June 24th 2015

Hello world, 

I do not know what day I will get to post this as the internet has been acting up a little today at the lodge (The Outpost Lodge is the main hotel in the village, it has a great view of the lagoon and the reason why most of us go there from time to time - the internet). It seems that I need to say goodbye to my jawbone fitness tracker as after a series of frantic flashes, it flashes no more. My jawbone will be missed, especially for the great silent alarm that it was, extremely useful in a house of six girls. On a brighter note, I got my grades today and I am happy to report great results! 

The morning has been excruciatingly hot, but now that it is past three in the afternoon, we are all relaxing outside and the breeze is perfect. I love our new accommodation. We have fans in our rooms and electricity that actually lasts all night! Not only that, but the light can be turned on at any point in the day and night and when I went to the toilet in the middle of the night, I did not see any cockroaches. Not even one. If you are ever visiting Indian Church Village and Lamanai, do stay at Marvi's guesthouse. 

As today is our first official day at Lamanai, Liz (Professor Elizabeth Graham, UCL) gave us the day off to unpack, relax and get everything sorted for tomorrow in terms of what work we will be doing for our dissertations and what there is to do in the old museum. We went to see the museum today after Claude had fixed the new shelving and it looks great! There is also a lot more space for the artefacts, which means that the are not falling over each other. As for our work for the next four weeks, we will be putting together as many pots as we can, as well as cleaning the small finds trays. I got a quick sneak peak of what there is in the museum and I am seriously looking forward to starting our work tomorrow. 

As I sit here writing this post on a hammock, I can't get over how great being an archaeologist is :)

Alright, now I plan to take a nap to the distant sounds of reggeaton music. 

Till later world, 

G. 

Tulum, Monk and the sea.

Hello world, 

Today I am writing from the wonderfully relaxed Tulum, Mexico. As some of you may know, I am on my way to Belize, where I will spend the next month (together with Cat and Ella) working on artifacts at the local museum. The plan is to take the bus down to Chetumal on Sunday where we will change for the bus to Belize. I will report more from Belize, for now, enjoy the beach with me :) 

This  gentleman wishing he could just fly away after a day of hard work (he has been working all day, cleaning up the seaweed that the storm brought in). 

We got here yesterday evening and so far we really haven't left this great little beach bar called "The Mezcal Monk".  They play reggae all day long, have perfect piña coladas and mango daiquiris. Perhaps the main attraction however, is the little boy called Vladimir. This little rebel chills to reggae music, swings on the swing standing up and scares you off the swings by creeping up behind you. 

As you can see the storm season is upon us so the weather may not necessarily be perfect, but it is perfectly relaxing :) 

Till later world, 

G.