July 16-17-18

July 16- Costume party

      Tonight we had a costume party after dinner. Each work group had to come up with a theme, and we prepared costumes instead of doing lab work. The Roman group dressed as hippies, the Iberians as Romans, the Greeks as zombies, and the Egyptians stayed Egyptian. At the party, each group had to perform for the others, and for the judges (who were dressed as The Just Ice). The judges awarded points after each performance, and prizes were given to winners (and losers!). The winners, the Iberian-Romans will receive a massage from anyone in the group, the Greek Zombies receive a master-class in the preparation of Aigua de Valencia, the Egyptians are now required to do the wave whenever anyone says “carrot”, and the Roman Hippies must sing to Manel, the head archaeologist of the site, a love song.

 July 17 – Barcelona

       On Thursday morning we took the bus and train to Barcelona, where we were given a guided tour of the City Museum of Barcelona. We got to see the remains of the Roman, Gothic, and Medieval city. We learned how the site changed over time, from a crafts district, to an important religious site, and then into the royal palace and chapel. The expansion of the city was also demonstrated through wooden dioramas and audio-visual presentations.  We also got to hear about how the Romans used to do their laundry, take baths, dye their clothes and make their wine.

        After the museum, everyone went to lunch at an all you can eat restaurant which was a good idea as many of us were quite hungry. Many members of the group were excited about the paella and the dessert.  When we finished eating, we split into three groups; one group went to Sagrada  Familia, another to Parc Guell, and one went shopping.

      When we got back from Barcelona, we had a visit from Julia, the program coordinator from Fundacio Catalana de L’ Esplai, who showed us some traditional Spanish, German, and French folk dances.  Most of us were not very good, but we still had fun.

18 Back to work!

       Last night there was a thunderstorm which began around 3:00 am and continued on and off until 7:30. Most people slept through the storm, but several woke up. Each clap of thunder echoed off the mountainsides of Garraf, and sheets of rain pattered on the gym roof. The group leaders waited until the rain stopped to wake us up. The extra time was welcomed by those who could not sleep earlier in the morning.

            The ground at the worksite was only a little muddy and digging was easier today. This was most notable around the mouth of the cave where we continued removing dirt and rocks. Work on expanding the terrace continued at the same rate as the last work day.  Many pieces of bone, pottery, and rocks moved by ancient people were unearthed. Nothing spectacular was unearthed, but more pieces of glazed pottery were found in comparison to previous days.  

            Afterward we continued our usual daily routine and noticed workers erecting tents for the festival in a field near the pool. Tonight we will do our first festival event and dine with the youth of Begues. It is a potluck style dinner and await it with ambiguously positive expectations.   

Cheers from Julia, Ben, Haroula, Dmitry and Burcu!!!

Free day, working and hiking.

Hello to all of the fans out there!
We're sorry that we haven't been updating much since Friday but these have been busy days.

Starting on Saturday we had our free day (we deserved some relaxing!). The majority of us went to the beach in Sitges although some others went hiking to Montserrat. Later on we caught up and finished the day altogether. Meanwhile, a bulldozer was working on the cave site removing the big rocks...

On Sunday we got the pleasure of carrying the smaller rocks away from the site. A long day standing in line under the hot sun. It has to be admitted that the terrace looks much better now and we might start finding more interesting objects there.

In the afternoon we set out for trekking to the natural park in Garraf. We spent 2.5 hr walking in the more challenging path there. It was tough and tiring but the scenery was amazing. We could see the ocean , magnificent mountains and many towns from the mountain we climbed. We picnicked on the mountain and spent an exciting night playing smugglers until 12 o´clock. We slept  under the sky, and the stars were great.

Today we just woke up and we started the paleokiller game with someone alredy losing his life at 7:30 in the morning, until 3 o'clock there were already 8 people dead. During the morning we went to Escorxador where a guy explained us some of the history and some of the traditional festivities of the city of Begues and after that we just played randomly the drums the young guy introduced us.      

Day 5 -

Yesterday evening we had night time activities with the Xino-Xano youth association. We had to search for different places in town, and in each place we were given a task. For instance in one place we had to make a human pyramid, and in another we had to perform  as a dance team. We finished very late in the night, so we were allowed to sleep an extra hour. Because the bulldozers are coming tomorrow to remove the heavy rocks, we had to measure and draw them so that the archaeologists will have a record of their original position. We were almost half an hour late leaving the site, so we were in a hurry to get to the pool, and then to lunch.

At lunch we had both pasta and pizza, which is not a very common combination of food. Then we were very full, but we still had room for the incredible lemon cake, which was for some people even better than the chocolate cake.

Now we are back at the school, doing lab work, except for the Iberian group, who have gone back to the work site to finish preparing. Tomorrow we will have a free day after five days of hard work, so we are all trying to find something relaxing to do. Many of us will be going to the beach of Sitges, and some of us are going the monastery of Montserrat, maybe for some hiking too.

That’s everything for now; next update will be posted Sunday. Hopefully you can wait that long!   

Hasta luego from Bastian, Julia, Tom and Haroula.

Here is the group that won last night, performing their excellent dancing. 

Day 4 - Rainy day

As yesterday we were up until late, drinking sangria that some of the girls prepared and playing games all together (the game called Lupus was the one that took most of our evening, but we also played some drinking games), we woke up very tired and we didn’t want to go up to the site to work our asses off. In the end, though, we had to start moving and we were at the caves at 8:30.

