Middle-of-Nowheresville, Transylvania

--is actually a really happenin' place!

Okay, so Odorheiu Secuiesc isn't a major city or anything, but it does have a full town (that I will be seeing tomorrow during orientation) with cafes and shops and banks and three hotels and everything!

Also, it's technically in Romania, but the people here consider themselves true Hungarians. They speak Hungarian, have their own flag which is separate from both Hungary and Romania, and strongly dislike being addressed in Romanian in any way. So my Romanian phrase book and culture/travel guide are just a little bit useless, since it's not really properly Romanian here. And I was dumb enough to not buy a Hungarian phrase book at home, something I regretted being in Budapest; I am seriously regretting it now.

Also also, we're now at 7 hours time difference. It is 8.49 pm here as I write this in beautiful Transylvania

Lots has happened since my last post, which was slightly melancholy. I'll try to sum it all up:

Saturday

• Dig girl (AJ) and I took a tour around Budapest on one of those hop-on, hop-off buses and it was really wonderful and I need to do everything but I'll only have a few days when I go back and it's so frustrating that you never have enough time to see everything
• Sidenote: I am so winning at yellow car, parentals and Danes. The sheer amount of yellow cars in Budapest! And I've seen a fair share in Romania too! 
• But we did manage to make it to a proper Hungarian restaurant (you know, one that gets advertised, but is a very local thing) to have goulash and some chicken dish that was yummy (and also had liver! are you proud of me yet?)
• Also, we found a bar that served Strongbow!
• Then headed over to Keleti train station to meet up with our group and get on the train
• I get nervous when meeting up with people I've never met in a strange country, so I was a little bit stressed, but we managed to find everyone and it was really nice
• The train! Oh god, the train. Okay, Uncle E, I'm sure it's actually really lovely, but trying to fit 6 girls and all their luggage in a tiny space while tired and needing to pee is a feat. Especially when the original compartment has the two beds high up, and then six seats (three on either side) where the cushion for the back of the seats flips up to settle on a couple little poles to make the middle beds. And especially when everyone packed with huge bags. And when there's no room for your bags, so you manage to fit them both at the foot of your tiny bottom bunk, which should be fine because you like to sleep curled up anyhow, but you forgot the part where everything you will ever need for a 12 hour trip is inside those two bags and it is very very hard to get things out of them. Sigh. 

Sunday

• Finally made it (about an hour late; apparently trains are always late in Romania. Apparently, Romania time is much slower and leisurely than American time. Like Italy time or island time, according to some of the girls) to Sighisoara, which is really interesting. I want to explore it. 
• Took a bus for a very long way for quite a while through the Middle-of-Nowhere township. The colors remind me of home (dark green trees on the mountains, especially), and the shape reminds me of the English/Welsh countryside (rolling hills and fields and farms, etc) though the texture and vegetation are much different and the sky reminds me of London (overcast, with variations of grey playing in the clouds). 
• The towns are very...cute? It's not quite cute. It's not English villages or French cottages. They are a very serious people and their houses are surprisingly bright-colored, so it's all a bit interesting. Electric blues and bright yellows and red brick tiled roofs. Lots of churches. Lots of feral dogs. Tiny, practically one-laned streets (England flashback!)
• There was one scene that would have made a particularly good photo, if I had caught it in time: a car parked on the side of the dusty road, with a wagon pulled by horses approaching it
• The town of Odorheiu is actually fairly cosmopolitan for what we've seen of Romania. There are nice shoe shops and parks with fountains and lots of nice restaurants. I'll be seeing more of it tomorrow and can give you a full run-down, but driving through it was impressive. 
• However, the hotel for the diggers is on the outskirts of town (probably because the dig is even farther out) and it's very, very nice, but it's a ~40 minute walk into town. It took us ~10? minutes to get to dinner tonight, and that wasn't close to town. 
• After putting our stuff in our rooms, we went downstairs for Andre's welcome. This was a shot of palinka (local Hungarian/Romanian moonshine, basically) (also, sidenote, my first shot of anything at all) and it was horrible. Oh god, it's SO DISGUSTING. Why do people do this to themselves? And the girls who have been here for a few weeks actually like it. UGH. 
• After that, he gave us a dessert palinka, which was flavored something vaguely fruity and tasted a bit like cough syrup, but was much easier to get down.
• After unpacking and bonding with our roommates for a little while, a bunch of us went to find dinner, which consisted of
• Transylvanian goulash (different in that it's not a soup, but more of a stew? Not at all soupy/watery, and more of a sauce)
• "pancakes," which is basically the Romanian version of crepes, and which were absolutely delicious, stuffed with vanilla ice cream and bananas and some sort of fruit-based drizzle on top

