New Adventures | Jersey*

*Jersey, uma daquelas pequenas ilhas no meio do Canal da Mancha, NÃO Jersey nos states

Há cerca de sete anos que Verão para mim significa trabalho – 100% voluntariado more like it – e é das melhores prendas que me podem dar por volta desta altura. Acho que é mesmo o meu momento zen entre os diversos anos lectivos. E trabalho aqui significa escavações arqueológicas, sem dúvida a melhor parte do meu curso/área profissional – se é que já lhe posso chamar isso -, se bem que as aulas, se forem bem dadas, também não lhe ficam nada atrás. E até ao momento não me posso queixar nada das escavações nas quais já participei – bem as mais recentes, que as primeiras, na realidade, não interessam nem ao menino jesus, #sorry not sorry -, uma vez que são algumas das mais importantes na Europa. E isto também significou nos últimos três anos ir escavar para França. Este ano tenho pena de não ir para França outra vez – mas com atentados e Euro 2016 nem sei se tinha muito interesse em ir para lá – mas a verdade é que só vou ficar ali a uns 20km de distância.

Ao longo destes anos todos já acumulei um total de 22 semanas de trabalho em escavações – se contar com as duas semanas que ainda fiz enquanto andava no Secundário – e agora vou acrescentar mais duas a esta conta. Por acaso tenho imensa pena que sejam só duas semanas, porque o tempo passa mesmo super depressa e os melhores achados encontram-se sempre nos últimos dias, mas como se costuma dizer, é melhor do que nada. E é sempre mais uma nova experiência que se ganha, é mais um sítio de trabalho para colocar no CV e mais um período novo que exploro, que ainda por cima dá sempre uns achados lindos. Pode ser que para o ano tenha direito a lá ficar as quatro semanas da campanha – *prayer circle*. E acima de tudo são mais duas semanas de campismo. A ver se desta não morro congelada à noite – que é para aprenderes a não levares só umas camisolas e calções mínimos como pijamas.

Para já a experiência tem sido interessante, no mínimo. Com o que há de bom das novas tecnologias, já deu para falar com o big boss da escavação pelo skype, e deu para ficar a saber que Jersey tem uma grande comunidade de portugueses – estou a ver que me vou sentir em casa, fora de casa. E também deu para ficar a saber que, dos vários voluntários – que até não são muitos, já que somos apenas uns míseros 12 -, aparentemente sou a que tem mais experiência. Ainda não sei muito bem como reagir a este comentário, mas sabe muito bem ouvi-lo sem dúvida. Eu sou muito do tipo de me manter no meu canto e de não dar muito nas vistas, mas acho que é desta que vou andar tipo lapa de volta dos investigadores, e quero ver se não saio de lá sem ter aprendido uma boa meia dúzia de coisas novas. E em conversa com o big boss, pode ser que ele arranje maneira de eu andar um pouco de volta do geoarqueólogo da equipa, o que seria fantástico para aprender novas coisas, já que vou entrar nesta área de investigação com o meu próximo mestrado – toda uma nova história para daqui a dois meses.

E aqui fica a pseudo-nota de que não sei se irei ter muito acesso a internet, e isto se até tiver acesso a wi-fi. Viagens de avião requerem que se leve muito pouca tralha – o que não é difícil já que a tenda ocupa o espaço todo na minha mochila de campismo, e aquela coisa ainda tem espaço para 70l, imaginemos se fosse menos -, por isso computador está fora de questão, o que significa que não vou poder vir aqui nem aos vossos cantinhos. Contudo, o blog irá continuar em pleno funcionamento, ainda que com menor frequência de posts do que é habitual. Ao invés de posts dia sim, dia não, vão ser publicados apenas de três em três dias durante as próximas semanitas. Assim, até daqui a uns dias!

