There are too many people awake and doing annoying things like talking at not-even-5.00 am in Budapest Airport.

But I'm not going to let it ruin the tail end of my trip. I shall just drink my coffee and eat my croissant and try to ignore everyone, while inwardly waxing poetic on the past six weeks. (Six weeks to the day! Wednesday to Wednesday)

This has been an absolutely fantastic trip and an experience I will probably never have again. I've met some wonderful people, I've seen some incredible sights, and I gained experience in a field (ha, see what I did there...oh shut up, it's really early) I never thought I'd work in. I think the experience has made me appreciate archaeology better, if not actually honed my excavating skills. I worked with human remains, which is an opportunity not many bioarch people are even afforded back home. I saw a city I dreamed of but didn't believe I'd ever get to visit.

What a fantastic six weeks in Romania and Hungary!

Back in Budapest!

And it is hot. Apparently the heat wave you guys had back home is still hitting Europe. I woke up drenched in sweat and just altogether very uncomfortable.

But, our hostel is very nice, we're all together (me and three other girls, two of whom are going home tonight) and yesterday was quite fun. (After I took a shower and stopped being cranky at the weather).

Yesterday gave me: the national museum (so cool!), a delicious dinner, and a ruin bar. The last of which is exactly what it sounds like: a bunch of little bars and food stands in a giant ruin of something; it's not open to the air, it's covered, but it's still old and stone and really really cool. We all signed the walls, but there really wasn't much space to do so, since they're already covered in graffiti.

This morning, breakfast was provided and it included an electric kettle which means that I am writing this while drinking my tea! My tea! With milk and everything! I've really missed my tea. The hotel in Odorhei had mint-y tea in the mornings, but in that case, I went with coffee. And now I have my tea back!

Today, we're hoping to hit up a few different places, including the market this morning, then St Stephen's Basilica later. St. Stephen's is the one thing that I was adamant on doing. The rest, I understand if we can't get to because it's such a short time and it's crazy-busy here in the city. (A giant, Lollapalooza-esque music festival is starting today, and there's a dance festival, and all sorts of things, which means there are far more people in the city than we were expecting.) But St. Stephen's is beautiful and I like beautiful things and so, I want to see it.

As last days go, yesterday was fairly eventful.

Re the dig: I pulled the wood from my burial, uncovered more bone than was previously thought, had to do a burial record, and then managed to pull all visible bone and the little bit of wood under said bone--and I didn't slip once!

Afterwards, the local archaeologist we've been working with (not Andre, but the one who works around here permanently) and his girlfriend and another local we know came to say goodbye, so of course, we pulled out all the stops. (I mean, we were pulling out all the stops anyway, as it was the last night). The hotel staff gave us some berry palinka as a gift (we gave the lady flowers and the couple a card thanking them for everything) but, much as I loved our hosts, the berry palinka does taste like grape cough medicine. Don't worry, that's not the one I'm bringing home a litre of. The one we paid for and dispensed into water bottles last night was made by the local archaeologist's parents and is so much worse than grape cough medicine. 

All in all, yesterday was a celebration and very bittersweet. At least one person is already gone, flying off to Paris for a few days and then home. A lot of us are taking the train to Sighisoara today, wandering around Sighisoara and then taking the later trains back to Budapest. Still others are going by way of Cluj-Napoca or Sibiu. Which means that I'll be with a few people in Budapest, but not everyone, and I don't want to say goodbye. I don't like saying goodbye. It's no fun. 

However, on that note, I should probably go make the rounds. Perhaps you'll hear from me as we wait for our train, but if not, I'll see you on the flip side in Budapest! 

Au revoir, Transylvania! Köszönöm for a wonderful 5 weeks!

a voiceless song in an ageless light

So much for the cliche of godless Communism. (That's for you, dad.) Over here in Eastern and Central Europe religion is kind of a big deal. The Szekleys in our town seem to be mainly Catholic, while the largest percentage of Romanians identify as Romanian Orthodox. Or as AJ put it, if you're not Orthodox, you're not Romanian. Accordingly, there are a lot of churches in Transylvania. Lots and lots of churches. Large ornate ones and small neighborhood ones and old medieval ones. Our trip yesterday focused mainly on that last category, while the Saturday trip to Sighisoara showed us the intricate beauty of the Orthodox church.