The two girls I'm rooming with are definitely more like me, in that we all need some down time after being social all afternoon (and, well, for me, I've been social since Friday evening, since AJ and I were together and then I was stuck with people in a train for 12 hours and now I'm here). 

That's one thing I am worried about, the social aspect. Some of these people are very, very extroverted people; always craving new experiences, new stories, new gossip. And that's good! I'm just...not exactly the same. Remember when I was in England? This is the same story. But I'll be forced to be social and AJ's a bit like Bella in that she's definitely a do-er and she'll push me to do things like Bella did; and then I can just say I need some me time and be alone. Write down the day, and type it up, and say hello to you guys and read. And it will be good. I have a feeling I will majorly need some alone type after we actually start digging. It's probably going to be way more exhausting than I think. 

Köszönöm! 

(Hungarian for thank you; pronounced kur-sur-num, with French-esque hidden r's; shortened to kursey which we said a lot at dinner, both to teach one girl the word and to thank our kind waitress. I know that and nem which is no and a bad word to say to aggressive Romanian men, should I need it, but that's about it. I should really remedy this.)

Because I love you, Love, in fire and in blood

It's a Neruda night.

It's a Neruda night when my heart is filled with yearning for something I do not have. For something I have left behind or for something I have yet to hold, to touch, to experience, to feel. 

Right now, it's a Neruda night because I am in a beautiful, new (but very, very old city) with a new friend having new experiences and enjoying them

And I can only write them down.

Language makes my life concrete, but how many times and in how many ways can I say that my heart exists within the paradox of new-but-safe? What can I do to bring life, color, bloom, to my life so that you are in step with me down city streets and in country lanes? How do I describe the beauty of a looming but forgiving church on the backdrop of a storm and properly explain just how different the storm sky is here from home? How many times can I say I love you and I miss you and I wish you were here until it means nothing, until it's merely a conversation piece, a cute trinket?

And then I remember, as I always do, that that's what poets have been doing for centuries. They think around the words, albeit with a liberal splash of the dramatic, which is why I love them so. 

So have a smattering of Neruda for your night, and hopefully you can understand what I mean. Let Pablo take the feelings stuck between my heart and my tongue and put them in your mind.

Merged, you and I, my love, seal the silence
while the sea destroys its continual forms,
collapses its turrets of wildness and whiteness,
because in the weft of those unseen garments
of headlong water, and perpetual sand,
we bear the sole, relentless tenderness.

Or

I crave your mouth, your voice, your hair.
Silent and starving, I prowl through the streets.
Bread does not nourish me, dawn disrupts me, all day
I hunt for the liquid measure of your steps.

I hunger for your sleek laugh,
your hands the color of a savage harvest,
hunger for the pale stones of your fingernails,
I want to eat your skin like a whole almond.

I want to eat the sunbeam flaring in your lovely body,
the sovereign nose of your arrogant face,
I want to eat the fleeting shade of your lashes,

and I pace around hungry, sniffing the twilight,
hunting for you, for your hot heart,
like a puma in the barrens of Quitratue.

Or the cute

Conspirators in pajamas who exchange deep kisses for passwords

And finally, the title poem, with one of my favorite lines and simplest explanations of love: I love you...because I do. Because you are the one I love.

I do not love you except because I love you;
I go from loving to not loving you,
From waiting to not waiting for you
My heart moves from cold to fire.

I love you only because it's you the one I love;
I hate you deeply, and hating you
Bend to you, and the measure of my changing love for you
Is that I do not see you but love you blindly.

