Almost two weeks of events will be described in this blog. Hopefully, I will be able to do this without falling asleep.

As the end of trip draws near, the exhaustion is setting in. To start, my visit to Sockburn was enlightening in many ways. The weather was beautiful, unlike the disgusting weather we had experienced earlier that week. Two other girls from the field school were also there. Compared to Binchester, working at Sockburn was very simple and tame. The trenches were smaller and there was only one supervisor, an archaeologist named Sarah Semple from Durham University. I really liked her because she was really patient with our questions! I learned a lot more about the relationship between the changes in soil and the deposition of various objects such as rocks and pottery.

Also, the owners of Sockburn were very kind and generous. At the digs, we generally have tea time at 11 am and lunch at 1:30 pm. At tea time, they actually served us tea. The Sockburn estate is beautiful, but needs renovation. The owners were telling us that it would be really expensive, but in order for the place to generate money through tourism, it needed some major repairs.

Another interesting thing I learned is the Sockburn Worm, which is rumored to have been slain by the owner of Sockburn in the medieval period. Also, this creature may have influenced the creation of the Jabberwocky from Lewis Carroll's book, Alice in Wonderland. 


On Saturday, Beth was kind enough to drive us to Alnwick Castle, where the exterior shots of Harry Potter were filmed. Needless to say, I was super excited. While it was fun to match up the different places from the film, the history of the castle became a lot more interesting than the HP stuff. Though we had a tour guide for the state rooms, I found it a lot more interesting to explore with my friends. It was our first castle, and I will always remember it!

Alnwick Castle or Hogwarts

After the castle, we went to the gardens. We visited one portion called the Poison Gardens and was given a really funny tour of 'dangerous plants' in the garden by a man with a very dirty sense of humor.

The massive treehouse was also loads of fun, especially when we made the rope bridge shake! It was really scary but thrilling!

Then Beth took us to Barter Books, where I drooled over the shelves of books: old and new!

After that, we went to what I believe is the best part of the trip, Alnmouth Beach. We walked along the shore, collected shells and sea glass, and just enjoyed the sea breeze. 

Erin and Adam being silly

Alnmouth Beach, the North Sea

After Beth dropped us off, we ended that night by having dinner at La Spaghettata, a cheesy but cheap Italian restaurant! The food wasn't that great, but only because I ordered a dish that had mussels in it. I don't really like mussels :(

On Sunday, we on another field trip with the rest of field trip. It was in Newcastle and we visited two museums. The first one was on a former Roman military fort called Segundum. The best part of this visit was the reconstructed baths! I loved pretending that I was an everyday Roman just walking into this structure, hoping to socialize with others. Too bad it wasn't an actual bath!

On Monday, Fiona and David from the International Office took us to dinner at Zen, a Thai restaurant. The food was really great! I ordered the hottest item on the menu because as much as I enjoy the food at St. Johns, the Bengali in me really missed spicy food. The company was even better. Fiona bought along her super adorable daughter, Aila, who seemed to hit it off with Erin! And it was really fascinating to hear David's overseas stories. It must be really fun to be able to travel to different places, to experience the different food, and to interact with different people.

The rest of the week for the most part was spent at the dig! We had no field trips with David Petts, who is awesome for being able to put up with our silliness. But I actually did very little digging, because around the section in which I was working, Jamie, my supervisor, moved us along to the recording process.

He was kind enough to show Erin, me, and Adam how to use the survey equipment, in order to record small finds. Then I cleaned some rocks for two days :( I was really terrible at it. But then Kelsey gave me some pointers, and I improved (hopefully). After I finished cleaning (on Tuesday and Wednesday), on Thursday, I filled out a context sheet. I know I must have really annoyed Jamie with all my questions. But I was by myself, when most people usually have someone with them on their first context sheet. But Erin, with whom I usually work, was out sick, along with Kelsey. So yeah, it was very frustrating. It took me the entire day. To be fair, I was also recording small finds at the same time.

