lisap

Through a crack in the drapes, a lighthouse winks at me. It is 10.20 pm, but the sky refuses to darken. Similar shades of grey color the sea and the sky, as if neither relishes the inevitable fade to black.

After leaving the library this morning, I returned to the B&B only to discover that I had to leave the people in room 11 (where I had been staying) had arrived. My suitcase was already packed, so I lugged it down the stairs, turned in my key and took off for my home for the next two weeks, Parkside.

My roommates are Michelle (38, from Australia with ginger hair in a braid down the length of her back) and Katherine (29, an elementary art teacher from Atlanta). It's a little awkward moving in with strangers, but we bonded at the briefing, which was actually not brief at all.

First, principal investigator Nick (picture a combination of Frasier and Niles), provided an overview of the purpose of the expedition and some new rules for Earthwatch (sign in and out when entering and leaving the hotel, no days off, no alcohol: I have already broken two of these rules and plan to shatter the third on Saturday when my roommates and I run off to Edinburgh, Soctland.) This mini-lecture lasted for about 45 minutes of awkwardness in an uncomfortably small, musty room in the Tyne and Wear museum, but Nick's dry humor kept the lecture from being unbearable.

The most fascinating part of that briefing focused on two artifacts uncovered at the South Shields site: tombstones, both honoring former slaves. The first, Victor, died at age 20, a freedman. His former master erected an ornate precisely detailed stone for him, More elaborate than those traditionally provided for wives. Figure that out for yourselves, Nick told us. The second, Regina, married her former owner upon her release, died at 30, and her epitaph was inscribed in both Latin and Aramaic. The stones, carved in bas-relief, shared a strange detail: the faces of the images were intentionally hacked off while the rest of the sculpting remained untouched. This was probably the fine art of angry Catholics who deemed the stones to be pagan.

Graeme, another principal investigator then took us to the site itself where he began a two hour lecture on the history of the site and how it compares to trifle (an English layered dessert). The first part of the lecture explained the fort's physical organization (best summarized as here are headquarters, everything around it is a granary, except that over there, that's the barracks.) Once he told me he could later provide us with maps, I began the arduous and unnecessary work of filtering through pebbles on the ground, turning up tiny (prehistoric? Fossilized?) seashells. I was delighted when I turned around to show a shell to Katherine, and found that she had wordlessly joined my mission. While Katherine stowed most of her treasures in her bag, I quietly constructed miniscule rows of shells and quartz balls on top of larger grey stones while imagining some eager future discoverer trying to determine their obviously grand significance. (Monument to boredom?)

After about an hour there, the lecture continued as we walked and listened to Graeme.

Lastly, we finished our lecture in a building that was a gate to the fort. We viewed a miniature model of Wallsend (a fort at the end of Hadrian's Wall that our fort resembles.) The orderly Romans insisted that all of their forts follow the same design plan, sort of like Chicago Public Schools' buildings. My passion for miniatures never really manifested, so I paid less attention than usual in that room. Devilish distraction beckoned from a display meant for children visiting the site: four black plastic tile doors with handles that instructed the intrepid reader to "Lift Me" Once raised, these lids revealed some holes where the truly daring could smell something, then decipher the scent. Unknown smells can never lead to any good. I know this, I swear I do, yet I lifted that tile, drew close my nostrils, and inhaled deeply. The result? A punch of putridity. Recoiling, I hissed to Katherine, "I don't know what that is, but it's horrible." I lifted the "What am I" door: I now knew the sweet sweet secrets of the stench of urine.

The lecture concluded on the roof of that building. We basked, released from our jackets, in a moment of radiant sun, while Graeme explained the view below, the emergence of layers, the prehistory, the time in the 1800s when the discoverers thought the Arbeia fort was a Roman town, the more modern period. Earlier, Graeme had explained that the Romans sometimes used fire asa destruction technique. From the roof, we could see the full site area. Someone asked about the houses surrounding the park, many of which are built over the site and obviously hiding treasures beneath them,

"Can't you do something about them?"

Graeme said no, and I said loudly, "Fire."

I had been quiet, casually leaning on the wall in my black clothes and red Jesus and Mary Chain t-shirt.

"Lisa kind of looks like an arsonist," was his response.

I got the big laugh, though.

Dinner was at the first guest house, Once Upon a Tyne, and it was truly awful. Earlier in the day, I said I didn't mind English food, and that meal was specifically designed to prove me wrong. Ever had potato salad made with pickled eggs? Egg-mayo sandwiches that have three times as much mayonnaise as egg? Cold macaroni salad cooked in vinegar with sharp cheddar cheese on top? These may be the delights of the English epicurean, but they didn't do much for me. We stayed for about 5 minutes, then booked out to the nearest pub. I ordered a bowl of chips with vinegar and devoured them to get the filth of the mayo out of my system. Two wicked blues also helped contain the nausea. Katherine says she won't eat at that house again, and I'm in no hurry to return.

Tomorrow, we dig.