I went to Mission Burrito to begin my quest for an honest burrito in England. The business is named after the Mission District in San Francisco, and its advertisements promised that their burritos were the real deal! This seemed like it was worth investigating further. The tortilla warmer, Jarritos, and Cholula bottles were good signs when I walked in — there is hope! I opted for the fajita burrito with black beans, rice, vegetables, guacamole, fresh tomato salsa (dare I saw pico de gallo?), lettuce, cheese, and habanero sauce. Back in California I would have shied away from such a sauce (it really isn’t a true salsa since it is so creamy), but I tried a sample and knew it was hot but acceptable. I also appreciated that they mix the ingredients before they wrap the burrito up in aluminum foil (another moment of hope). The burrito was edible, but the flavor profile was completely off. My friend mentioned that hers tasted a bit sweeter, and I thought that mine was a bit bland as well even with the habanero sauce. One of the things I like about burritos is that you are able to taste all the individual elements even though they are mixed together. This burrito was edible, but Mission Burrito would quickly go out of business if it opened a storefront in its namesake area.

The Ethiopian restaurant was a lot better. I used to go to one frequently in San Francisco and I found the Ethiopian food in England to be very similar to what I had experienced back home. Since I’ve never been to Ethiopia, I cannot vouch for its authenticity, but it was pretty tasty. The food was delightfully spicy – I had a spinach dish and a saucy beef dish whose names I have forgotten. The restaurant has an all you can eat night on Thursdays for a few pounds, so I might come back to do that even though such buffets are dangerous places for the waistline!

The next day I went back into London and hit a few museums during the day. I started out at the British Museum and was there when it opened. Besides revisiting the Elgin Marbles and the Egyptian collection, I made time to extensively look at the Greek pottery exhibit. The last time I was there it was closed off, so you all can imagine my delight when I saw the rope pulled back. The lady guarding it was happily reading a newspaper when I arrived and I think she was  bit grumpy that I made her work. She put her paper down and followed me around for a bit, impatiently pacing about ten feet away from me. A few other people came upstairs and annoyed me because they wanted to look at what I was looking at. Out of this entire gallery you two also want to look at this kylix with an Amazon on it? I doubt it! Herd mentality at its best! The same thing happened when I was crouched on the floor looking up to see the paintings on the side of a vessel with a symposium scene. Sure enough, I had another group right behind me doing the same thing to the same piece. Baaa! Baaa! When I was crouching down I freaked out the museum guard — she was on my case again pretty quickly before she realized that I was just taking photographs.

Next up was the National Gallery and National Portrait Gallery. Both were pretty crowded. I’d been to the National Gallery before, so I quickly ran through and just stopped to see the paintings that interested me, especially this one of the Execution of Lady Jane Grey. The National Portrait Gallery was new for me, but I wasn’t very impressed. There were a lot of modern photographs on the first floor, and my attention wasn’t grabbed until I stumbled upon the royal portrait galleries where I spied some iconic pieces, such as this one of Henry VIII and this one of Elizabeth I.

After a short lunch break, I wandered around streets near Piccadilly Circus before ending up in Covent Garden. The real purpose of this trip into London was to see “La Traviata” at the Royal Opera House. My “seat” was in the standing section, so I plunked down on the floor during the intermissions to give my legs a rest. The opera was sung really well and it was a treat to go.

In an effort to keep up with this tradition, I am also buying new items whenever I go to the market here. This really isn’t a new thing for me; back at home I would always pick up something new at Trader Joe’s to try out. The slight twist I’ve decided to add in England is that the secret ingredient has to be a food I’ve never tried before. So, the newest frozen version to Chicken Tikka Masala is out, as are all the types of teas I’ve tried before. Some new foods I have tried are English baked beans (acceptable after hot sauce is added) and this boxed custard dessert (UHT milk product – haven’t tried it yet). The custard comes in those cardboard packs that usually contain soy milk or ready to eat soups. We’ll see what else pops into my basket the next time I go shopping.