I was told the context sheets get easier. I have a feeling it will, and in retrospect, Jamie and others in the trench were really helpful and patient with me. So I really did appreciate that. After the context sheet, I had the draw the plan of that same area. The drawing took about half a day on Friday to do. In my opinion, I think I took too long. But it was my first drawing. And I got lucky because there were other people in the trench who had to plan bigger areas.

After I finished the drawing, Jamie made some corrections and showed me how to record the height of rocks on the leveling machine. I had a little trouble with the whole centimeter and meter relationship (I'm sure I seemed a little ditzy to Jamie), but I figured it out eventually :)

Finally, after I went through all the trouble to record my section of rocks, I had the pleasure of dismantling it. Yay :( Incidentally, I found a rock that displayed evidence of architectural refinement. So it could be the corner of a building. But, being the klutz that I am, I emptied that same piece in a pile of rocks. Thankfully, Jamie was able to relocate it :)

Overall, week three, while it was my hardest week here, it was the week, in which I learned the most. I also got to know Jamie, my supervisor, better. It's amazing that he hasn't exploded yet, with a trench full of people who always seem to need him. I'm really thankful that he took the time to teach me how to record etc. He also took the time to explain how my section fits in with the bigger picture of trench two. So thanks Jamie :)

I'm exhausted. So I'll stop for now. But for my next post, I will give an account of this past weekend, as follows:

Saturday: Edinburgh woot woot!
Sunday: Lindisfarne and Bamburgh Castle
Monday: Kiln
Tuesday: Field trip to Warkworth Castle and Edlingham Castle with David Petts

I realize it's been almost seven days since I've updated this blog. But I had such an amazing week that actually took a lot out of me!

To begin, last Wednesday was miserable. It started raining heavily, and we were well muddied up before the dig was called off. Then we waited almost an hour for the coach to arrive. While we were waiting, we decided to look at the finished excavations of Binchester from last year. We took an informal tour around the baths, which were surprisingly very well preserved. I wish I had pictures, but I didn't take my camera with me. :(

On Thursday, David Petts took us on field trip to historical sites around Durham! We went to Sockburn, where we saw a beautiful Anglo-Scandinavian church. The surrounding view of this site was absolutely breathtaking.

Inside the church, David showed some interesting objects pertaining to the people who once used the building. For example, shown below is a hogback, which is a grave marker used by the Anglo-Scandinavian people in England and Scotland.

Also, next to church, there was an excavation being carried out by Sarah Semple, an archaeologist from Durham University. Compared to Binchester, this was smaller. But I was instantly attracted to site due to it's medieval nature! That's why when David offered us a chance to excavate there the next day, I instantly took it.

After Sockburn, we went to Piercebridge, which is a Roman military fort in Darlington. It was amazing that this site was actually tucked away among the residential areas of the village.

Then we had a pub lunch in Middleton, and I really enjoyed the steak onion burger that I ordered!

My most favorite part was the classic drive around the English countryside. We mostly went through the North Panines, which was gorgeous. Unfortunately, the cool breeze, and the gentle lull of the car led to a very nice nap. Afterwards, David took us to Escomb Saxon church, an early Anglo-Saxon structure! What's interesting about this building is that parts of it were built with stones from Binchester, the site on which I'm currently involved.

Finally, we went back to Binchester, because it was the closest place that provided us with a bathroom. Everyone, but me, had to use the restroom and the car ride there, I'm afraid was tense (for my friends) but very funny for me!

I feel very sleepy, so I'll talk more about my weekend!

To cover next post:

Friday: Sockburn excavation!
Saturday: Alnwick Castle, where the exterior shots of Harry Potter was filmed.
Sunday: museum field trip in Newcastle
Monday: had wonderful Thai food with Fiona and David Thornber from the International office!
Tuesday: first time experiencing field activities other than toweling and mattoxing!