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Internship in France | Reflexion

Some free time between shower time and dinner time, especially alone, let to this kind of reflexion, which I wrote while I was still in France. For those of you who don’t follow this blog regularly, I’m an Archaeology Master student (hopefully soon with my diploma) and that means that I participate (mostly as a volunteer) in excavations every Summer – well not every every Summer but whenever it’s mandatory or whenever I want/can. And this being part of my Masters programme, obviously this year wasn’t an exception. Also, for those of you who don’t follow the blog so regularly, this year I went to France for another excavation. I had previously gone to France for another internship/excavation two years ago.

Even though the two projects in which I participated aren’t the same, they actually have quite a lot in common. Excavation and record techniques are basically the same, especially because part of the technical systems were actually developed by some researchers of the first project (one that I participated in 2013, when I was still in my bachelor); the living conditions are somewhat similar, even though I slept in a tent in the first project, while I slept in a dorm in the most recent one; the volunteer teams are absolutely international and everyone has very unique academic backgrounds, sometimes not even directly related with Archaeology. And on top of it all, both projects were amazing experiences, with obviously good and bad moments.

But what I truly found to be quite remarkable was that in each project (even including the ones I participated in Portugal) there are always the same kinds of people. Without getting in too much detail about it, there are always two distinct groups: the one that’s more lively and the one that’s more quiet. However, the interesting part is that there are always a couple of people – that must think they’re special or something – that make others do their work. I think I can say I’ve seen two different versions of this story. There are people who spend all the time complaining about the tasks that they have to do, either because it’s boring or they don’t like it, and they always try to avoid doing those tasks if they can. It’s honestly something that bugs me because we’re all doing it because we have to and we don’t complain about it. Well obviously we can complain – most of us do it for one thing or another, but at the end of the day we still did all our tasks, even if we didn’t like them that much. And then there’s another kind of people, the most annoying one to be honest, that think that they’re superior to others, that because they’ve been in certain projects for one year or more years think they’re special and don’t have to do the “dirty” work, so they make others do it. It really is one of the most annoying things in the world.

In terms of work done in each one of these projects, there are more differences. I did a lot more fieldwork this time because everyone was going to the site, while in the first project in France we’d only go to the site every three days due to the huge amount of people and the small size of the site. I did the same kind of lab work in both projects so I can’t say much about it. And I can say the same for the fieldwork itself, even though I felt a lot more frustrated this time because I worked mostly in low density layers – layers in which there are few artefacts. It allowed me to dig a lot more and a lot faster than a site like this would allow, but I’d have loved if I had found more artefacts. It kind of felt like I did nothing – which is not true though; we don’t have to necessarily find dozens of artefacts per hour to call it a productive day, even though some archeological layers (in some sites) do allow that to happen.

Desabafo #3

Simon Fraser University (SFU) – Burnaby Mountain Campus

D.: are you hot?
Me: yes. It’s getting hot.
D.: but you’re Portuguese. You’re use to hot weather.
Me: I know but I really don’t like the heat.
D.: so then you should come to Canada.

This is one of the many little conversations I had with the co-ordinator at the site, when I was in France participating in an excavation project. I can’t remember exactly what I answered at that time but this should have been my answer: “if anyone pays me for university, I can change countries right now“. I sure wouldn’t mind having studied there (I’m referring to SFU where he’s a lecturer). Not only the country itself must be absolutely beautiful, but also I would love to have him as my professor. I think that he might be one of those rare cases where the professor actually knows how to be a good professor and how to pass his passion for the subject to his students. And on top of it, they’re degree programme looks amazing. The funny thing about their Archaeology department is that they have a Portuguese professor from FMUP. This would have been a good choice of a country (and university) to go to under the Erasmus Programme (if it was an European country). However, if that had been possible, the flight tickets and the living expenses in Canada would have made it economically unbearable.

