This summer I spent five weeks in a town called Vescovado di Murlo in the Province in Siena, Italy, digging at the Etruscan archaeological site of Poggio Civitate. The field school, run through the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and headed by Dr. Anthony Tuck, was inarguably one of the most extraordinary experiences of my college career thus far. I’ve known I want to be an archaeologist for years but haven’t decided what particular area I want to spend my professional career in; there are quite a few to choose from. Working on this site this summer forced me to seriously think about which direction I wanted to take when it comes to my academic and professional career. I learned different archaeological techniques along with various conservation methods. Every morning from Monday through Friday, we were up before 6 am, eating breakfast on the stoop, hiking up the hill, and were ready to start digging by 7 am. We worked from then until 3:30 in the afternoon stopping only for personal salt and water breaks and the group lunch at noon which lasted a half hour. It was hard work and most of the time was spent either squatting in the trench or standing, bent at the waist. Every week, students were put into groups of about five or six and assigned to a specific trench working under a different trench-master. This worked wonderfully because every supervisor ran their trench a little differently and every trench contained different and various artifacts so students were constantly learning new things throughout the summer. I came back home battered and bruised and had to ice my knees for three days straight but I could not have been happier with how I spent my summer. I look forward to returning to Poggio Civitate as a trench-master in training next summer.

As an anthropology major, I am constantly aware of how my interpretation of my surroundings is relative to my own personal experiences. I knew that in traveling to Italy, I would be immersed into a very different culture and I would need to keep an open mind about the events I witnessed and the people I met. I was in Italy for five weeks this summer participating in an archaeological dig about thirty minutes south of the city of Siena and while we worked hard from the crack of dawn through the hot hours of the afternoon, we did have weekends off to travel as we liked. We had gathered up a large group of students from the excavation project who wanted to go and together we caught the 6:50 am bus from Vescovado di Murlo into Siena to watch the Palio race. The race itself started an hour and half later than planned due to the time spent gathering the horses and trying to line them up to start the race. They were on so many drugs they struggled to walk in a straight line or even to stand still. As someone who goes through extra care to only buy cruelty free products, this was a heartbreaking scene. I wanted to scream at someone. I wanted to stomp out and leave and demand that this practice be stopped because it was so obvious the horses were hurting and scared but I couldn’t. The Palio has historically been viewed as a key aspect of the Sienese culture and the people of the various competing contratas take the race event extremely seriously. I had to remind myself that this is not my own culture and no matter how unethical I found the scene, I had no right to criticize the people of Siena on such an integral part of their identity.

I have always been afraid of traveling on my own, even if it was in my own neighborhood. Sometimes going the store by myself was difficult for me. Living on a college campus and having my own car has really helped me get better at traveling on my own. However, when I got to Japan there were so many things that I wanted to do and see but I was to afraid to explore on my own. On my trip we had the opportunity to explore on our own for one day in each country.

Side note: Something that I liked that my professor did that I really liked was that he made all of the participants use a map to figure out how to get around Japan. We used trains and buses to get around so that by the end of the trip we were all experienced in reading the maps, train signs, and bus signs. Which I really loved considering that I am going to be living in Japan for a year. I can now go back and there won’t be much of learning curve. I also loved how we used the physical maps rather than Google maps.  Some people have never even used a map before. Sure it was frustrating as hell at times, nonetheless, it was a great experience! Professor D’Amato (coolest guy ever and he should let me be student leader next time he goes) if you are reading this, I learned some shit, thanks!

Anyway, back to the original story, sorry. Like I said, I regret not getting lost, essentially. I would have been able to see so much more and experience so much more of the culture. But don’t be mistaken, I did not just sit around my hotel twiddling my thumbs (okay one day for like 3 hours but we had climbed a mountain the day before and I was dead) I explored the local areas and went to book stores and museums I stayed 30 minutes walking distance from the hotel and there was a lot of things to do just in that area. But I do wish I went other places but I will not be making that same mistake when I go in August.

So while I was cleaning up my room and unpacking some things I brought home from college, I ended up stumbling upon some charms that I got from 金閣寺 (kinkaku-ji) in 挙党、日本 (Kyoto, Japan). While I was looking through the bags I found a few receipts and I was absolutely shocked at how much money I had actually spent. Just in that bag alone, I had found two receipts totaling around 8,000円！
友達：「どうしてシャンテルさん。どうして。」私：　「わかない！も。日本の買い物は本当にすごいですよ。」

So to save you a little time I’ll just tell you what 8,000 yen is equivalent to—it’s roughly, give or take, $70. You want to know what one of the receipts was for? Twenty face masks. I spent $70 on face masks. Mind you the entire time I knew the conversation rate to the dollar while I was in Japan. Guys, I am so frugal I even refuse to fill up my car when I have been driving on empty for a questionable amount of miles. What was I thinking, you ask? Well, I wasn’t, clearly. I was just so excited that I was in Japan, buying everything my little heart desired, and to be fair I only ran out of money on the very last day of my trip. Still, I can think of a million other things I could have invested that $70 dollars into but c’est la vie. Je vais devoir vivre avec elle. Pas de problème. All the money I spent I had saved for this trip so I guess it’s okay. No, it is okay! I am just going to need to get my life together before August.