Thursday 17.07.14 A new television star was born

In the morning it was as usual very hard to get up. Shane was lazy, and slow at waking up…. as always.

While we had been visiting Barcelona yesterday, the big stones at the work site had been cut to pieces. Now it was time to clean up after it. The whole morning was used to pick up stones and throw them away.

While we worked Spanish television passed by, and took some video of us working. Hector was interviewed. He is going to be a tv-star.

Today the pool was warm, and that was a lovely change from the other days. Jong had become good at swimming, and could now take some beautiful swimming strokes. 

On Saturday we are going to have a party, so today everybody got a “secret friend”. You are supposed to give a present to your secret friend, without them knowing who you are.

Lovely dinner today Pizza!

Jong went crazy on the name papers at the door.

In the evening some poeple went to the bar, and some stayed home. Shane of course stayed home, because he was too lazy. :)

Wednesday 16.07.14

Wednesday 16/07

Today was a Day in Barcelona. The day began with a trip to the museum of history in Barcelona. It was very hot. But, very interesting.

From midday, we had free time until 6pm. Everyone split up in different groups and did their own thing. A lot of people visited Sagrada Familia and the Park Guell. Or went shopping. Rozy and Ani went to meet their friends from Argentina. The Lucys went to the beach, again. Chus and Jordi went to see their friends and family.  There was a basketball shootout in La Plaza Cataluña. Shane was amazing and Rune not so much.  We had to wait an extra 30 minutes for 2 people.. Jordi stayed behind to wait for them but they had already gone home.

Everyone was exhausted at the restaurant and in the evening we just made bracelets and played cards and slept. 

Tuesday

Tuesday 15/07

Today we had to dig again! YAY! The clay people today were completely covered in it! They started a horrible trend.. After lunch we all had labwork again, as normal. Alan climbed on the roof again…

Nothing really happened during the day but as soon as the free time started we all began discussing ideas for the show in the night. Each group split up and began making costumes or going into the town to buy stuff for the show. Then, dinner. The Greeks used the table cloth at the restaurant to make their costumes but the Egyptains stole everyone´s toilet paper to make their outfits!

The show:

• The Egyptians performed a mummy ballet. It was… weird. But not so bad in the end. They made an interpretation of a day at the workcamp, but as a mummy.
• Then the Greeks, from Broadway came to Begues for one night only. They performed a Greek masterpiece with Manel as Zeus controlling the workcamp. The workers then made a revolution and overturned his power. All the performances were fantastic ۩.
• The Iberians stole all our beers and also stole the Greek´s song – Alegria. They demonstrated how to make beer with the enchanted. Alan was the enchanted and he showed them how to do it. They drank beer. It was okay.
• The Romans stole the show at the end. They interpreted a medieval fairytale story. Yeong and Dani were the bad guys and they stole the princess (Rune) from the king (Lucy). Ani was the hero who had to rescue the princess. Yeong was an evil witch with big balloon boobs and he was really sad when he lost them. It was a really good show.

We had a vote to see which was best and the Romans won (it was really close). They won a secret prize that noone was allowed to see. The Iberians were 2^nd and they won a free massage from anyone. The Greeks won a punishment – they have to sing for Manel. The Egyptians won a strange prize. THEEEENNNNN, there was a WATERFIGHT!

It did not end well for some people as it got pretty crazy. We were WET. It was a good day and we slept well, Lucy did not snore.

Monday

Monday 14.07.14

Today we should have had a free morning, but instead we had to walk to the cave and dig again. Shane didn’t break any tools and everything was pretty normal until we saw people stamping around making clay. They were using it to build a wall around the initial trench. Also, in the morning some people had swimming suits and towels stolen so they couldn’t go to the pool! L

During the afternoon, the activity we had to do was ´enchanted`. We each had to paint our figures as they had all now dried out.

• Juliette made a pregnant lady and painted it with stars and a moon.
• There was a rasta face. Unfortunately it was not so great…
• Duck faced Armenians.
• Etc. etc. etc.

Yeoung made some Korean pancakes filled with sugar and cinnamon and they went down really well with everyone. He almost killed everyone aswell as there was nearly a gas explosion, but Jodi saved the day.

In the evening Jordi told us about the night activity the following night. Stay tuned to find out more! Yeoung made some Korean BBQ pork, he cooked some rice also and began to feed everyone it. Pretending to be a daddy with an aeroplane spoon! Then as we had no real activity, some of us played a game where you had to slap the table in a circle, with different types of slaps meaning different things. It was fun. Yung was so focused it was scary.

