M. Willis Monroe

Tuesday Lucia and I did a grand tour of Padova. We saw pretty much all there was to see: The Scrovegni chapel painted by Giotto, the Erminitani church amoung other things. All in all it was pretty amazing. Just walking around the city all day had such a nice feel; through the narrow alleys and cooridors.

Yesterday Lucia’s dad, Lucia and I took the train into Venice and had the grand tour. Her dad knows Venice like the back of his hands; all the secret alley ways and hidden gardens. Touring with him was really cool, he kept taking us off the main path and showing us things that you never get to see or telling me (via lucia translating) a little known fact about a relief on a building. Venice was truly amazing though. It’s such a beautiful city. I’m going to look into the university there and see what it offers, maybe I can fit it into my degree somehow, a year living in venice. The fact that everything is done on the water, mail, police, transportation; it’s really a nice atmosphere. And around every corner is a picturesque bridge and tiny canal.

Right now it’s early in the morning and I’m heading off on the train for Milan and then changing for Genoa to meet my mom at a hotel.

I’m in Italy now. It’s pretty amazing. I got in yesterday in the morning to Marco Polo airport in Venice. Lucia picked me up and we drove back to her house. I had a short nap (I hadn’t slept the night before due to an early plane and a party) and then we went out to a trade fair and to meet some friends. Later on we got some spritz and sat around in piazza for a while before getting some dinner in a restuarant and meeting another friend. Then we got some more spritz and stood around chatting for a while. Then I got to bed after not having any real sleep in forty hours. Walking around Padua at night was really relaxing the air was a perfect temperature and the night was quiet.

Today I woke up around 11:30 well rested. We had lunch and then took the train to Venice. Once in Venice we caught a ferry to one of the outer island and spent the rest of the day on the beach. The weather was amazing; sunny, balmy, and the water was just right. We packed up our towels and went for a nice walk down the beach trying to find a way to get back onto the main road. Turns out there wasn’t one and we had to sneak through the fence. We got back on the ferry to head back to the train station and it took us right up the grand canal. Venice is amazing! We’re going back on Wednesday to have a proper tour. Lucia’s dad knows the city really well so it’s going to be fascinating going around with him explaining and her translating. I really can’t wait, the little I’ve seen so far has made me fall in love with the city.

I’m finished with exams. The last two were ok, not great but I think that I studied enough and did well. I’m leaving early sunday morning for Italy to see Lucia for a while and then on to meet my mom.

I heard from the Megiddo dig and I have a place. So I’ll be in Israel for all of July, I’m really excited.

I’m heading home in early june and working at the clearwater festival, visiting my grandparents and relaxing at home. It’ll be really nice just to be home for a bit. See if I can sort out my drivers license as well.

Oh the picture is our local pub “The Faltering Fullback” on the day of Arsenal’s big match in Paris against Barcelona for the Champions league. They lost which was a shame, as they would’ve been the first London club to bring home the trophy. I listened to the match on the radio and it was quite exciting.

I found this table/shelves outside Ucl today on the way home. They were throne out because a wheel was missing off one of the legs. So I cleaned it up and took off the other three wheels and now I have a great little table in my small room. It’s sitting next to my desk holding an extra pillow and my bass amp.

I had my Introductory Sumerian exam today. I think I did quite well actually. As I was revising I would come upon passages that were quite clear, told a nice story, and weren’t broken. I suspected that they might show up on the exam as their examplary sumerian. Sure enough I was right and I managed to sail through the passages. The unseen wasn’t too bad either a pretty simple Gu-de-a royal inscription. I have to say though I was lucky to spot those passage during revision. Now we’ll see if I can do equally well on Akkadian next week.

Facebook.com added SOAS to its rosters. This means I’m back in somewhat touch with a lot of friends from school and quaker stuff which is really cool.

Oh and some music I’ve been listening to recently. Soul Coughing’s Ruby Room album is absolutely brilliant. The songs all have such nice textures and flow together so well; it has a really good groove. Also Liz Phair is great as well, I only have her first three albums but they get a lot of play in my room.

The Royal De Luxe theatre troope from France put on an amazing show in London this weekend. Starting on thursday and culminating today they told the story of a Sultan who built a giagantic time traveling robot elephant to chase a giant time traveling little girl who was haunting his dreams. They built to amazingly huge models of the girl and the elephant and paraded them around the cities along with other props. It eventually culminated in:

The Sultan (avec Elephant) and the Girl meeting up in Pall Mall and then going to a purpose built arena where the Sultan said goodbye to the girl as she got back in her rocket ship and blasted off. It was amazing! Chris, Lucy, Jon, Peter, Ed, and I spent the day chasing the pair through the city. Watching the Elephant go by when you’re standing on the street was such a magical expierence. It was literally huge, at least three stories and it was constantly moving and flapping it’s ears and spraying water through it’s trunk. It was always followed by a truck carrying a live band that played a wide range of suitable music. You can see all of my photos of the event here.

We also had a barbecue on Saturday. Unfortunately it rained quite a bit so we didn’t spend much time outside. I was quite tired as well so I went to bed at ten anyway.

Yesterday was the last day on the dig. I excavated a bit more of the dark bit I was working on and found a whole load of pottery and glass and bone etc… So it looks like it was a Roman pit filled with Roman trash, probably contemporary with the kiln we found in the same trench. Overall it was a lot of fun. I was talking with one of the Archaeologists on the train home about taking classes at the Institute of Archaeology and he said there’s no substitute for getting expierence on site. I think I learned so much this week just from actually digging and being in a trench and having professional archaeologists around to pose questions to. I can’t wait to go and dig another site. Hopefully that’ll be Megiddo this summer.

The dig has been quite productive. Yesterday and today I’ve been scraping the top of a dark feature which might turn out to be a ritual pit or burial, if the finds from yesterday are anything to go by. It was ridiculously hot today though, I never realized how much even just being out in the sun tires you out nevermind if you’re on your knees working as well.

Today we got a lot more done and started to hypothesize about the one prominent feature in our trench. General consensus is that it’s a flue to a Roman oven or kiln. I spent most of the day tidying it up and defining it for photography.

I realized that I’m getting to experience the life of a 9-5′er. I leave way to early in the morning and fight with the other commuters to make it on to subway trains and overground trains. I work all day and then do the same on the way home arriving finally at my domicile way to late and completely knackered. But it’s fun nonetheless.

I went out for Ethiopian food last night with Esther and Sarah. We had some amazing food and stayed at the restaurant late talking. Oh and I finally received my official letter of rejection from the Jordan program, at least they sent it in the end. Now I just have to make sure that I have a place on the Megiddo dig.

Today I woke up at 6:50 got ready, packed my bag and left the house to walk through the nice morning rain (you can’t see it in the picture but it’s there) to catch the tube to Waterloo station and then a train to Ewell. Once I got to Ewell I walked through the village to the Archaeological site. We had some intruductory talks… then my group did a little lesson on what finds were expected at the site and then we started digging in our trench. I know in the future I’ll look back on this post and think how basic it sounds but it was still really new and quite fun. I found a small piece of roman pottery, the base to small conical drinking vessel. That was quite exciting. Other than that not much happened in my trench. I cleared away and defined a linear chalk feature. I assume more will happen as the week progresses after all this was only the first day. However I left it knowing (and no longer assuming) that I really enjoy archaeology.

I’m by far the youngest person on the site which is interesting. I thought there would be more students but it’s almost entirely retired people with nothing to do. They all move around the country in roving bands descending on volunteer archaeology digs.