Day 44: getting back to reality

O meu objectivo para este post é escrevê-lo em português, mas não podia deixar de começá-lo com esta expressão em inglês, que tão bem representa o que senti nestas últimas seis semanas. Este foi sem dúvida um dos melhores Verões que alguma vez já tive. E com muita pena minha já chegou ao fim. Mais do que nunca, neste quase mês e meio, o tempo passou a correr: de facto, quando estamos a fazer algo de que gostamos, o tempo passa sempre bastante depressa. Admito que quando fui para a escavação em França, já fui com expectativas altas, mas mesmo assim, estas expectativas foram completamente ultrapassadas. Esta foi sem dúvida uma óptima experiência: algo de que eu já andava a precisar há alguns anos.

Honestamente, se me perguntássem do que é que eu sinto mais falta, esta seria a minha resposta imediata: as pessoas. Não houve lágrimas derramadas nos últimos minutos, mas senti uma grande tristeza por deixar estas pessoas (e também o projecto em si). Como eu fui mencionando ao longo dos posts anteriores que escrevi (podem vê-los aqui, aqui, aqui, aqui, aqui e aqui), este foi o grupo de pessoas mais simpático e atencioso que alguma vez conheci. Se não fosse o facto de viverem tão longe de Portugal, eu de certeza que ia tentar visitá-los. Mesmo assim, ainda tenho a sorte de umas quatro pessoas viverem na Europa. O incrível é que apesar de não nos conhecermos muito bem e de só termos vivido uns com os outros durante seis semanas, a verdade é que nos tornámos numa grande família. É quase como aquela citação que conhemos do “Lilo & Stitch”: “Ohana means family; family means nobody gets left behind or forgotten.”. E apesar dos pequenos conflitos que tivemos, no final, estávamos lá sempre para nos apoiarmos uns aos outros e nunca deixámos ninguém para trás, por assim dizer.

Mas não são apenas as pessoas de quem eu sinto já falta; também estou e vou sentir falta do projecto e do próprio sítio arqueológico em si. Qualquer que seja o aspecto ou o pormenor que eu saliente deste projecto é, sem dúvida, bastante diferente daquilo a que eu estou habituada em Portugal. E, realmente, cada vez mais tenho a certeza que o período que quero estudar é o Paleolítico, seja o Paleolítico Médio ou Superior. Um dos aspectos que mais me deixou fascinada é o facto de fazermos boa parte do trabalho de laboratório, ao mesmo tempo que a temporada de excavação estava a decorrer. Isto não é nada de novo, mas é uma prática que não se vê em muitas escavações em Portugal, infelizmente. Embora fosse algo de que eu tivesse consciência desde o primeiro dia, só tenho pena de não ter podia ir escavar mais dias. No entanto, isto deu-nos a oportunidade de ficarmos a conhecer a fundo como é que tudo funciona no laboratório. Esta foi uma experiência espectacular! Deixo-vos abaixo, em fotografias, alguns pormenores da casa e propriedade em que estivemos alojados e, ainda, de algumas tarefas que realizávamos.

França… Este é, de longe, um dos países da Europa que melhor conheço (não que também sejam muitos aqueles que conheço). Contudo, não deixo de descobrir coisas novas e maravilhosas, cada vez que lá vou. E até comecei a reparar o quão parecidos são os países mediterrânicos; bem mais parecidos do que aquilo que pensava. Os locais por onde andei ficam situados nos departamentos da Dordogne e do Lot. Esta não é, propriamente, a minha região francesa predilecta, mas devo admitir que é bastante bonita.

Infelizmente já regressei à realidade. Apesar de estar mais do que contente por estar de novo com a minha família e amigos, digo infelizmente porque já comecei a ter problemas com a universidade e a minhas aulas só começam mais para o fim deste mês. Enfim, nada que eu já não estivesse à espera. Não é que este problemas não tenham solução, mas esta é sempre uma situação chata. Ando a tentar remediar alguns erros que cometi no passado mas não está a ser nada fácil. Honestamente, não estou com muita vontade que os próximos dias cheguem. Neste momento, gostava de ter ido na “mala” de algumas das pessoas que conheci, neste Verão, para o outro lado do Oceano Atlântico. Nunca pensei que voltasse a dizer isto tão cedo, mas a parte positiva deste ano académico é que é o último.