Maybe January light will consume
My heart with its cruel
Ray, stealing my key to true calm.

In this part of the story I am the one who
Dies, the only one, and I will die of love because I love you,
Because I love you, Love, in fire and blood. 

Second update of the day!

I've done a lot and it's only been a few hours. But before we get to that, guess where I am that has free wifi?

It's an English pub! A street away from the river, and a couple over from the bridge! I am having a halfpint of cider and have ordered a shepherd's pie and there's Sky Sports on the tv. It's a proper pub! So I'm having a giggle to myself and skype-messaging with Danes. It's lovely. (I might also be seated near an English cricket player?)

I've been all over today since we last talked. Took the guy's advice and wandered down the main drag we're on. It took a little while to find a cafe that also served food, so all I've had today is coffee and a croissant. (I woke up starving)

Went straight down Rakozi (one of the main roads and the one my hotel's on), took a right turn, wandered down some random streets (on which I found a tea place, which I might go check out later) and found my way down to the river and the first of the bridges, which my map calls Erzsebet Szabad, but I can't tell if that's the road or the bridge. Walked along the riverwalk until I got to the Szechenyi chain bridge and crossed it. Took loads of pictures, then crossed underneath and walked back on the other side. Both sides of the river have a little park/walk to sit and talk and such. The one I decided on had a guy set up selling beverages and playing techno music in a language I couldn't decipher. 

After a nice long sit and journal writing session, I took off in search of some food. Now I'm here. After this (delicious cider and very yummy pie!), I'll head back the way I came and see if I can find the tea place. 

• My work boots are not conducive to fast-paced wandering or slow meandering. But they will be good for standing in one place and digging for hours on end. 
• I'm starting to get a little apprehensive for the dig.
• No pictures yet, because first I have to get them from my camera onto the laptop, so pictures later. 

Reach up and touch the skyyy*

Alternate title: Isn't it midnight on the other side of the world, because now that FMac song is stuck in my head courtesy of a message from mama


'Ello 'ello 'ello!

Sleep does wonders for the sick stomach/crying/generally miserable feeling. I haven't had breakfast yet (10.17 am), for a couple reasons, but after this, I am off exploring and the nice man behind the desk said there are a couple good cafes just down the road.

After flipping around Hungarian tv for a little while (things of interest: lots of music channels [American music videos and some weird male Hungarian pop star]; CNN and a sport channel in English; lots of Hungarian dramas; a Hungarian dub of Bones and of Bridget Jones' Diary, which was obviously quite interesting), I finally fell asleep a little before 10 pm my time...and promptly woke up 2 hours later. My body still hasn't adjusted to all the time and sleep differences that just happened. Some more tv surfing, restless iPod listening, and listless crying later, and I finally got back to sleep around 2 am.

I set my alarm for 8.30 and arose around 9, thinking I was in enough time for breakfast (7.30-10). So I go downstairs and the nice man tells me two things: one, my luggage has arrived (hooray!!) and two, there's no breakfast because I was the only one signed up for it this morning and the lady who makes the breakfasts decided not to show up. He gave me a free cappuccino and some directions/advice on where to go today.

So, positives: I had a free cappuccino, I am currently breaking in my work boots for the dig, and it's a London type of day, weather-wise. And I am in Budapest!

And now, I promised to show you my swanky room and so:

You walk in the door and there's this little antechamber, and then you round the corner and see this

Pretty nice, right?

And now I am off to grab some breakfast and wander down to the city center, which looks like a long ways on the map but the nice man says is about a half hour walk. 

*Yes, the nice man at the hotel is playing Nicki Minaj's Starships. Sometimes it's Hungarian pop/rock music, sometimes it's Hungarian talk radio, but it's often American pop music. Love it.

Of course I say that (I'm tired and sad and lonely; all of which is still true even after--)

And then I decide to go for a walk in the cooling Budapest evening.