Today the kids of the youth association Xino-Xano were supposed to came from Barcelona to help us with our task on the caves, but they didn’t catch their train to come here, so they arrived when we were finishing, at around 1 o’clock. And although at first it seemed like the clouds would be covering the sun all day, when we were cleaning and drawing rocks and finding bones, the day cleared up and some of us decided to go to the pool after all the hard work.

The food at the restaurant has improved since that first day we went to sleep hungry, today we even had a chocolate cake for dessert! By the time we got back we suddenly heard thunder and it started to rain heavily!!! 

And that’s all for today! We hope you are enjoying your summer as much as we are!

Geiaaaaaa! from Alex, Theresa, Bára and Ileana.

Day 3

So,to all the people who stumble upon this,the third day of our little adventure has been as sunny and as hardworking as can be expected. Not to scare off the possible readers,the work itself is very enjoyable,especially when you find some pieces of pottery,which were used thousands of years ago,or even better a ribcage bone of some Roman guy or even better when you get your breakfast .But what is even better,after taking care of others bones,we have time to rest our own,and enjoy ourselves,whether on the swimming pool,or playing ·briscola·(where some of us only embarass ourselves),or to eat carrots,it doesn't really matter.

We spent last night sitting outside  playing different table games,talking,and still getting to know eachother,and we went to bed pretty late,so it was very difficult to wake up for work this morning.

Today we continued our work in the terrace of the cave,which was basically removing rocks,and measuring,and making sketches of the stones,so we really progressed,cleared the sections,and we found some objects that are of great importance for the history of this area,thus adding another piece to our unfinished puzzle(and we ate the most delicious melons on our break).
So,things are going smoothly so far,there is still alot of work,alot of expectations,and apparently alot of surprises,which our incredibly sly organizators won't reveal to us,but so far they have been better than expected,so we are really enjoying ourelves.
Until very soon,
Cheers mates!

Day 2

Day 2

Here we go, it’s already the second day.

We were tired after yesterday’s night games but after a good night of rest we woke up full of energy.

After the breakfast, at about 8 am we went to the Can Sadurni cave and changed the areas of work. At 8:30 we started to prepare the equipment for excavations and each group went to their new zone. This day was much more fruitful, we found some pieces of pottery, bones and interesting red stones in front of the cave. One of the pottery pieces was dated for 18^th century. Most of the girls were looking for archaeological objects and boys were carrying out buckets full of heavy stones. After the 30 minutes of break the groups came back to their work and several Egyptians helped Manel to draw a map of the site by measuring the height and the position of the rocks.

Meanwhile at the lime oven the Greeks continued the work the Egyptians started. The majority of the work today was removing trees.  Approximately thirty-five small trees were removed with chain-saws and axes. The reason for removing the trees is to create an entrance to the exhibit of the lime oven for the archaeological park. Now people can easily reach the oven having to avoid trees and thorns.    

Finally at 1 o´clock, when we were done with our work, the majority of us went to the swimming pool to relax. The rest of us went to the school to take a nap.

“Today´s tasks were extremely fascinating. I didn´t expect to find something valuable and that actually happened. I´m so glad I have an opportunity to be here and enjoy this new archaeological experience.” Asia

“Work was longer today, but it felt like it went faster. I also learned some more Spanish!” – Ben

The First Day

We are in the international work camp in Garraf, Barcelona. We’re here to clean up the area right at the entrance of the cave of Can Sadurni, where there is an archaeological excavation, to make space for future prehistoric park open to public. People from all over the world have come to help with this project: Spain, Italy, Russia, Turkey, Poland, Taiwan, Germany, Finland, France, Serbia, USA, Greece, Czech Republic, Canada, and Denmark.

We were supposed to meet at half past 3 in the afternoon yesterday in front of the church of Begues, but although most people showed up, some of us were stuck in the airport. In the end, all participants of the work camp met at dinner and because nobody knew anybody, the organizers prepared an ice-breaking game to get to know each other better. Afterwards we went to sleep in the gym of the school of San Cristòfol, where we’re staying at.

Today, we woke up at 7 o’clock and we had a little (and I repeat, little) breakfast and then we went to the caves. Manel, the head archaeologist, showed us a presentation of the work camp and the discoveries they have made over the last 35 years in the caves. Then we had the REAL breakfast and we separated into groups to work more efficiently. The groups are named after ancient cultures: Iberians, Greeks, Romans and Egyptians. Every group had its own task: Greeks, Romans and Iberians were all centred on cleaning the entrance to the cave, and the Egyptians had to move to another area to clean the vegetation around the lime oven from the 18^th century.

After four long hours of back-breaking work, we decided to stop for the day and some of us went to refresh ourselves to the swimming pool, where we felt like swimming in the sea because of the salty water. At about 2 o’clock we had lunch in the restaurant Casino de Begues, where we eat all our lunches and dinners. In the next hour and half of free time some of the volunteers went to swimming pool again, some stayed doing chores on the gym and some had a siesta.

Now the groups are doing lab work: some are cleaning, classifying and numbering objects found on the excavation, and we’re writing this blog entry.

Hola! from Alex, Ileana, Theresa, Bára.