Yikes! I hope I have enough energy to cover everything.

To start, I found a coin! We were digging deeper with our mattoxes, when I saw a spot of green. I used my trowel to investigate and found a coin. It was very damaged, so I couldn't make out the face or any of the design. But still, I found something really cool!

But the rest of the day was so cold, wet, muddy, and miserable. Instead of washing CBM, like we did last week when it was rainy, we remained outside. I was already very tired from the mattoxing and the shoveling. The rain made it 10 times worse.

I was so relieved when I got back to my room for a shower and a hot meal. Then we attended a lecture given by Gary Devore. It was actually very interesting because he was giving a presentation on the reconstructions he made on a virtual website called Second Life. He created an island called Roma and even included the Binchester site! There are many participants from all over the world and people get to experience Roman culture in a very unique but fun way. Another amazing thing about this is that some of the users offer Latin classes (free) for those who are interested. I can't wait to try it out.

Finally, we went to the small bar in St. Johns College to hang out with our British friends, who are also students here at Durham. Mae, James, and Cameron are super interesting people, who are patient with our questions about British life, people etc. I always learn something new when I hang out with them! This is a short post, so maybe I'll try to update every three days or so! But I just had to write today because of my coin. I don't want to forget this day! Good night everyone.

I'm such a terrible blogger. I find it so difficult to write everything down every single day. But for the sake of memories, I will continue to try. On Thursday, at the site, I found a hobnail, which are used to secure the soles of shoes. So I touched something that was on the foot of a Roman. I find that very disturbing yet incredible! But it rained for the latter part of the day, and things started to get really muddy. Mud makes digging very messy and frustrating, so we were rushed into the little trailers to do some cleaning. 

Cleaning CBM (clay building material) is very dull. I dread doing it again. But soon enough the rain stopped for the most part and we were able to return to our site. That night after dinner, we did not have a lecture. So the six of us played cards until bedtime. It was really fun and I discovered that my reflexes are too slow for most games!

On Friday morning, I woke up feeling exhausted. I just wanted to lie in my bed forever. It was raining really hard outside and I just wanted to crawl deeper into my covers. But, because the rain kept getting worse when we reached Binchester, our day at the site was canceled. Instead, we just learned how to fill out important paperwork (context sheets) and after two hours, we returned to the university. 

As you may have guessed, I took a very nice nap. 

After our much needed naps, Sarah, Adam, and I went to the vennel cafe to get some coffee. The cafe is located in a vennel, which is basically an alley way. I ordered a carrot cake that tasted wonderful. Adam doesn't usually drink coffee, but he wanted to try it. So I recommended he try a cappuccino, which is not strong as something like an expresso. He did seem to like it, but he was disappointed that it didn't wake him up. Sarah found some animal pins on the table next to us. She gave us pins of some interesting looking birds. 

Afterwards, we went exploring at the market place. I didn't buy anything, but it was fun to look through  bookstores that had old books about Durham. But then something stupid and unfortunate happened. Stupid on my part, because I accidentally missed a step and rolled my ankle. I'm fine now, but I cursed myself for being so careless. I rolled my other ankle last year also! The pain takes awhile to go away. 

But it was really raining that day so accidents were very likely! Kelsey, the most adventurous of us, fell and bruised her knee very badly. She had it even worse than I did. But both of us were gimps for the day! 

Later that night, went to the small bar that is located in St. John's College and is run by the students here. We had an excellent talk with James and Mae, who study here at Durham. It was a very interesting culture exchange. They told us about the education system in the UK. They have to write many papers (fun isn't it?) that do not count towards their grade. It's all about practice. I remember Tina, my Latin professor who also went to Durham, was telling me she did not like that the US education system does not for the most part allow students to learn from their mistakes. I agree with her in that many people are pressured to get an A on a paper rather than being able to focus on honing their writing skills. 