I found a very beautiful church that was just closing its doors, but had a park all around it, with lots of life. Parents meeting and letting their children play and write with sidewalk chalk; a lone college-age boy either studying or writing/sketching (I couldn't see); just generally lots of people doing lots of things. Very beautiful. And absolutely stunning against an angry grey sky, bringing cool wind and the feel of a storm. (Future rain feels different here, too.)

And starkly different from the traffic and noise and construction just one block up. I walked the route to the train station, just to make sure I could get there (especially in the midst of construction) , and it was also pretty...but a city. And not a London type city (though I did see a couple Tescos and even a Lidl's on the drive into the city!). A language I don't know (can't even recognize) and an entirely different pattern of behavior and interaction and a different type of traffic. I can't explain it, just that every city has a personality and I can already tell Budapest has hundreds.

Boy howdy, was that a day.

Let's see, where was I when I last checked in: oh, right, Albany. That feels so long ago.

I am currently seated in a swanky Budapest restaurant, with some chicken a la bonne femme (chicken with potatoes and onions and just generally yummy stuff) and a free (!) glass of wine. There is English-language jazz/pop/something music on and I am tired, but very very happy. Even after all the (pardon me) shite.

• The check-in desk for Air Canada at Albany took waaaay long, because of a faulty computer and they had to do my stuff by hand. (Perhaps this relates to #5?). I wasn't too terribly bothered, but I was already emotional, and I hate saying goodbyes, so my parentals and I were emotional in different ways. 
• All three of my flights were delayed in some way, either with me still in the airport or when we were on the plane. I am nothing if not antsy. 
• I hate naps, and I especially hate napping on planes. Both of those things make my stomach all icky, which directly leads to
• Me throwing up (twice) into those little bags as we touched down in Budapest. Yay. (I was, however, sat next to an absolutely lovely old German couple, both of whom helped me through it. Poor man, though, was on his way to his younger brother's funeral. I didn't have much to say to that, especially after my frivolous comment about being there for archaeology which just seems so...well, frivolous, compared to that)
• My luggage getting lost/delayed from Frankfurt to Budapest. As well as a lot of other people, but really, it was just that kind of day. 

Good things are all around, though! 

• From Toronto to Frankfurt, I was seated next to...an archaeologist! She's a 3rd year PhD student who is going to Rome to do her own osteology work and dig. She's actually done a whole bunch of work in Budapest before! She's really cool and we got separated but not before she wished me luck and told me to facebook her bc she wanted to know how it goes. 
• My hotel is fantastic. It looks like this run down hole in the wall (Istanbul flashbacks!) and the pub on the first floor is just a bar, but the interior is gorgeous. I will take pictures and upload them for you guys. It's so pretty. 
• He upgraded me to a triple without an upgrade in money! I have this ginormous, beautiful room all to myself (and another dig girl, tomorrow night) and the only downside to it is that the wifi doesn't like working there. (Oh noes!) I think I'll have a flip around Hungarian tv and then go to bed in an hour or so.
• The other dig girl arrives tomorrow night, so I have tomorrow day to explore by myself, then we leave on Saturday! 

I am still happy and excited, but I think I'm crashing from the new-travel high. I'm feeling tired and lonely and sad. Transitions are the suckiest to ever suck. And while I prefer traveling on my own on the whole (I am an only child and used to doing what I want to do), I would like to share this with someone. (I still think you should have come, Danes.) I miss you guys. Hopefully next week will be too busy for me to get all mopey.

I really love sitting in airports, don't you?

I don't, actually. That was sarcasm. 

I'm currently still sat in Albany airport. My first plane has been delayed about an hour and a half. Luckily, I have (well, had) a three hour layover in Toronto before I head to Frankfurt. 

I've spent a lot of time this summer just sitting in airports, biting my nails and getting nervous for connections and such. It's not the most enjoyable time to be had. 

So instead, I'm on the internet and I'm reading Neil Gaiman's new book and I'm snacking and hydrating (so I don't almost vomit on the plane this time), and I'm not actually worried or too annoyed or too antsy. I'm just chilling and it's a really nice alternative to getting all irritable and anxious. 

