A couple of months since I last wrote… sorry. It has been a really busy period moving back to Spain and keeping up with fieldwork, conferences and so on. Luckily, right now I am on ‘holidays’ for a month and will be able to focus and order things a little bit. Anyway, I wanted to use this post to greet the holidays and wish you all a great coming year.
Tag: Greece
Post about the project in Greece
Diary, 16/07/19 – Macedonia is…
So, June finished and July came… and I had to leave French aside for a bit to focus on the last couple of weeks of Greek. Apparently I got my B1 with a really good grade, so now I can actually defend myself in a conversation. I don’t really feel very confident, but already had to do it and hell it worked. But this month, I have a better story… Some months ago Greece and North Macedonia reached a new historical agreement that left everybody unhappy. Prespa dealt with many issues, also with history, to settle what is hellenic and what is not… Just writing about this issue without any judgement can cost me several comments on social media and this is what makes it even more interesting. Until now I was quite in love with Greece, although never understood why they were so obsessed with their northern neighbours. Now I understand it better and came to the conclusion that they are acting like bullies in many sense. So, let’s get political. First of all, a little bit of historical context… because the conflict goes back to the fourth Century and they try to make very clear that the ‘real’ Macedonians where only in the south. Just reading the Wikipedia helps to see it. And it is not false. However, there is something more in identities than a classical tribe. Specially when during the greatest moment of this tribe the territory conformed parts of half a dozen current states. Anyway, READ MORE
Diary, 15/06/19 – Fieldwork and languages
My grandmother was born in a village called ‘Arroyomuerto’ [dead river] and at some point it was decided to change the name into something nobody remembers but appears in Google Maps. When I saw the entry panel to Archaia Messene I remembered it. ‘Mavromati’ [black eye] was the original name of the village where the archaeological site is, but nowadays it took the one of the site for marketing reasons.
Diary, 15/05/19 – Post travelling…
While I sit at my hotel in Kalamata, waiting for a new day of fieldwork, I look back to the last month and a half and sigh…
Diary, 01/04/19 – Tired of travelling
In Spain we use to say we do not want to see someone even in a picture [ni en pintura] when we kind of hate them. It is not my case with Athens, but there are periods I do not see the Acropolis ‘ni en pintura’ although this time, I was able to find a nice painting in the Leventis Gallery in Nicosia last week… Jokes apart, since the last post when I was right back from Morocco, I have been in five countries and a half (North Cyprus is not recognised beyond Turkey) and thirteen cities plus the other half of Nicosia. For many, all this travelling is a dream, but when working is not really that much even enjoying some VIP lounges in the way.
Diary, 21/02/19 – Fieldwork…
The year started with a difficult decission, and intense work. I needed to start preparing for good all the fieldwork for the project, as time was passing faster than expected and it was the moment to speed things up. This is why in the last weeks since the last update I have been traveling to seven of the focus sites for the project in Greece and Morocco, among other things.
Diary, 22/11/18 – Fall will tear us apart
When the routine bites hard And ambitions are low And the resentment rides high But emotions won’t grow And we’re changing our ways, Taking different roads Then fall, fall will tear us apart again.
Diary, 21/08/18 — Interviews and holidays
Summer is a good moment for fieldwork, although in my case most of it is not really in the field doing ‘archaeology’.