved well in the peat, so they’re a rare find. The presence of a child’s bones is very intriguing in that children’s burials are usually separate from that of adults it would have been interesting to see the context in which these bones were placed originally.
The rest of the trip I was honestly a bit burned out. It was hot, I’d long since gone through my kleenex, my sunburn was killing me and even my stomach was giving me trouble. Sam did tell many more Irish myths, all of which were fascinating and now I need to read up on them.
We stopped at a pub a bit later and after a few sips of Carlsberg, I was feeling much better and Sam told us stories about the drinking habits of Irish archaeologists and particularly when NUI Galway used to be paired with University of Florida for a field school. The poor Floridians were not used to the level of drinking expected of them and the faculty and staff were up all night, long after the weary Americans had passed out. Sam said he would leave the bar at 4am and have to wake the students up shortly afterwards. He said the Americans were so hungover, perhaps still drunk, that they were “puking into context 32,” thus becoming the quote of the day.
We stopped at some expensive restaurant in Newfield at the recommendation of Jackie, but it turned out to not be very good. I felt bad expressing my distaste, as Jackie really wanted to take us for a nice dinner, but oh well. I still think he knows we adore him.
Rumor had it there was a party at Gielty’s and as soon as we got home at 11:30, I hurriedly changed clothes and rushed down. The place was packed, especially with all those boys between the ages of 18-35 that have been so absent the past week. In fact, it was a bit overwhelming; my head kept snapping around to stare at these strange creatures we know as men. There was a large continent of old men in the corner that Jenny immediately drug me over to see, as they were spontaneously bursting into song. The lyrics were unintellible to me, but everyone else seemed to know them and joined in. This continued all night long, even after the front had closed and we had to pretend that we really weren’t there. That stuff just doesn’t happen in the states.
We retreated then to the backroom where a 21st birthday party was taking place. At this point in the night everyone there was beyond wasted. There was dance music blasting and drunk people attempting to dance everywhere. Michael, the father of the bartender/owner, Alan, was grinning from ear to ear and boogying with the American girls like no other old man on the planet. (I ran into him this morning at the store, which his other son owns, and he blamed me for his sore legs.) I withstood this for about 3 seconds when it became apparent that I was nowhere near drunk enough to put up with it, so a few of us headed home. On the way were were haranged by a couple sets of obviously drunk Irish boys, but I didn’t mind. The entire island seemed to be out partying and at 1:30 or so when we were walking back, the results were just spilling out for their long walks home.
Monday, July 17, 2006
Yes, I am alive
Sunburned, sore, and a bit drunk, but I am alive. Oh yes, and I'm learning a lot about archaeology. Someday when I'm soberer I'll update this thingy. I've been writing like mad in my journal, but have yet to transfer it to the computer. Soon!
Miss everyone! Cheers and stuff
Miss everyone! Cheers and stuff
Friday, July 07, 2006
Galway
I'm so so tired. The journy here was nearly 24 hours in length and fraught with layover crises, fake bombs, real explosions and hours and hours of sitting. Ya see, some asshat left his rucksack unattended at the Dublin airport on the anniversary of 7/7, so the airport police called in the army and they evacuated the airport and blew the thing up. I was one of the 12,000 lucky individuals adversely affected by all of this and I spent the two hours sitting on a plane that was itself sitting on the runway. Turns out, it wasn't really a bomb. But at least something blew up. It's like David Spade's joke that when he gets stuck in horrendous traffic out of nowhere he thinks, "there so better be an accident." Yeah, I guility think the same thing. You probably do, too. Well, I was thinking during this whole incident, "there had so better be a bomb to justify all of this."
They didn't open the roads around the airport for another hour, so all the people who had been arriving for the previous three were waiting in their cars or in front of the bus. When the floodgates opened cars and double-decker buses rushed into Dublin, screwing up traffic for the rest of the day. Thank god I've been there before or I'd probably still be trying to figure out what in the hell was going on.
Oh, and fuck the fucking Chicago airport! I swear, I would fly to fucking Heathrow just to get to Florida to avoid O'Hare. It's that bad. Admittedly, the problems started off in Seattle when they wouldn't check me all the way through to Ireland, requiring me when I got to Chicago to pick up my luggage, check in at the front counter and reenter security all in an hour and a half at one of the world's largest airports. Yeah. That's gonna happen. The gate was already closed by the time I got my bags and I spent 20 minutes standing in the AeroMexico line instead. By the time things were figured out I had to sprint to the gate and ran in as the doors were closing. Miraculously, my luggage made it, too!
