Scotland!

Vacation is a wonderful thing. It's relaxing and rejuvenating. I spent a week in Scotland enjoying the sites and sun and amazing weather. Although it was rather windy and chilly up north the sun was out everyday and made for amazing photos.

We began by taking a train to Edinburgh and spent a few days in the city. When we got there we went to Holyrood palace which is a working palace (where the queen stays while she is in Scotland) so I only have photos of the exterior. We also had the best Hog Roast ever at Oink. Oh. and our Hostel was pretty cool we stayed in the room Titled Gothem City and my bed was "Batman" (I am the night!). Our room was a co-ed room and we had some pretty interesting roommates... Let's just say boys are gross.
The next day was amazing weather so we Climbed Arthur's seat (and the smaller one in front of it). It was VERY windy and there were a few times I wondered if I was going to blow off the edge of the cliff. But it was totally worth it for the view, even if I was freezing. Day 3 we spent at Edinburgh Castle. That took all day, a lot longer than we thought it was and we were pooped and tired of walking. On top of that we had to get up at 5:00 am to catch our train to Inverness.
Inverness is up more north in the Highlands, meaning the train ride was beautiful! So many amazing views and mountains. Once at Inverness we got a rude awakening... it is... I would call it a dying city. there is NOTHING to do in Inverness except use it as a hub to get to Loch Ness. Which is exactly what we did.
Loch Ness was amazing! so beautiful. and we had perfect weather. We went to Urquhart Castle and then went out on the Loch in search of Nessie! I didn't find her but I did fine two ducks! I turned around in the boat to take a photo and this duck was flying right at my face! I thought it was going to run into me but he was just trying to land on the back of the boat and get a ride. I did scare me though. After two days in Inverness we returned to Edinburgh and explored the city some more. One of those days we took off to St. Andrews which is on the coast! So we saw a beach, had the best fish and chips ever, and went to the castle and church (we like castles and churches apparently). The beach rejuvenated all of us, even if we couldn't go in the icy water.
Over all the trip was amazing. There isn't much to say about it, because it is one of those you had to be there things. I hope my photos help give a sense of how great it was though!

FOLLOW THIS LINK TO SEE A SLIDESHOW OF SOME PHOTOS!!!!

http://www.photosnack.com/FE76F6FEFB5/pdz9w333

My First Dig!

I did my first dig these last two weeks! It was a lot of work! Did you know that when you start a dig you have to de-turf the area that you are working on (usually if it's on private property and you have permission to work there). This means that you have to take the grass and stuff out in square blocks and stack them up so that you can put it all back at the end of the dig. Let me tell you that is a LOT of work for a 10 meter by 2 Meter trench! and then you have to Mattock and shovel out all of the top soil until you find the archaeological layers. In other words I'm a fit and muscled beast now!
I learned a lot on my dig like how to do drawings or Plans (looking down) and Sections (the stratigraphy of the sides aka the layers). I can fill out all sorts of context sheets, and talk about how dirt isn't just dirt and brown it has colors and is made up of different things. I am a great photographer now too!... well sort of... I of course got to break in my new trowel and he earned a name! First thing I found with it was an iron buckle. Not anything cool and not anything old but my trowels name is now Bucky (also for Captain America reasons).
I got nice and dirty during the week. It rained a few times and I came home covered in dirt and mud. Good thing I bought water proof pants and a sweet jacket. If there is one thing England knows how to do it's their rain gear! I stood in the shower and was able to rinse myself off of mud in my clothes and boots, which were also awesomely waterproof. But even with all my effort I got pretty dirty everyday. But hey it's what I was there for right?

This is AFTER I rinsed some of the mud off with TWO water bottles 

I know you all want to know about the archaeology that we found and and all the good stuff but we can't talk about it, sorry. But over all it was a lot of fun! my trench ended up being over a meter deep too! That's a LOT of dirt  to move! Lucky for me we did NOT have to back fill that one.

Anyway, Monday I'm off to Scotland with some of my housemates! I'm SO excited to travel a bit. I'm turning into a regular outdoors person. Got a kick as backpacking backpack and everything. I will take a TON of photos of course and there will be a post about this adventure.

TO SCOTLAND!