Visto que chegámos ao início de Setembro, isto significa que as aulas estão prestes a recomeçar. Como é que foram as vossas férias até aqui?

Day 23: Lascaux II

Since I’ve only been writing these posts in English, I won’t change this configuration. I know I promised to write in both Portuguese and English but it’s a lot easier to write in just one language. I could have continued writing in Portuguese but I thought this could be an interesting topic for a lot of people, so that’s why I’m writing in English instead of Portuguese. Another week is gone and I can’t believe that the fourth has already started. The time has passed so quickly and people are starting to live, which is actually really sad. I know that I still two more weeks (beside this one) but I’m already missing this; if you know what I mean. I don’t wanna go back to my reality; I wish I could go with some of these people to the United States of America or Canada. I really want to see my family and fiends but I’m not too excited about going back to my boring reality in Portugal. It’s just a shame that I can’t go to the other side of the Atlantic. Oh well… Maybe some day… Who knows…

The end of a week means that we had a Saturday free of work. It’s weird to have to work on a Sunday but I’m glad that we have at least one day free. Thus, this Saturday, me and a couple of girls, we went to Lascaux II. As you may know, the real Lascaux Cave has been closed for several years and the replica – Lascaux II – is the one that the public can see.

Probably my opinion isn’t going to be the most optimistic of all but an opinion is always an opinion. I admit that I am disappointed about the cave. The tours are guided (normal ones in French and special ones in, as far as I know, English, German and Dutch) and this is something that I don’t like because it doesn’t gives any kind of freedom. However, what they tell us is interesting and a good piece of information for people who don’t know anything about rock paintings. In this context, other thing that I didn’t like was the fact that the whole tour lasted only for 40 minutes, which didn’t leaves us any room to calmly observe the paintings: we were basically only able to see the ones pointed out during the guided tour, leaving a whole bunch of them behind. Moreover, the fact that the paintings aren’t real (I know, I know, they’re not supposed to be and I already knew it upfront) makes it less extraordinary. I may only have this opinion because I saw a real cave with rock paintings before I went to Lascaux II. The cave I went to was the Niaux Cave, in the Pyrenees. This was one of the most amazing and beautiful things I’ve ever seen. Still related to Lascaux… Not all is bad. The cave is well reconstructed and it very realistic. So, if you’ve never seen a rock painting cave, Lascaux II is a good option and it will be worth your money and time. However, I feel that if you’ve already seen one cave like this, Lascaux II won’t be that appealing.

I can’t say much about the tickets sale because we bought it on the bus that took us to the cave. As far as I understood, people don’t need to make reservations if they’re going on their own but if you’re going in a group of more than 20 people, you need to make a reservation. I’m not sure but I think that there’s a tour every 20 minutes. We took a bus from Sarlat directly to Lascaux II and we bought the ticket on the bus. So, for anyone staying in Sarlat, this bus is the best option since it is super cheap: the journey only costs 1€. This time I won’t be posting photos that I took because we’re not allowed to take photos inside the cave. Thus, the pictures I’m posting were taken from the Internet.

Has anyone been to Lascaux II?

Day 13: one day at La Ferrassie

I’m so (so) sorry again for not writing in such a long time. I’ve been busy and also very tired; and on top of all this, the internet hasn’t been working as well as I expected it to be. As of today, I’m in the middle of my third week here, in France. I can’t believe I’m already half way through. On one hand, it feels like we’ve been here for ages. But, on the other hand, we’ve been here for that long.

As I’ve said in previous posts, we don’t go to the excavation site everyday, as might happen in other archaeological projects. The lab work is a very important part in any research project, so it’s completely understandable that it’s also featured in this project. In the end, we will have done more days on the lab than at the site; not only are we supposed to spend more days on the lab, but there’s so many of us and the site is so small, that they can only take a few every day. However, there’s a few exceptions. Some of the volunteers will have spent more time on the site but that’s because they have certain skills that are very useful for the whole excavation process. As of today, I’ve been to the site five times (one of them just yesterday) and I feel I was really lucky because I went to the site three times on a row, last week.