There's a London poster on the wall, an ad for US Airways. It's nighttime on the Thames, with a light along the Southbank in the foreground and Parliament in the background, illuminated against the dark grey sky. It's beautiful. And it's reminding me why I'm here. 

I want to see Budapest from the bridge*. I want to see St. Stephen's Basilica and the library and walk along the Danube just as I was lucky enough to walk along the Thames. 

I was nervous and sad this morning, and it got worse as the day went on. (It was especially bad after I made it through security and waved my parents goodbye.) Danes calls my mood 'nervcited,' which is exactly what it says on the tin. But right now, at the time of this writing, I am calm and excited and raring to go. Let's do this. 

* Szechenyi Chain Bridge. "As we turned onto the bridge, the full evening light, reflected off the Danube, flooded the whole scene, so that the exquisite mass of the castle and churches in Buda, where we were headed, was thrown into gold-and-brown relief. The bridge itself was an elegant monolith, guarded at each end by lions couchants and supporting two huge triumphant arches." (pg 315, The Historian)

And we're off!

Albany --> Toronto --> Frankfurt --> Budapest!

Total travel time: something disgusting like 15 hours and change

I arrive around 2.10 pm local time, which, at 6 hours ahead, is around 8.10 here on the East Coast.

I will be online and around (I have 3 hours in Toronto airport alone...) but for now--

A tout a l'heure! 

Digging Dracula's raison d'être

Alternate title: I'm going on an adventure!

When I went off to Kingston, I did a post giving a little bit of background on the town, the school, what I would be doing there, etc. 

Doing that for this trip is going to be a bit trickier.

Let's discuss the whole trip, shall we

• Wednesday night-Thursday, I fly from Albany-->Toronto-->Frankfurt-->Budapest, Hungary
• I stay in Hungary for a couple days
• I take a 13 hour train ride from Budapest to Sighisoara, Romania
• I take another bus/train from Sighisoara to my final destination, Odorheiu Secuiesc 
• Where I will then spend 5 weeks digging furiously in the dirt, pretty much 9-5 Monday-Friday

View Larger Map

So, Part One: Budapest

• Budapest is Hungary's capital
• I am really, really excited to be there for a few days on either end
• A family friend of ours is of Hungarian descent and I love listening to her talk about Hungary, and Budapest specifically
• The language is messed up
• No seriously, Hungarian is a weird, weird language. 
• I will be in Budapest for 2.5 days in June and ~3 days in August, before heading home. 

View Larger Map

Part Two: Sighisoara

• The most important thing about Sighisoara, for me, is that it is the real Dracula (Prince Vlad III, the Impaler)'s birthplace. 
• I will be going there for that piece of history alone. 
• It houses a couple really cool places
• It's a UNESCO World Heritage Site 

Part Three, Odorheiu Secuiesc

• To be honest, I don't really know all that much about Odorheiu Secuiesc 
• I will, however, be participating in this dig, the Medieval Funerary Excavation
• I am super excited

General Info re: Transylvania (plus random trivia): 

• Transylvania is a region in Romania that has been handed back and forth between the Ottomans, the Hapsburgs, Hungary/the Magyars, Romania, the Austro-Hungarian empire, and just generally passed around like a hot potato for much of its existence 
• Apparently, Transylvania was at one point ruled by the Bathory family from Hungary. The Barthorys were split into two branches and one of them includes the infamous Countess Elizabeth Bathory, the "Blood Countess," sometimes called "Countess Dracula". Elizabeth ruled Hungary in the late 1500s and is most famous for bathing in the blood of virgins to keep her youth and beauty
• two parts of this story I find most interesting: 
• the narrative thread found in many stories and much of real life of a woman's only power being her beauty
• the new movie I am desperate to see: Chastity Bites, starring one of my tip-top actress (Allison Scagliotti). A modern-day version of Countess Bathory, she heads up an abstinence club in a high school and kills the girls in it. The tagline is: Who says the virgin lives till the end? 
• Bram Stoker, daft old man, never went to Transylvania, only researching it swiftly after a traveling friend mentioned it as an ominous place he ought to look at for his horror WIP.
• Bram Stoker, the man, the myth, the writer behind some of our most persistent vampire myths, is often held in high esteem for using Dracula. Much has been done connecting the creepy fictional vampire with the terrifying Vlad, the original vampire, the impaler and drinker of his enemy's blood. In fact, Bram never did much research on Vlad Tepes. He was flipping through a book one day (in Whitby, northeastern England, of all places!) and found the names: Dracul and Dracula. Dracul was Vlad's father's nickname; a horrible old man, he earned the nickname Dracul (which means 'dragon' and is related to his part in the Order of the Dragon; it is not 'devil' as was translated early on) and Vlad III grew up an angry, vengeful, mean man with the name Dracula, son of the dragon. Bram thought, ooh that sounds creepy enough, done! He crossed out the working title of his novel and penciled in Dracula instead. The name stuck. 
• I think my favorite part of this is all the academic work on connecting the two figures, and he did it purely on a creative writerly whim. 
• I am dying to go to Bran Castle, the supposed basis for Bram's Dracula and called "Dracula's Castle" in Brasov                                                                                           