Some people have also asked how expensive food is here. Most prices are 30-60% higher than back at home.
Can of Soup: $0.74
Candy Bar: $0.64
Instant Oatmeal (10 packets): $3.49
Small Bagged Salad (enough for two): $1.73
Small Jar of Pasta Sauce (half the size of one in the USA): $1.60
1.05 lbs. Dried Pasta: $1.38
Spreadable Butter: $4.50
Flat of Salami: $2.96
Six Small Oranges: $1.60

Mind you, these prices are coming from ASDA, Wal-Mart’s brand in Britain (open 24 hours). Prices at the corner shop in my neighborhood are even more expensive than what I listed above. I’m trying different supermarkets each week to figure out which one I like the best. So far I have been to a Tesco Express (small and lame), a gigantic Tesco, Morrisons, and ASDA. I still have to check out Sainsbury’s and Waitrose, the latter of which is rather high end. Someone told me that Marks and Spencer, a department store, also carries groceries, so they will be on the list, too.

In case that wasn’t enough sticker shock for you, gas is currently hovering around $8/gallon here. Ouch!

Having laid out a pretty ambitious itinerary, my day started early and I arrived just as things began to open.  I had covered a piece of paper with directions, opening times, and notes for things to see. My route was a circuit around the town to some of the more major sites. The first stop was the Ashmolean Museum, the oldest public museum in England. It was full of Greek and Roman artifacts, but also contained a substantial amount of material from Asia and Europe. The collection on display was concise and approachable. I overheard another visitor comment that this museum was much more digestible in an afternoon than the British Museum, and I have to agree. The most interesting non-ancient display they had was about conservation practices and issues. The Egyptian collection opens late next month, so I will have to sneak another visit in after it opens.

After thoroughly wearing my feet down, I walked around the corner to the Eagle and Child pub. This particular establishment was frequented by both Tolkien and CS Lewis, and many of my friends had mentioned it was decent. I had a nice Sunday roast chicken dinner and a glass of porter. Some other foreigners (all girls doing a study abroad in Bristol) invited me to dine with them. It was a kind gesture, and I enjoyed making small talk with them.

After the meal was over I walked to the Natural History Museum. As expected it was overrun with families and the atmosphere was a sharp contrast to the mellow one at the Ashmolean. However, the lively excitement of a five-year-old seeing a T. Rex skeleton for the first time is pretty hard to top. The Pitt Rivers Anthropology Museum was next, connected as a backroom appendage to the Natural History Museum. It still had the traditional display cases chock full of artifacts. Some displays were of an artifact assemblage of a particular culture, whereas others showed a cross-cultural comparison of, say, flutes. I found the room very overwhelming and left rather quickly.

I continued down the street further into the university to see some colleges and other buildings. After poking around the Radcliffe Camera area, I headed back towards the train station through a bustling shopping area. I went into a few shops (mostly selling stationery, books, and accessories) to see what was offered and then made my way back to the train station.

Photos (I’m continually updating the same album throughout this term):

The hardest thing to adjust to so far has been the food. I have found a lot of good things so far to eat, but locating a supermarket that sold what I wanted took a few tries to find. Luckily, there is a Tesco Express in striking distance, and a larger Walmart-sized Tesco about a 40 minute journey away. I have been trying some new foods and have found some agreeable, and some not. For example, the chocolate here is great. So great, in fact, that I am pretending that I don’t see it when I walk in a store. Out of fear for my waistline, I am avoiding buying any cookies. If they are anything like Italian cookies, I’m in trouble. Milk and butter also taste a lot better here, and organic products are readily available and reasonably priced. The one thing that I don’t prefer is English baked beans. Theirs taste a lot more like tomatoes, and I am thinking about buying some barbeque sauce to mix into them.