From the house where we’re staying, it takes us about 40-45 minutes to get to the site – La Ferrassie. It’s a long ride but the landscape is so beautiful that I think it’s well worth it. Actually, this region is absolutely beautiful. On the last day-off, some of us went canoeing on the Dordogne river. If you have the chance, I recommend visiting this department (Dordogne) as much as any other department, since France is such a beautiful country, especially for those who like nature. The La Ferrassie site is an archaeological site with both occupations on the Middle and Upper Paleolithic periods. This site is best known for the neanderthal skeletons found in the 1900’s. However, the site was (and still is) also important to describe the aurignacian lithic industry. This site is often classified as a rock-shelter but, actually, this site is a cave, which roof has fallen off. During the five times I was at the site, I dug in layers of both periods. I wouldn’t say that excavating the Upper Paleolithic layers is harder but they surely require a lot more attention to what we’re doing, since they have a lot of artifacts and some of them are really small.

As I said before, our crew – i.e. the volunteers – is international, just as the group of researchers. As far as I know, we have researchers from the United States of America, Canada, South Africa, the United Kingdom, Portugal and France. This team of researchers is also very diverse, academic wise: we have archaeologists (of course), anthropologists, paleoanthropologists, zooarchaeologists, archaeobotanics and geoarchaeologists (I hope I’m not forgetting someone). These are some of the many aspects that I really like about this project and this team. However, what I really love about this team is the good environment they create, especially in the field. I have to admit that we couldn’t have a better field work coordinator. And they’re also so nice. I might sound weird talking about this but I’ve never seen this much kindness together; sometimes I feel like I’m in a parallel dimension.

I don’t know exactly what happens in the Indiana Jones films but I’m pretty sure it does not represent in a good way an archaeological excavation. I’m also pretty sure that what most people say isn’t exactly right. First of all, we don’t dig holes without a propose and we don’t dig to find specific and beautiful objects, as it was done in previous centuries when archaeology wasn’t considered a scientific subject. Second, we don’t have to dress like the people in those kinds of films. Basically, everyone is free to wear whatever they want – if you want to wear a dress or something like that, you’re totally free to do it. However, the common sense tells us that we’re going to get so dirty that we should take with us clothes that we don’t use very often or that might get ruined forever. I use gym clothes and hoodies for the coldest days. They’re really comfortable and it’s stuff that I only use for excavations. Third, we don’t have necessarily to use tooth brushes to excavate, like sometimes we see on TV. It’s really cute to see it but most of the excavations don’t require it. Actually, the materials that we use to excavate vary a lot because it depends on the period that’s being excavated. You’ll be able to see some of them in the photos below. Forth, and pretty much the most important detail, we don’t go looking for beautiful objects. Every kind of information has value, even the ugliest artifact. We have to dig carefully and do some measures to make sure that every context is recorded properly.

As you’ll see in the photos, the archaeological site is quite small. Actually, there’s more of the collapsed cave that I don’t show in the photos. I don’t show it because there’s people on those photos and, mainly, because we’re not excavating on that part. You can see on the 6th photo the two places I excavated on: both spaces are on the left side of the photo. Firstly, I started by excavating in Middle Paleolithic layers: the area close to that bucket with a blue dust pan. Secondly, I excavated in an Upper Paleolithic layer: the area on the top left corner. Once again, these photos weren’t photoshoped.

Day 9: trip around Sarlat-la-Canéda

I’m so (so) sorry again for not writing in such a long time. And I’m also so sorry for just writing in English. It takes a lot of time to write in two languages and right now I don’t have that kind of free time. We’re very busy everyday and after dinner we just wanna relax a bit and have some fun. But actually, the main reason for this long break is that the access to the internet is quite unstable. Apparently, it is working fine now; so I’m hoping it will stay this way for the next few weeks. I’ll try to publish some other posts (these ones just in Portuguese) so that it doesn’t feel like I’ve abandoned you guys.