But anyway, I'm really tired and it's only 9:45 on a Friday night. Booooooo. Tomorrow it's off to school!
They didn't open the roads around the airport for another hour, so all the people who had been arriving for the previous three were waiting in their cars or in front of the bus. When the floodgates opened cars and double-decker buses rushed into Dublin, screwing up traffic for the rest of the day. Thank god I've been there before or I'd probably still be trying to figure out what in the hell was going on.
Oh, and fuck the fucking Chicago airport! I swear, I would fly to fucking Heathrow just to get to Florida to avoid O'Hare. It's that bad. Admittedly, the problems started off in Seattle when they wouldn't check me all the way through to Ireland, requiring me when I got to Chicago to pick up my luggage, check in at the front counter and reenter security all in an hour and a half at one of the world's largest airports. Yeah. That's gonna happen. The gate was already closed by the time I got my bags and I spent 20 minutes standing in the AeroMexico line instead. By the time things were figured out I had to sprint to the gate and ran in as the doors were closing. Miraculously, my luggage made it, too!
But anyway, I'm really tired and it's only 9:45 on a Friday night. Booooooo. Tomorrow it's off to school!
Wednesday, July 05, 2006
The Bestest Summer EVER!!!
I'm back from camping and staying at the lake, but I'm soon off again! The camping trip was really awesome, and I'm not being sarcastic for once. There wasn't a cloud near Mt. Rainier and we got to bask in its glory for a few days. Dad took several pictures of Youngest Sis and I playing in the snow while wearing shorts and t-shirts; Youngest Sis was dressed like she should have been sitting by a pool. Snow is so much more fun when it's hot out! I'll post the pics whenever they get developed, but knowing Dad that'll be sometime around next Christmas. Stay tuned, hahahaha!
I decided a few things during this trip: 1) I'm going to climb Mt. Rainier one day. 2) Climbing Mt. Rainier requires climbing several other mountains first, so I guess I'm going to have to learn to climb. 3) I'm heading back there this summer to camp, with the intention of hiking the Wonderland trail, a 95-mile loop around the base of the mountain; I'm drooling over the map right now. 4) Snow isn't all that bad - so long as the army isn't involved. 5) Eight years is entirely too long to have gone without camping with the family. 6) My family is still insane. 7) Dad is getting old. He actually made us turn around on a hike. Dad's side of the family will finish a hike come hell or high water (literally), and thinks that bringing things such as food, water and a map is wimpy. So it's a little strange when Dad whined about the sun being too bright, about not having the right shoes to be sliding around in the snow, his back hurt from trying to keep his balance, etc etc.
Tonight I head down to the parents' house and tomorrow Dad is driving me up to Seattle for my flight to Ireland. Six weeks in Ireland! I still can't believe it. I'm going to be out on some island north of Galway doing archaeology, so internet access may be sketchy. I'll blog when I can, but don't expect much.
Take care, everyone!
I decided a few things during this trip: 1) I'm going to climb Mt. Rainier one day. 2) Climbing Mt. Rainier requires climbing several other mountains first, so I guess I'm going to have to learn to climb. 3) I'm heading back there this summer to camp, with the intention of hiking the Wonderland trail, a 95-mile loop around the base of the mountain; I'm drooling over the map right now. 4) Snow isn't all that bad - so long as the army isn't involved. 5) Eight years is entirely too long to have gone without camping with the family. 6) My family is still insane. 7) Dad is getting old. He actually made us turn around on a hike. Dad's side of the family will finish a hike come hell or high water (literally), and thinks that bringing things such as food, water and a map is wimpy. So it's a little strange when Dad whined about the sun being too bright, about not having the right shoes to be sliding around in the snow, his back hurt from trying to keep his balance, etc etc.
Tonight I head down to the parents' house and tomorrow Dad is driving me up to Seattle for my flight to Ireland. Six weeks in Ireland! I still can't believe it. I'm going to be out on some island north of Galway doing archaeology, so internet access may be sketchy. I'll blog when I can, but don't expect much.
Take care, everyone!
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