The university’s campus is really pretty. Most of it is dominated by open fields and a lake. Luckily, I don’t have to walk far to get to the archaeology buildings from my dorm. The edge of campus is lined by trees, thus creating a nice area to exercise.

My dorm room is larger than I expected. I am on the top floor on the end, so I don’t hear that much noise. My window looks out onto trees which usually have a foraging squirrel or magpie in them. I have a large built-in desk, and my own tiny bathroom. The shower is so small that I cannot bend over to reach anything! I will have great leg muscles by the end of the year after doing so many squats to pick up shampoo, etc.! There is also a full kitchen for the floor where we can cook our meals.

Today I went to the Museum of English Rural Life with a girl who lives on the same floor as me. It is about a mile away from where we live. The museum was really well done and contained a whole bunch of tools used for various crafts and agricultural work. Often, there was a video showing the person performing their craft with the actual tools that had been donated. The most interesting video was of a cooper building a cask. He was so experienced that he didn’t need any plans – he just started working and it came out perfectly even! The museum made me realize how many of these crafts are now lost, but also how fortunate we are in other ways that technology has advanced.

Classes start tomorrow!

Here is a link to some photos around Reading and at the museum.

The famous Luigi from the bar made us spaghetti with fresh clams and mussels the other day and brought it up to us on site. We sat down at the tables in the tablinum and ate the most delicious meal we’ve ever had on site (or that room has seen in two millennia). The seafood was so fresh because Luigi himself had collected the shellfish the day before. The combination of crushed tomatoes, olive oil, and basil rounded out the dish perfectly.

This year also seems to be the year of visitors. So far my friend Erin from SFSU has come to Pompeii to say hello and have a tour of the city. Since I normally stick to the area around the trench, her visit was a good excuse for a jaunt around Pompeii. I took her to all of the major sites and into the houses that were open. It seems that more houses are closed this year than previously, and the collapsed buildings have cut off access to some of the houses that are usually open. Although these events have limited accessibility to the site, in some ways I think it is a good from a conservation standpoint. Not all tourists are kind to the structures, and I feel bad limiting those who treat the site with kindness.

Yesterday I fell on site and hurt my knees, so my mobility has been limited on my day off (thus this update)!

Photos (finally!): https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10100655997023526.2945914.2521574&l=bc2abe85a3

This morning we had an egg-cellent breakfast of eggs, toast, sauteed onions, and juice. Luigi, who owns the bar where we usually get breakfast and lunch, gave us some fresh eggs the other day. I cooked them up on our hotplate and made toast to go along with them. It was a great way to start the day! Since we don’t have a coffee maker (that might change in 2012), Luigi was still able to make money from us anyway this morning with our cappuccini order.

The trip from Madrid to Naples went terribly wrong. I forgot that I had my calipers in my carry-on bag, and airport security took them away from me. Being me, I argued for about a minute that they were not sharp. The woman who was the x-ray technician was getting angry, and told the other person on duty that I had to have an “enhanced body check” or whatever they call them. I was so upset over my calipers at this point that the body check barely upset me. So, now I don’t have the tool I use the most and they cost $30. Boo hiss! I will have to see if I can get a replacement at the hardware store in town.

The weather has been fairly good since we arrived. It hasn’t been too oppressively hot, which always is a concern. The team spent a few days getting some wall analyses done before we got the permit to dig. We only have six people on the team this year, so it will be interesting to see how excavation goes. There is also a considerable amount of work that has to happen on my end after excavation is completed, and the pottery from the AAPP shrine area also has to be tackled before I leave in (gulp) 24 days.

Tent living has been going well. I have my trusty air mattress with my Thermarest on top for extra support. There was a spider in my tent that was biting my foot (I’m okay now, but the bites hurt a lot) but I think I killed it when I took everything out of my tent and rearranged stuff.