As a small summary of what’s been going on here… This is our first week-end here and yesterday  was our first day-out too (Saturdays are the only days when we don’t work). We are about 20 volunteers and every working day we’re divided into two groups. One of the groups stays in the house doing lab work, whereas the other one goes to the excavation site. Unfortunately I’ve only been to the excavation site once. In the lab, we’ve been doing a lot of new stuff for me. Actually, I’m only used to wash the artifacts and now we do all sort of things. I don’t wanna get into too much details about it, but this way we get to know more about the artifacts we’re discovering on the dig and the whole process they go by when they’re analyzed. I don’t wanna sound mean, but I’m quite happy that I don’t have to uncover pottery (the only thing I would discover in the previous excavation I took part – it’s not like it’s not interesting; I just don’t “appreciate” them that much); at this excavation, because it’s a paleolithic site, we basically only discover bones and lithics. Uhhh by the way, I’m excavation at the La Ferrassie site (I’ve been failing to mention this little detail). Here, in past decades, some skeletons have been discovered, but I don’t think we’re going to be that lucky this year. So, we’ll probably only discover animal bones.

Most of the people here are either American or Canadian, but we also have people from Iran, Norway, Belgium, the Netherlands and France. This is what we can call an international excavation (almost one representative from each continent). People are oddly too nice. I mean, probably this is the reality, but I don’t know, it’s like they’re genuinely nice. I kind of wish I could spend an entire academic year with all these people, especially some of them. I had a rough first night here and this girl was really sweet and kind to me; and she still checks if I’m alright. I thought it would take me a lot more to adjust to this (like it happened in other similar circumstances) but it only took me about 24h. The people are really nice and they make us feel very comfortable here. I wish I could feel like this everywhere I go… Oh well. Better here than nowhere. One of the best things about this group of people (not there’s nothing bad about it, actually) is that they don’t bug you to do something that you don’t want to; they accept and respect your decisions and your own lifestyle. I can be specific… I hate when people are trying to convince me to drink (and maybe get drunk), especially when they’re doing this for several days or some weeks on a row. Saying that, I have to admit that I loved your answer M. when you asked me whether I was going to drink or not. It was absolutely perfect. It’s only been one week but I already know I’ll miss these little moments. I think this experience will restore some hope on me about humanity because, apparently, there’s actually nice people out there, not just douchebags; which kind of makes me wonder if I’m living in the right country…

Since this is the third excavation I’m taking part on, this is not a brand new thing for me. But the way we’re living here, yes. Instead of living in a house, we’re camping on the backyard of the house of the project (as you can see in one of the pictures). I’ve never camped in my life and this has been one of those things I’ve always said I don’t want to try. However, I’m kind of  finding this an interesting idea. My tent is quite spacious and I feel comfortable here. I thought I would have problems on my back because we’re sleeping on the floor, but no, I’m sleeping just fine. The only downside of this is that during the day, because the tent is in the middle of a field, it gets really hot to the point in which the tent seems like a green house. Other than that, it’s perfectly fine. This excavation also has another peculiar detail that I’ve never seen before: we have shores to do, such as cleaning the bathrooms, cleaning the kitchen, washing the dishes, prepare the meals, etc.

On our day free, yesterday, we decided to visit a close-by town called Sarlat-la-Canéda (also know as simply Sarlat). It’s located in the Dordogne department in southwestern France. This town is really (really) pretty and so French, if you know what I mean. It’s a medieval town which is something that I quite appreciate in France, since some of them are still preserved. It was a really hot day so we only stayed there till after lunch time. We didn’t do much on this day because we didn’t have time to decide something more elaborate. Below I show you some of the photos I’ve taken in the last couple of days, including the ones I took yesterday at Sarlat. Once again, I didn’t do anything to these photos; I didn’t changed them on photoshop or anything similar. One of the photos has a kind of drawing look but that it’s because my camera has that effect as an option.

