A Day in the Life of an Archaeological Field School Student

Trench 3 after we finished de-turfing on the first work day.

I'm now three weeks into my archaeological field school on the island of Gotland, in the Baltic Sea off the coast of Sweden. This is a five week course, so there's just under a week of digging left and then a week of lab work and research before the course concludes on August 9. I did have a bit of archaeological experience prior to this trip, but it consisted of two weeks of volunteer work at the Bethsaida Excavations in Israel (while on a study abroad trip to the Middle East in 2011). This experience has been very different so far. So to give a little picture of what the dig has been like, I'll relate the story of a typical day at the Gotland Archaeological Field School.

7:30 a.m. - Convince myself to get out of bed and get ready for the day... usually a slow process.

7:55ish - Head to the dining hall to eat a hearty Swedish breakfast (yogurt, granola, linden berries, hardboiled eggs, fresh fruit, and bread) and pack a lunch to take with me to the excavation site.

8:30 a.m. - Board the bus to drive from the Gotlands Folkhögskola in Hemse to the excavation site at Paviken, on Gotland's Western Coast. (This is a great time to catch up on sleep, write in my journal, or read a book.)

9:10 a.m. - Arrive at Paviken and hike through a nature reserve to our dig site, a Viking Age harbor and manufacturing site that was inhabited from roughly the 7th- early 11th centuries. The site was excavated in the 1970's but the site director died before he could finish his records, and before he came to any conclusions about the site. Naturally, this makes our job more difficult, as we're working with Pars's incomplete and confusing records, while trying to make sense of what we find, too.

10:30 a.m. - Fika. Otherwise known as a coffee break, this is a very important part of every Swede's day. Included in the mandatory tradition is a very tasty cinnamon bun called a bulle. I do not protest.

12:00 p.m. - Lunch. 'Nuff said.

2:30 p.m. - Fika. Yep, Swedes are serious about this coffee break thing.

4:30 p.m. - Ride the bus back to Hemse and collapse onto my bed until dinner.

5:30 p.m. - Food. Delicious Swedish food.

6:00 p.m. - Free time, which for me means working out, showering, then engaging in some combination of something like goofing off online, writing, drawing, Skyping, or working on my research project for the field school (ceramic!). There's even another fika in the evening, which usually includes cookies - if none of the other groups staying here at the Folkhögskola have stolen ours, that is.

11:00-12:00ish - Sleep.

So that's a typical day. The archaeology part can be fascinating, tedious, exciting, boring, and frustrating, but over all it is pretty rewarding. I'll post later with more details on what the digging part is actually like, as well as some more history on the site, Paviken, and Gotland in general. It's really an awesome place for archaeology.

A Day in Stockholm

When I arrived in Stockholm three nights ago, I was so exhausted from traveling nonstop for two and a half weeks, the plane rides, and the bus-to-train-to-train rides to get to my hostel on the beautiful island of Långholmen, that I mostly went straight to bed. And I stayed there for half of the next day. So I didn't venture out into the city much until yesterday, when some interesting stuff happened:

It took about an hour to walk to Gamla Stan, the old part of the city, which dates to at least the mid-13th century. I bought a sandwich and lemon flavored Italian soda, and was looking for a nice place to sit and people-watch while eating when...

12:15- Ran into the royal palace's Changing of the Guards Ceremony. This involves a military parade, with a 30 minute marching concert from a visiting military band, and lots of barking of orders and snappy turns an such. It was doubly funny to me because I did the same thing while on my way to the train station in London, roughly two weeks ago, when my mom and I accidentally ran into the Changing of the Guards at St. James' Park.

12:57- Shortly after the ceremony ended, I witnessed an American family, with 2 older-teenage daughters, arguing and being angry with each other. It sounded like they were arguing over whether to go through the museum to the gift shop or just move on to a different building in the old royal palace. This was especially sad, and interesting, because this is the first time I have seen any family arguing with each other yet on this trip. Way to represent, America.

1:00- There is something very ironic about a family with small kids getting their photo taken in front of a cannon...

4:28- Browsed a display of 100 amazing photos of European wildlife connected with an initiative to re-wild Europe. Cool!! (Like reintroducing wild horses, red deer, and primitive cows.) 

5:00- Visited the Vasa Museum, whose centerpiece is the Vasa, the massive ship that sank in Stockholm shortly into its maiden voyage in 1628. It was tediously raised from 1957-1961, 333 years later, and is an amazing example from the height of decorative shipbuilding in Europe.

7:00- While walking back through Gamla Stan, I heard the sound of a band playing coming from a street over. I was about to keep going, but turned to go listen instead once I recognized the song as the Indiana Jones theme. They played that and one more song before packing up. It was the same visiting military band from the changing of the guards this morning. They were wonderful.

7:55- Found myself subconsciously humming "I wish I was in Dixie" while walking back to my hostel on Långholmen.