Category: Uncategorized
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Familiar Franchises
I am had the chance to travel to Cuba, England, France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Germany, Austria, Greece, and now Cyprus… and one thing that always surprises me the types of fast food brands that are abroad. Naturally you will find McDonalds everywhere. If you travel in Europe, you can always guarantee McDonalds to have wifi…
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Cats of Cyprus
I could honestly have kept this blog post as just the title and a photo dump, but then I wouldn’t get credit for it. So, I’ll go on a 250-word tangent about the real highlight of this trip. When I was told there would be cats. I didn’t expect this many. Everywhere I go, I…
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Flamingos
When I look back on my life at the top 5 betrayals I’ve ever experienced, few compare to what I’m about to say. There is a salt lake here that has a sign of promising flamingos. My favorite animal. When I saw that sign on my first day here in Cyprus, I stopped breathing and…
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Cypriot Oddities
In Cyprus, door knobs mean nothing. I have yet to use a door knob for the entry of a domicile that had a mechanical function. It is just something to pull or push the door with. All doors with the purpose of securing a room are operated with a key, and the key is what…
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My Greek Tragedy in Larnaca
The very first full day of excavation work was hot, sweaty, and tiring. I was up for the challenge well before I arrived, but on that first day, as the hours under the sun trickled on, the others and myself noticed how sluggish and seemly unwell I was. It only kept getting worse as the…
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Terra Ombra:
Although the majority of our time here in Cyprus has been spent at the dig site, our last week here has been spent entirely at Terra Ombra washing and documenting pottery. While washing pottery is far less physically grueling then the work we were doing at the dig site, we have very quickly discovered that…
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Ex-Pats and Foreign Workers in Larnaca
Larnaca, and Cyprus as a whole, truly is a melting pot of European and Mediterranean cultural interactions. Anyone who knows me quickly understands I am a conversationalist. I can hang back and not say much, enjoy an evening in solitude surrounded by throngs of people going about their lives, but I also like to seek…
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Zeno
The very first group trip we took was a very short one around Larnaca, anchored around Finikoudes Beach. There we saw a Venetian castle later held by the Ottomans, the Church of St. Lazarus, the Jami Kebir Mosque, the statue of Cimo… but the very first site seen was the statue of Zeno. Zeno was…
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Funerary Carriage
At the site we store our discovered material culture at (mainly pottery), they have a treasure trove of empty stone tombs stacked under awning and lean-tos. There was one unique item that did catch my eye, and it was an old wooden carriage. It had seen better days, but the decay of the wheel spokes…
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Neolithic Settlement: Choirokoitia
In between Larnaca and Limassol lies a Neolithic site of the earliest known culture on Cyprus. It lies a good distance away from the shoreline and is mostly enclosed by surrounding hills that a river wraps around through. These people were agriculturalists of cereal crops, gatherers of local fruits and nuts, but also subsisted through…
Vigla Archaeological Project 