Then we enlightened them on the ways of the Mormons in the United States. I've never met a Mormon and do not know much about them, so I learned a lot also. 

Saturday was spent shopping. I bought a cute skirt for 8 pounds! But the best part of our day off was that we had fish and chips. I tried the cod, and it was soooo good! We plan on going back again and this time, I'm going to try the salmon :) 

Linda and me!

I feel terrible because I still have no idea what to buy for my friends and family. I finished my weekly allowance and also had to dip into my emergency funds. But I think I should be fine, since most of my money went towards buying basic necessities (toiletries and such). We will be going to Edinburgh on the 21st, so I'll save up my money and buy a bulk of the gifts then. Edinburgh!!! I can't wait! I'm even more excited about the train ride. I don't usually ride the trains, but I look forward to seeing the sights. It's something you can't really do in a stuffy bus or an airplane. 

I am a bit afraid I'll be sleeping for most of the ride, since we're catching the train at 7:23 AM on that day. But I'll definitely pump myself with a lot of coffee with extra shots of expresso. 

Sunday may have been the best day of all! We went walking along Hadrian's Wall for four miles. I absolutely enjoyed the cloudy Northeastern England weather, the miles and miles of green fields, and the amused groups of sheep. It did not rain, fortunately, but there were some winds that helped us cool off from the up-and-down hills! 

I think I almost cried walking along this wall. It represents all the time I spent reading my Roman history and culture textbooks. To think that Roman soldiers had once marched along this pile of bricks. It's even more incredible to think that the stones survived to this day. I'm not sure about the wall itself, because I was informed that it was reconstructed in the 19th century. But the experience was still mind-blowing to me. 

Me on top of the wall!

After that, we went to Vindolanda, which is another one of the many Roman military forts in Britain. The museum was the most interesting part of this experience. There were so many coins, and other material culture that was found in this site! But I think I almost died when I saw the wooden tablets. They were various letters that the Roman exchanged with each other. The most famous was the birthday invitation letter between a woman and her sister. I translated the letter in the fall semester in my Intermediate Latin class. Erin (another Classics major) understood my excitement the best! 

We ended the day with a visit to a temple of Mithras. Not much of it was left, but there was something powerful about being in a temple. So many prayers of the ancients were probably heard here! I had heard the many many stories circling around the secret cult religion of Mithras and listened to Gary Devore, a classicist from Stanford, tell us more about the temple and the religion itself. 

Today, Monday the most agonizing day of any week, Erin, Kelsey and I worked again in the same area! It was very frustrating today, because I had no small finds. But I have almost three weeks left to find something amazing like a coin. 

I hope I gave a good enough recap of everything that happened in the last five days. And I promise I will try to update more often :)

Small Finds

Yesterday, we didn't go on the dig with the rest of the crew. Along with us Fulbright participants, there are students and faculty from Stanford and Texas Tech. Not only have we been socializing among ourselves, we've also been getting to know other people who are also getting down in the trenches this July.

We went on a tour of Durham, seeing all the beautiful sites in this gorgeous city. Pam Graves, a faculty member at Durham University, led the tour. She made it very interesting with her impressively extensive knowledge of the town. My favorite part was learning about St. Oswald, whose head was cut off and placed in the coffin of St. Cuthbert. But the most exciting part of the tour was going to Durham Cathedral and seeing the courtyard, where scenes from the Harry Potter movie took place. I took a bazillion pictures! I was annoyed with myself when I saw how many pictures I had to upload. Here is one below, and the rest will be up on FB.

I feel so bad, since Pam had to put up with our intense picture taking. But I couldn't help myself. I wanted to capture every part of Durham. She was amazing, being patient with our questions and camera moments. Then we went to lunch with Beth, who is working really hard to make sure we get the best out of our time here. We also met Rebecca from Fulbright, who really made it possible for us to be here, safe, sound, and happy. Fiona, such a sweet person, joined us too! We had such a great time, with the wonderful conversations and food. We went to an Italian restaurant called Zizzi and the food was really great :)

We finally got our ID cards with Beth afterwards and explored the more modern part of the university! We took even more pictures when she took us to the terrace of what I believe is the science building, giving us a breathtaking view of the city.