The Holy Trinity Church in Sighisoara shows just how much the Orthodox church is a descendent of Byzantine Christianity. I've only ever been in one other Eastern Orthodox church, and that was on the high school trip to France. I vividly remember walking in and feeling the beginnings of tears at the overwhelming dark shimmer. It seems I haven't changed all that much, because my response was pretty much the same during our little stop on the way out of Sighisoara. 

I like feeling little in the face of the universe. (Which is odd, because I don't like to be told that I am small and insignificant.) And while the Catholics do cathedrals and the insignificant human very well, I think the Orthodox give them a run for their money. There is something about seeing the Bible stories plastered on the walls, surrounding you with a unique muted shine, that makes the concept and the emotions evoked even larger. You are face to face with Jesus, and by extension God, in a very intimate way; the faces on the wall are concerned with you and everything in the universe at the same time.

The medieval versions of this, however, are less opulent and ornate. Still impressive for the time, the churches we this weekend felt somehow smaller and closer to earth and human life. They were still monuments to God and covered with paintings, which have been preserved and recovered. My favorite was probably the first church we stepped inside on Sunday, the walls covered with paintings of the story of St. Laszlo, the knight-king Ladislaus I of Hungary.

My second favorite was absolutely Telekfalva. We heard a lot about Telekfalva at the beginning of this trip, because for the four weeks before we arrived, the osteology workshop worked with bones recovered from a salvage dig at the church before it was restored. It was really cool to be in the place we've heard so much about, and picture what it had looked like when they were digging.

Overall, the churches this past weekend left me with the impression of complete and utter faith. While the local churches are smaller and unassuming on the outside, the interior design has the same push of devotion, whether it be in glitzy mosaics or matte paintings. 

In true Victoria fashion, and perhaps making up for the unique 5 week period where nothing physical happened to me against my will, I managed to fall not once but twice out on the site today. I knew it was coming; there was no way I was getting out of Transylvania scot free. Don't worry, I'm fine and the bones are fine, but it gave people quite a scare. The second time, though, I managed to catch myself on the edge of the pit and the ledge of the church wall just inside it, which was rather impressive, if I do say so myself.

Yesterday was an experience all its own. We had a half day of work and then met up with some local people from the town we're digging in for some socialization. We headed up to the church, which is a copy of the church we're working in and was moved up the hill in the late 1700s/early 1800s. That was very cool, because it gave me some visual context to work with. For example, our trench is working near the altar and pulpit, which is one of the circular ones usually up higher than the rest. My burial is probably the closest to the altar, which is particularly interesting.

After the church tour, we headed down to the local museum where we were served palinka and 'cake' (which was flat bread with various sugar toppings), as well as beer. I hadn't had much food and wasn't feeling particularly keen on moonshine, so I stayed away from the palinka, and that was a wise choice. Two shots had most of the crew on their butts, napping in the sunshine. I stuck with Harghita (beer) and the cake-bread.

To top off a wonderful day, we took a walk through the town, exploring the residential areas and the graveyard. One of my favorite things about Transylvanian graveyards is that they are often (if not always) up on a high hill, away from the center of town. This means that graveyards offer some of the best and most beautiful views of the surrounding countryside and mountains.

Tomorrow is our very last day and I am hoping it's better than today. Today wasn't bad, it just really wasn't my day. And I'd really like to finish my pit, which means I have to work fast, but careful and thorough. So tomorrow will be a test of my abilities.

Titling this 'the final countdown' would be slightly too cheesy, wouldn't it?

Church blog is still in the writing, but I'm getting distracted by swing dance youtube videos and blues dancing with AJ, so it might be up tomorrow.

It is 8.30 oops 10.05 on a Monday evening, our last Monday at the dig, and it is hot. It was apparently over 100 degrees in Budapest earlier, but up here in the mountains it was only (!!) mid-90s. Don't worry, we're hydrating very well and putting on lots of sunscreen. Besides, I'm mostly in the shade over in my little corner pit.