 

13.07.2014

Sunday

On Sunday morning, it was straight back to work feeling refreshed, albeit nursing sore sunburns.
There were fewer of us by the poolside than usual, and even then, we were mostly in the shade.
After lunch, we met Roger who told us a little about the history and culture of Begues and Catalunya in general, especially the week long town festival which we will unfortunately miss. Then he led a percussion workshop. We selected our own drums and tried our best to follow his lead (and not to break the drums which would be used for rehearsals by the band later!) It took a little practice, but we mostly got the rhythms after a while.

Sunday was the night of the World Cup, with Germany facing Argentina. Some people chose to go and watch the match, while others took the opportunity to go on a trek around the area and back.
They reported that they saw amazing sights of the region and enjoyed the walk.
The match, on the other hand, was very tense. The score remained 0-0 until the last 6 minutes or so, with Germany scoring magnificently to win the Cup. Needless to say, the most fervent supporters of the group (Benny and Kim) were overjoyed.

Some of us then met up in the school playground to sleep ´under the stars´, despite thick cloud cover. It started raining around 4 am and we had to make a hastly retreat.

12.07.2014

Saturday
Finally, we had an entire free day to rest up from a week of hard work. Some of us used this day to visit Barcelona, and some spent the day at the beach in Sitges.
In Barcelona, we visited the Sagrada Familia, the city beach and had a long day at the zoo.
We also passed by the football stadium.
As for the rest of us, we had heard many things about the art history of Sitges, and were looking forward to wandering the picturesque alleyways and taking in some rays on the sand.
A swim in the sea was very much called for, and was even warmer than the pool! We played some ball games, sunbathed and enjoyed the local sights. Some us of enjoyed it a little too much and got very very bad sunburns, but it was a really great day off.

Once we came back, we were so exhausted from the sea and sun that we only had energy for dinner and a slow night before bed.

11.07.2014
Friday
In a surprising turn of events, we woke up at 7am to the soothing sounds of Alegria.
It was another normal day at work as far as the schedule goes, although on behalf of the Iberian team, it was by far the hardest thus far. Our team worked with Manel on leveling area 3. Even after many hours´work, we saw no visible progress. We were pretty defeated, although Manel said he could see the difference :)

aaaaand Friday night!!!

This night was pretty eventful. Things escalated quickly.
Many of us elected to dedicate our free night to drinking. Not just drinking - international drinking. We had Armenian cognac, Russian vodka and Spanish beer. Of course, one cannot simply drink, though, so we drank with the aid of Beer Pong and Ring of Fire. In high spirits, we met some locals and headed to the bar to continue the festivities. And what happens in Begues stays in Begues.

July 10th 2014

After our usual trip up to the cave in the morning and lunch, during which we quite literally had to sit and watch our water melt from ´popsicles´ before we could drink it, we took a relaxing afternoon away from lab work to take part in a mysteriously ´enchanted´ activity. Taking inspiration from the clay figurines found all over the world and in particular the one discovered in the cave Can Sadurní, we attempted to make our own masterpieces. Some of us were more creative than others….

Using clay from the local area as their ancestors would have done, we started with the basis of rolling the material around wooden sticks…

 

Achieving this, next came the tricky part of trying to make the rolled clay resemble something human, which was not easy at all….

It was up to the artist whether they gave their statuettes masculine or feminine shapes, with the feminine causing much laughter in camp with their ´accentuated´ features. Some decided to put their own artistic spirit into their creations and Rune even had his face covered with clay to make an interesting ´Neolithic´ style mask… #swag

Finishing early and leaving them to dry, we decided to take to the opportunity to share snacks, not all of which ended up in our stomachs, and, instead, made a nice decoration on the floor as a few made sport of trying to throw food into each others mouths. We also enjoyed giving Yun what he kept telling Eli was his first taste of beer, he almost convincingly pulled it off… but not quite… #yolo

Supper delighted us with an unusual but delicious mixture of meatballs and potato/sausage mix. This was nicely polished off with surprise deserts from a far away land called Slovakia, kindly bought for us by the two Lucys. These were made up of wafers, chocolate and hazelnut, known as ´Horalky´. #Yum #foodporn.

After this wonderful/hard day we took ´a few´ cans of beer and decided to spice up our life @Begues. At first we revelled in a ´traditional´ game of cup flipping (there may have been some alcohol involved) and then the equally traditional game of beer-pong (once again, there may have been some alcohol consumed). One team in particular seemed to have had plenty of practice before as they dominated cup flipping, so were made to separate for the second round involving the beer-pong, this made for a much closer result. A great end to another great day @Begues.            