The next day, we woke up feeling a lot better than we did in the last two days. The possible jet lag was wearing off. Kelsey, Erin, and I went to work on the Vicus, which is the civilian settlement area of Binchester. Three of us used mattocks to expose another layer of section near an already dug up road called Dere Street. The previous site was already recorded, and the site directors wanted to know more about what may be under this surface. The mattocks were really fun to use, though I think my palms may never recover. After we some cobbles were exposed, we decided to use the trowels to clean up the excess the dirt around them. We're not finished yet, but I'm really looking forward to continuing our work tomorrow.

The most exciting part of today was Erin finding a coin! At first we couldn't tell what it was but then, Jamie, our supervisor showed us an faint impression of a face. For this particular section, if we found anything like an iron nail or a coin, we had to record it in a small finds book and bag it with the appropriate excavation, context, and item number. Though small finds are not exactly rare at the site, we become very excited when we do find one because it doesn't happen often. Funnily enough, it is a running joke among all of us to call something a small find if we see or do something that is relatively rare, such as Kelsey saying something kind to Adam ;) Hence, the title of my post!

The day become very strange after we returned from the site. At dinner, we sat next to two students from Texas Tech. They are very, um, unique individuals, but very entertaining! When we finished dinner, they took our plates up for us! They even poured me water, because apparently "Ladies shouldn't pour the drinks." I was so touched by their chivalry that I almost started crying!  What a small find :) I wasn't sure whether or not this was unique to all Texan males. However, Erin, who grew up in Dallas, told me that it was strange for even people from Texas!

We then attended a lecture given by David Petts on Roman Britain. I frantically took notes and I'm sure his helpful information will help us better understand Binchester as an archaeological site. After this, the six of us decided to celebrate the Fourth of July by going the pub called the Shakespeare. We had heard this place sticks to the old fashioned style of pubs.

But before we could go into the pub, we noticed that something was going on at the market place. There was a group of people dancing! We later found out that it was Morris dancing. The dancers encouraged us to join them. And we did! I was a little self conscious at first, especially since I don't dance very well. But, once the music started going, it was a very hard to pull away. Luckily, Adam and another Texas Tech person called Will who had joined us on the way, recorded it. I will put up a video soon when I am able to get it from Erin.

Happy, excited, and maybe a tiny bit proud of ourselves, the six of us made our to the pub. The rest of night was fun as were joined by other students from the field school. It was wonderful getting to know them in such a relaxed setting. We had good drinks, great music, and excellent company! I am happy to say we ended Independence Day very successfully :)

I've been here two days and no word in the English language is good enough to describe my experiences so far. But I'll try with an assortment of words and hopefully it works.

My flight was short and very easy. It was a tad uncomfortable when I had to wait 5 hours at Heathrow Airport in London for my connection to Newcastle, which is a nearby city to Durham. But it was worth it. 

I met the other participants and so far they are amazing people. Smart, practical, calm, and fun. There are five others and I can't believe I connect with them so well! We are all very different, yet somehow we get along perfectly. I won't go into a description about each of them, since it will be much more interesting to read about my day-to-day experiences with them. (: 

We didn't get to do much on Sunday since three of us (Adam and Linda) arrived around 7 pm. However, we did go to a nearby pub called Market Tavern and I tried a Strongbow, which is a cider. And it's really, really good! At the pub, I also watched a Euro Cup match between Italy and Spain, in which Spain totally beat Italy. I'm not that interested in soccer, but it was nice to see how passionate people in the UK are about the game. They are almost as bad as the football fans in the US. 