Our camping site is at the bottom of the photo

This and the next photos are from Sarlat-la-Canéda

Does anyone know the Dordogne department? What do you guys think of the photos?

Day 2: Biarritz

I’m sorry for not writing yesterday. After a journey of about 12 hours, I was so tired that I just wanted to rest and have a good night of sleep. I did a really long trip because I came by car. Traveling by plane is much quicker (I know) but, honestly, I prefer to travel by car because it is much more comfortable for me, as I don’t get sick. Despite being hot in Spain, the trip went well. And I’m also sorry for writing this post only in English, since I said I would write both in Portuguese and English. I’ll have a quite difficult day tomorrow so I need to rest, but because I didn’t want to left you guys without any news, I decide to write this only in English. If we think about it, writing in to languages makes us write almost two posts. I’ll take this chance to apologize in advance for any grammatical mistakes, since this is not my mother tongue and I’m not used to write in English, as much as I’d like to.

Today was like my free day before starting my weeks of excavation. I visited Biarritz, as you can see by the title of the post. Biarritz is located in the Bay of Biscay, on the Atlantic coast. This city is quite popular among tourists and surfers. It’s not only a popular choice among the French, but also for Spaniards, Brits, Swiss and Dutch. I’ve been once but I only stayed for a night in a hotel outside the city centre, thus I didn’t see anything of this town. All I have to say is that Biarritz looks like a small version of Monte-Carlo (Monaco). This is not only a luxurious seaside town as Monte-Carlo, but it also has in common amazing and beautiful 5* hotels (such as “Hôtel du Palais”) and a casino overlooking the beach. And of course (how could I forget this detail), high fashion stores, such as Hèrmes and Longchamp. I’ll show you above some of the photos I took of the city.

While here, I ended up by visiting one of town’s museums: “Musée de la Mer” (Museum of the Sea). I would say it is an intermediary museum between our “Aquário Vasco da Gama” and our “Oceanário de Lisboa” (Lisbon Oceanarium), both in Lisbon. It is interesting but quite expensive for the kinds of animals they show. Our “Oceanário” is as expensive but here our money is better spent. I’ll also show you some photos that I took in the “Musée de la Mer”. I didn’t do a single thing to my photos, i.e. I didn’t use photoshop or any other program on them, so some of them won’t look that good.

Has anyone been to Biarritz? What do you think of the photos?

Off to France

See you guys in September!

Look of the Day #146

A partir desta sexta-feira ou sábado irei começar com os posts sobre a minha estadia em França. Para quem não sabe… Vou participar, durante algumas semanas, numa escavação arqueológica em França e, por isso mesmo, irei dedicar a maior parte dos meus posts a este assunto. Ainda não sei bem que tipo de posts irão ser estes, uma vez que não sei até que ponto posso publicar informações e o quê sobre a escavação.

No entanto, irei continuar a publicar outros posts, do mesmo género daqueles que tenho vindo a publicar deste a criação deste blog; posts estes que tenho vindo a deixar agendados, no caso de não ter disponibilidade de publicar algo sobre a escavação. Uma vez que gostei do resultado final dos posts que fiz no “especial regresso às aulas” do ano passado e dos posts que fiz sobre o Ensino Superior, irei publicá-los novamente, aos poucos, a partir de meados de Agosto.

Estes posts irão continuar a ter as mesmas características de sempre, mas os posts sobre a minha estadia em França irão sofrer algumas alterações. Nada é nada de muito especial ou extraordinário, mas como penso que esta é uma boa oportunidade para dar a conhecer esta área – arqueologia – e tentar afastá-la da fantasia que é o “Indiana Jones”, eu irei escrever estes posts em português e inglês. Espero que gostem dos posts e será bom receber o vosso “feedback”.