A Whole Other Country

Well yesterday was another beautiful day in Italy...but I would hardly know because I spent it in the smallest and oldest Reupblic in Europe, San MArino. Only 12 km wide at its widest point, it lies about an hour from Ravenna. IT is an amazing place, famous for selling arms and armor (i.e. Medieval and REnaissance, not Smart Bombs or anything) and for Formula I racing. Everyone that lives there is rich and they pay not taxes to any state. It is rather like Monaco I think.

And talk about gorgeous...three castles set high up on three rocky crags. It was quite cold at the top, and it rained on us which was fine with me because I always imagined that if I was walking the battlements of a castle there would be a fine gray mist falling and the surrounding mountains would be shrouded in fog. I also took a walk on a deserted pathway over the Pass of the Witches from Tower 2 to Tower 3, which is hardly visited because the structure itself is not open to the public. Just being there in the absence of people made it worth the rather difficult climb.

I am sure I took far too many pictures of everything, but hopefully they will be enough to remember it by. I also picked up some unusual souvenirs for Mom and Dad and little William, so stand by for those.

In other news, I should share at least one story of my amusing attempts to use my slowly growing Italian language skills. Amusing for the Italians, anyway. I was trying to convey the slang "To drink like a fish" (don't ask) and just knew that it was "Bibite come pesca." On paper I was right, but due to a subtle difference between the pronunciation of pes-k-a and pes-ch-a, I was actually saying "To drink like a peach." Now I may have a new nickname.

Not much new to tell about the dig, except that the director of the Ravenna ARchaeological ASsociation visited and had his picture made with all of us for one of the newspapers. Enrico has promised to make sure that we all get copies. Another reporter and photographer also came to do a piece for some magazine, but it will not be out until next month. Again, we are promised copies but only time will tell.

Other than that, I guess it's business as usual if that is possible. We had an exciting find in our little area today (where Taco and Liz and I are working as of yesterday). Taco uncovered a complete oil lamp with a design of a fountain on it. Surprisingly, he found it with a pickaxe and managed not to damage it. No one was expecting something so valuable in such an early layer, or we would not have been working with the "heavy equipment." It was very exciting and I got some good photos of it. Besides that though, just hot and humid and somewhat excruciating, although most of the pains have subsided to dull persistent aches at this point. Either I am getting stronger or my pain sensors are shutting down due to overload. I hope the former.

Counting the days to seeing all of you again,
Candace