Two Beds for One

At night, I was a bit lonely as my room is a double with no roommate. I have two beds! I did feel a little homesick especially since I left my cellphone at home and my internet was not working at the moment. But it got better, especially the next day!

We had an early breakfast at 7:45, which was hard to get used to since I'm used to sleeping in. But I did wake up in time and surprisingly, jet lag did not get to me. So today, we went out to the site, which we will help excavate for the next four weeks. Initially, I was a little nervous about this whole trip. I knew I wanted to be an archaeologist, but I was in doubt since many of the descriptions given by my professors and others sounded unpleasant. Dirt, digging, and not finding anything valuable? It sounds scary to a city girl like me. 

Before, I go on to describe my archaeological adventure today, I think its only fair to describe the site first. It is called Binchester and it has two main sites: a military fort, and a town. The fort inhabited the Roman Army about two thousand years ago!  There were different trenches dug up as the fort housed both soldiers and civilians. I participated in the trench that encompassed the barracks. Here is a link to the blog for the site if you want to know more: http://binchester.blogspot.co.uk/

I had so much fun! But my reaction sounds ridiculous when I give the actual details. We dug alot! We cleared rocks in one section and then we worked within a trash pit to find the different layers of context. I found many discarded animal bones and between me and the other two diggers, we found some small founds, which were quickly recorded. I loved seeing how organization and and recording are important in an excavation. Most importantly, it was really cool to touch something that existed two thousand years ago! 

 I won't lie. It was hard work and my whole body will be beyond sore tomorrow. But I loved that I was learning new techniques and experiencing techniques discussed in my classes at Binghamton. I think for now, I will stick to archaeology. But let's give it a few days, and maybe I'll know for sure. But the best part of the excavation was that I got a trowel!!! Every archaeologist has one! I included a picture below. 

My Trowel

After we got back from the site (we spent 7 hours there), I went exploring with three of the participants or more appropriately known as my new friends: Sarah, Linda, and Kelsey. Adam, the only boy on the trip, was very tired and poor Erin was sick and exhausted from allergies.

To begin, the town of Durham is very medieval. As an aspiring medievalist, this place just sends flurries of excitement through me. I especially love the cathedral. It's old and just beautiful. And we're going to get a tour tomorrow, so I'll take my camera and post some pictures soon. 

We walked for more than an hour in the paths around the town and the most exciting part of our mini-trip was this cottage. When we first passed by it, we didn't really think much of it. But then we passed by it a second time and one of us noticed that half of the front door was burned. Naturally, we became curious. Sarah, flipped open the mail slot on one of the doors and she still smelled smoke. So we assumed it was a recent accident. 

Then Kelsey climbed up a small side wall to look in the side windows or even at the back of the cottage. I joined her. We couldn't see through the windows because it was so dark! But then near the back of the house, in the branches of the neighboring trees, there were books. Judging by their faint but not destructive burn marks, we imagine that someone threw them out the window during the fire. There were five of them, but we took four for ourselves as souvenirs. Fortunately, they were all books by Charles Dickens. I took Little Dorrit, which is my second favorite book of his (there wasn't a Tale of Two Cities). 

After this unique excitement, we walked back around the cathedral and Linda told us that some of the Harry Potter scenes were shot here. More specifically, the first transfiguration class from the first movie took place in one of the rooms in the cathedral. Also, there were some familiar looking windows, that may have been included as outside shots of Hogwarts in the movie. We definitely experienced the finest British Literature on our informal tour in some way or another! 

Finally, we all went back to our quaint little house (I will post pictures of it tomorrow or soon) to clean up since it was raining and we went through some muddy areas. Then all of four of us played UNO, drank hot chocolate, and just talked! It was a fun but peaceful ending to hectic but pleasant day. 

If anyone has questions or would like me to clarify something just FB message me and I could talk more about whatever it is you want to know. I hope I wasn't too boring because I'm definitely having an interesting time so far! Until next time ;)