July 9th 2014

Like every day, we woke up at 7 and got up to go the cave. #earlybird
We actually had our first day of proper work since we removed all of the vegetation the day before and so the digging games began. Everyone was really eager to find something. The terrace was split into different areas by Pablo and Eli and every group was supposed to work in a different area. Main parts of the work included cleaning the place of all the soil with big worms which stopped work from time to time.#screaminggirls Since there are quite a few stones and rocks in the area they had to be removed as well.
For our breakfast at site we had cheese on our sandwiches. I wish they put some oil (or butter for normal people*) on the bread. Afterwards we worked for another two hours.

When we finished digging and cleaning, we went to the swimming pool once again. The water was still cold (not for northern people) and clouds were back again (big debate to determine if this information is right).
For lunch we had pasta and mashed potatoes with pork. #foodporn
when we got back to camp, some people played table tennis, others took a nap and some went to get some slushies or ice-cream. #yolo
Some individuals preferred looking at their mobiles instead of communicating. #selfie
During lab work, the final member of our group arrived. #bigwelcome
Right before dinner the group "Els Encantats de Begues" invited us to have a look at their human towers. They even encouraged us to take part in building them by integrating us into the base. #risky #scared #poorbenny

We had burgers for dinner #happyguys
Because of football we had to delay the evening activitiy to Wednesday and played Bingo that night. Instead of numbers, we were given questions and had to find people within the group who fitted those questions and get them to sign their paper. Each person could only sign the paper of another player twice. Whoever got to 30 signatures first, had won the game. In the end Théo was crowned winner, while Irina was the first one to finish a single line. #fun #champs #goodtimes
After the bingo some people went out to town again to watch the match between Argentina and Switzerland in the Sports Bar. However after 90 minutes and with no team scoring everyone left the bar and the day was over. #sleep #latenight #snoringandtalking
#hashtag #hashtagception

* Understand normal people as french ones.**
** Not only french ones.

First day at work and Match day

We woke up in the morning hearing a beautiful song “Alegria”. It was a good way to start the day… But suddenly you can´t get this song out of your head! And the whole camp keeps singing the song………

After what felt like an hours walk to the cave, we had a short lecture again, but today nobody fell asleep as yesterday. The main goal of the day was to clean the site from vegetation and it was fine work, but a bit monotonous.

The watermelon was good. Thanks.

After some hard work, some went to the pool and some went back to the school. The pool was toooooooo cold.

As usual we had lunch, lab work and dinner. Thereafter the funny part could start. The World Cups first semifinal: Germany against Brazil.

The game started out great, with a fast goal for Germany, but when they scored the 2^nd, 3^rd, 4^th and 5^th goal, the game became kind of boring for some people. (of course not for Benny The German). So in the break time some began playing “Flip The Cup”, which is a funny drinking game.

Meanwhile football was going on, some of the Campers tasted Spanish ice cream in the local park. It was very sweet and you better try it!

After this long and interesting day, we finally could go to sleep. Sweet dreams J

Workcamp 2014 - Storm is coming

Monday 7th -  Day 1

We woke up at 7.30am to a storm today! So, instead of walking to the cave we stayed at the school where we sleep and listened to a lecture about Cova de Can Sadurní. This lasted for 2 hours….. 3 people fell asleep… - Alan, Benny & Theo. Haha! Only the Archaeologists managed to stay awake.

After breakfast we split into four groups – Romans, Iberians, Greeks and Egyptians. Each group did a different activity as part of lab work:

• Romans and Iberians were sifting through sediment, looking for lithics, bones, pottery or charcoal.
• Greeks were cleaning pottery, bagging the pieces and classifying also.
• Egyptians were trying to find small bone fragments in sediment.

After lunch we took our first visit up towards the cave, carrying the tools. We had a quick introduction about the cave and had a chance to walk about below where they found the Neolithic skeletons. Then it rained….. So we didn’t work and half of us ran back to the school. WE WERE WET! L

During the evening we played some games. In particular the carrot game that Jordi learnt in Palestine. We formed a really tight circle, all touching shoulders and had to pass a carrot around behind our backs. There was one person in the middle who had to guess who had the carrot and we had to eat and finish the carrot before the person in the centre finds it. If they found it we had to switch with the person in the middle. We ate a lot of carrots…. Afterwards we played Werewolf. Jong Yeoun Jung was the last werewolf! Everyone had fun and it was a great game. Then we slept, finally. It was a LONG day.