Ladies and gents, start your engines

It's that time again: t minus 9 days!

Now that my list of stuff has been ticked off (get all gradumacated, check; go visit Katie, check; take the FSO, check), I'm focusing everything on Romania and I'm getting really excited. And really nervous. 

Kingston was a huge step for me. Taking time to go with people to Istanbul, and with Bella around Italy, was a giant piece in the what-do-I-do-when-? puzzle. But, excepting Istanbul, the places I've been have felt really...safe. England is England. The UK at large is a comfy-cozy place. Rome and Venice are touristy places. 

But Hungary? Romania? Transylvania? These are places I've read about and daydreamed about, but never really grasped. I could feel London through the pages in books. I could taste Venice through cookbooks and travel memoirs. But I don't know Romania. 

Not to mention the fact that I'm not even there yet and already I feel like a fraud. I do sociolinguistics work and I write papers and I read ethnographies; I don't know that much about archaeology as a whole. I liked being a dirt monkey. I liked listening to the winding stories that function as far-fetched explanations. I loved shaking hands through history. Being the first person in a couple hundred years to touch this musket ball, to roll it around in your palm, heavy and smooth and solid enough to wound; being the first to smooth your fingers over a piece of window glass or a nail, feeling the construction of the fort through your fingertips--that is a fantastic feeling. But I don't know archaeology theory; I don't know much about the area. All I know about Vlad Ţepeș comes from poring over The Historian since I was 14.

And then I remember, this is a field school. I am paying these guys (D. describes A. as the quintessential Romanian archaeologist--all the stereotypes are true) to teach me the ways of archaeology. Let the learning commence!

But first, have some Anthropology Major Fox that is hilarious in its accuracy

Hail the conquering heroine comes!

Or, my return to this blog (about a year after my return home)

Probably most people who will be reading this know the details of my life, but a little background in case some poor unfortunate happens to stumble across this blog:

I have just graduated college with an undergraduate degree in anthropology. No, I have no idea quite what I'm going to do with it (though at the time of this writing, I am taking the Foreign Service Officer test in a few days). And yes, I'm more cultural and linguistic than archaeology or biology--but in a couple weeks, I am embarking on an archaeological field school in Transylvania! I will be digging up bodies in a medieval funerary site, about an 1.5 hours away from Vlad the Impaler/Dracula's birthplace, and I am very, very excited.

I'm still unsure on what the wifi/blogging time situation will be like, or whether or not I'll be using this as a place for field notes or travel notes (probably a little of both), but I will be here and writing for those who wish to read about my adventures.

Originally, I wanted the shiny new title of this blog to be: My Dear and Unfortunate Successor, but after some thinking, it seemed way too creepy. It's merely a recurring quote from one of my very favorite books, The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova. The 650-page-long novel features a few of my favorite things: anthropology, three interwoven narratives that take place across different times and places, travels through Turkey, Hungary, and Romania (in which Transylvania is a region in), and Dracula/vampires. It's long and sometimes arduous, but I highly recommend it if you need something to read.