Today to celebrate Independence Day we had grilled hotdogs, caramelized onions and peppers (in an Italian beer reduction), and our normal salad fixings. It was a great way to keep the traditional food of the holiday! We bought the highest quality hotdogs at the market, but we were tempted by the ones with mustard already in them. It was also discovered that Italian ketchup tastes more tomato-y and also is more spicy than its American counterpart (yet still tasty)!

More updates (and maybe some photos) soon!

Monday we were going to go to Toledo, but the train was sold out (alas!). So, we did a walking tour of the older section of Madrid and saw the main cathedral, royal palace, Plaza Mayor, and a whole bunch of other churches. It was a nice, long walk. Plaza Mayor was the site of executions, but now it houses a variety of impersonators including Charlie Chaplin, an invisible man, Mickey Mouse, and a glittery yak thing that tried to bite people as they walked by. It was a very strange sight!

After relaxing, we headed back out and went to eat tapas. I ordered a small beer, which was probably no more than 8 ounces. (When they say small, they mean small!) The food was good, and the dessert was even better.

Today we went to Toledo, which is perched at the top of a big hill. After a quick bus ride up, we walked around the alcazar, saw the Military Museum, and then went to the Cathedral (so beautiful!). We stopped by the main city gate on the way back down to the train station, which was beautiful in its own right (c. 1915). The cathedral had a beautiful piece by El Greco in it and was worth the journey alone. Sadly, we couldn’t take photos inside.

Tomorrow grandma goes back to LA and I fly to Pompeii. What a lovely vacation this has been!

More Madrid Photos

Toledo Photos

Our last dinner in Fes was spent in a beautiful garden cafe that offered variations on traditional Moroccan cuisine. The garden was really pretty and home to a few cats that were kept as pets. There are a lot of feral cats in the country, and it was nice to see some that were tame enough to flop down near our feet and enjoy the sun. Our meal was delicious: we had a variety of salads (which are vegetables stewed in a variety of broths), chicken and carrots, and chocolate cake for dessert. We thought the restaurant took credit cards, but it didn’t. This restaurant was deep in the medina, so one of the waiters walked with me to the ATM (it is low season right now and the restaurant wasn’t busy at all). We walked and walked, and finally we found the ATM. Alas, there was a huge fight going on in front of it. Two men were punching each other and finally one got the other in a headlock. A huge mass of men were surrounding them watching the action and were blocking my way. Finally, the fight got broken up and I was able to withdraw some money!

The next day we took the train from Fes to Casablanca, and we rewarded ourselves with another dinner at the great French seafood restaurant I previously mentioned. We got seated upstairs with a whole bunch of men eating alone facing a TV which was showing a football game. I’m not certain who was playing because all of the text was in Arabic.

The next day, we flew from Casablanca to Madrid. It took over three hours to get through all of the different hoops at security and customs. When we got to the other side, we sat around for about an hour and then tried to board our flight only to discover that the gate had changed. We almost went to Montreal instead! Grandma went to sleep immediately once we were on the correct plane, and I stayed awake so that I could see the Strait/Rock of Gibraltar, which was worth it. (Too bad I couldn’t see the monkeys.)

We arrived in Madrid and with some difficulty we made it to our hotel. My grandma was spent, so I went to the supermarket and got the Pompeii Dinner Special: assorted meats, cheese, bread, and some dessert. We ate in our hotel room and then went to sleep.

Today we went to the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, which houses art from the 20th century. We saw a lot of really cool paintings by Picasso (including Guernica), and lots of surrealist art by Dalí. There was also a special exhibition of Yayoi Kusama’s work (the eccentric Japanese polka dot artist featured in the Marc Jacobs and Louis Vuitton documentary – I recommend it!) Lunch was consumed at an outdoor cafe, and my Spanish went to good use translating the menu. Other than that, I’ve had relatively more ease in communicating with people here than in Morocco (thanks, Bolyog/Fels!).

Also, I should mention that I am wearing shorts because they won’t create extra attention here! Woo hoo!

Photos, yo. https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10100575968661006.2937012.2521574&l=5b1c282753