I'm really not sure how we're going to finish everything we need to finish by Friday, but I'm betting this week is going to go upsettingly fast. Purely out of spite because it is the last week and I'm finally in a groove with everyone and everything and we have so much more to dig.

I would very much like to come back next year, ideally on Denice's linguistic anthropology field school or this dig again if not. Or! The 'experimental archaeology' class that didn't end up happening this year, but would have gone through metal working and/or leather working; basically making the artifacts we find in as close as possible ways to the originals. I'd really just like to come back and do something like this again, because there is so much I haven't been able to learn and see.

stories are woven and fortunes are told/the truth is measured by the weight of your gold

One of my favorite things about this trip has been examining the local culture versus outside influence, often broken down very clunkily into 'traditional' and 'modern' (modern being a codeword for Western technological inventions, more or less).

So let's compare and contrast yesterday in Odorhei and Sighisoara, shall we?

Odorheiu's local market was just that, one street cordoned off and filled with the same wooden-and-green-fabric-covered stalls and very fresh, local goods. At least three different meat stands, two cheese ones, multiple pastry stands (cinnamon rolls and pretzels, mmm!) and that's not even touching the honeys and jams. There was soap and there were wood and straw crafts, and a few stands selling similarly made bracelets and accessories. Traditional and/or local music drifted from the large speakers, a very welcome change from the American pop music we've been hearing in every restaurant and shop. It was very nice to just buy some food and wander around and then sit in the park and listen to the music and the people. I had one of those moments where I realized, once again, how fantastic it is to be here and how lucky I am and how cool it is that I'm just wandering around Transylvania.

The train from Odorhei to Sighisoara could be seen as a liminal symbol, if I were to be anthropological about it -- we travel from Szekelyfold (ethnic Hungarians and the local culture of Odorhei) to more Romanian Romania, through the country where we don't know which is which. We're in neither place, rattling and stuttering through the fields and the outskirts of towns with names we can't pronounce.

Sighisoara (pronounced, depending on the person's origin and language, either Siggy-shwara or Siggy-shorah; also my favorite place to say.) is a very interesting combination of Romanian and English (plus a dozen other languages; the man at one of the stands asked if I spoke German then French before we settled on English), of old architecture and bouncy houses strapped between the buildings, of stall food (stall goulash! I wanted to try it before we left, but we didn't have time) and British style pubs.

The Sighisoara medieval festival is somewhere between a ren faire and an SCA event. There were loads of obviously ren faire type people there, tons upon tons of tourists, and a whole lot of proper medieval fighting and crafts and outfits. There's traditional Romanian food and traditional Hungarian food in stalls (langos are incredible. Fried dough type bread with sour cream and shredded cheese and garlic on top. It sounds gross, but it's really yummy!) and the stalls sell everything from kitsch that we've already seen outside of Bran Castle (those vampire face mugs are everywhere!) to handcrafted, handmade leather-bound journals. There were knights fighting each other as we bought our tickets in and someone dressed as Vlad himself wandering around; there were a bunch of dressed up guys working who ran blowing a horn and photobombing people, and we stayed long enough to listen to a really cool band.

Easily my favorite stall was Natura Paper. I was drawn to old maps on parchment next to journals, and then the man behind the table showed me that they handmake every piece of paper. They had a paper-making stand next to the table; they offered to print me up whatever design I wanted on their parchment right then and there. I looked through their prints, their maps, their journals and their parchment (smooth but rough at the same time) and I had to walk away. It actually hurt, I want you to know. I wanted it all, but was on a gift-giving mission and besides, I didn't want to know how expensive it would've been. (More than that, I wanted to know how to do it myself.)

Yesterday was long and sweaty and crowd-heavy, but so great and so much fun. Today, we're off to visit quite a few of the churches in the area, so later I'll have another blog detailing that and talking about the quite literally breathtaking Orthodox church we found in Sighisoara.

Title lyrics from Loreena McKennitt's Marrakesh Night Market