The Field School arranged by the North Atlantic Biocultural Organization (NABO) lasted for 3 weeks.  Since it was the first year of excavating a scheduled (protected) site, we only got permission from Historic Scotland to basically scratch the surface to see what was actually there.  This was not told in advance to the students paying to attend and hopefully learn.

This meant that the three weeks were spent in slave-driving the students.  We mattocked.  We sawed & spaded away sections of turf.  We were yelled at if we had discussions while working.  We were given 2 ten min. breaks and a 30min lunch.  We were scowled at if we went for a drink of water or to use the restroom.  We used muscles we didn’t know we had trying to get the imbedded weeds & turf up.  We then peeled back the top layers of dirt until we could see the archaeology coming through.  Then, right when it started to look interesting, we had to stop.

The weather in the Orkneys is extremely temperamental.  Every 20 min. it changes from freezing to roasting and back again.  The wind comes in bursts of up to 100mph.  Every day we packed our backpacks for every weather variety - and typically went through it all.  Waterproof clothing, sun hats, bug spray, sunscreen.  These are the essentials for an Orkney summer.

The extensive manual labor and the harsh elements would have made for a miserable enough experience.  However, it didn’t stop there.  The instructors were downright MEAN!  They billed the dig as a school, but it wasn’t.  They gave us manuals and then when we asked for hands-on experience or examples or even the opportunity to watch, we were yelled at and told to just read the manual.

 Well, excuse me, but I didn’t fly across the Atlantic to read a book I can buy on Amazon!  It is much different to do or see something in person than it is to read about it.  That is the whole point of a field school.  But these people didn’t care.  They selfishly put the aims of the dig above the aims of teaching…and they are teachers!  The directors were Drs. Steve Dockrill & Julie Bond of Bradford University.  Let me tell you professors, if you don’t want to teach, then don’t sell spots in a field school and advertise that you are going to teach there!  Didn’t you two ever take an Ethics course?!

Above are the pictures of the spots we excavated.  As you can see, we didn’t do much.  That is fine - just don’t say it’s a school where one will be taught planning, surveying, leveling, context recognition, context recording, etc. if that will not be covered and all the students will not get a chance to even watch that being done.  It is just a lie - an expensive, selfish lie.

Luckily, I found out about 2 professional excavations going on soon afterwards.  I changed my plane ticket and stayed on, renting a room from a family in order to attend these as a volunteer.  Let’s hope I learn something there!

Ian and I were picked up from the Pier by a minibus containing our classmates and 1 instructor.  They took us on a tour of the island seeing the main archaeological sites and then ended at our dig site.  We will be digging 2 things we think are brochs near Midhowe Broch & Chambered Cairn.

The beach here is amazing.  There are jagged cliffs and crashing waves and wind that never stops.  The weather changes every 15 minutes.  It rains when it’s sunny with puffy white clouds.  Seals sun themselves on rocks 20ft from where we dig and they sing.  I never knew that seals sing…

After my brief stop in the ‘Dam, I flew into Edinburgh & took a train to Inverness, where I stayed the night in the Bazpackers Hostel.  In the morning I took a train to Thurso on the very Northern tip of mainland Scotland.  From there I caught a cab to John O’Groats to hop a ferry to Mainland Orkney.  The 1st 4 photos are from this section of the trip.

After my ferry ride where I was the ONLY passenger, and saw a Puffin (I felt like an Adventurer!) I disembarked at Stromness, Orkney and caught a bus to Kirkwall.  I met up with 1 of the other students attending the field school & we stayed the night there in another Hostel.  We hit up the local pub for a proper Guinness & walking back to the hostel at 11:30pm we watched the sunset - seriously.  The sun is only down for about 4 hours per day this far North.

In the morning we got a cab to the bus which took us to the ferry from Tingwell to Rousay.  On the way we stopped at a bus stop, which consisted of a T-intersection amongst fields being sprayed with manure.  The smell was intense!  We watched a poor little JackRabbit hop out of the field, escaping the crap.  As soon as he was out, he sat shaking and rubbing his little paws to get the shit off.  Poor guy!

After that little lovely adventure, we got our ferry ride to Rousay, where my adventures continued….

Until next time, my lovelies!

So these are my fav pics from my 7 hr layover in Amsterdam on my way to Scotland.  Unfortunately, my camera battery died, so I had to use my Blackberry for the rest of the day & don’t have the cable to link it to my laptop.  So, you’ll have to wait until I get back to the States to see the other amazing shots I took (including the Mushroom shop)!  Later on I will post my pics from my travels through mainland Scotland to the Orkneys.

This is my first day on Tumblr.  I am sitting having champagne with a friend, celebrating.  The reason?  I am going to Scotland for a month.  I leave day after tomorrow.  I’m actually going on an archaeology dig in the Orkneys; Rousay specifically.  I plan on taking photos and posting them occasionally on here to document my trip and hopefully entertain a few people.  Salutations fellow Tumblrs!