Olduvai Gorge

Now that I have a nice map and before I go off on tangents describing all my adventures in Tanzania, perhaps I should explain why I was going there in first place...

Practically my whole life I wanted to be an archaeologist. One of my favorite books when I was younger just had pictures of King Tut. For my master's thesis, I wanted to do something that combined geology and archaeology, but seeing as I find sitting hunched over for hours in the hot sun digging quite tedious, I decided to find a geology project that would be important for understanding an archaeological site instead. There begins my interest in Olduvai Gorge.

The gorge is named after this plant called Oldupai that grows everywhere 

in the gorge, but somehow was anglicized to Olduvai.

Now why is Olduvai important you may ask? Mostly because back in the 1960s Mary and Louise Leakey began finding hominin fossils and tools there and archaeologists have been finding them ever since. If you would like to learn more about the Leakeys, I suggest this book Ancestral Passions that my advisor gave me last year for Christmas.

Here I am holding an enormous hand axe made out of quartzite. I wish I could say i found it, but sadly I only got to hold it. I did help out on one of the archaeological digs for one day, but I didn't find anything interesting.Fortunately for me, the archaeologists need geologists to tell them what the environment was like millions of years ago, and that's where my project comes in. I'm looking at soils that formed along a lake 1.8 million years ago and have been buried. These buried soils are now are exposed in this gorge cut into the Serengeti Plain and can tell you a lot about the environment.

Here I am describing them. More on that later! 

Now where exactly is Olduvai Gorge?

View Tanzania in a larger map


I've been working on this map that should help explain where things are. It shows things like the Kilimanjaro airport, places I stayed, and most importantly where Olduvai Gorge is! I plan on updating it to show where things are as I get to them.

Tanzania at last!

Tanzania at last! After a long flight from Amsterdam to Kilimanjaro Airport and a crazy drive in the dark to Arusha, I finally arrived in Tanzania. I was so excited and nervous! I had spent the last nine months almost continually thinking about Tanzania whether I was doing background research, applying for grants to go there, ordering supplies, etc, but I had to wait until morning until I could actually see anything. Arusha is a fairly large city and was our base to gather supplies before we headed out to Olduvai Gorge.

I must admit when I first arrived in Tanzania, I was a little overwhelmed. I had spent so much time preparing for the research aspect of my trip and very little time thinking about what it might be like there. The poverty was shocking at times, but everyone is very friendly. Sometimes a little too friendly... I was a magnet for anyone trying to sell something.  

I didn't take too many pictures at the beginning of my trip because the locals (understandably) don't like strange giant white girls taking pictures of them while they go about their daily business, so I respected their privacy. However, I did snap this shot in the late afternoon. This is a view from my hotel room looking towards Mt. Meru.

While I got to see a lot of amazing things in Tanzania, my main reason for going was to collect samples for my master's research project, and therefore I spent most of my days digging trenches and describing the sediment. Not very exciting to most people...so instead of recounting my adventures day to day like I did for Europe, I'm going to just tell stories about what it was like. I have more pictures than I could ever post on here, and they don't quite capture Tanzania anyways. I continue to get better with my camera, but some things I still cannot manage to convey with my pictures, so I'll do my best to describe it.

Day 13: Devil's Cave

The last full day I was in Bavaria, Felix and I drove out to see some caves. It was very rainy, and he was tired of taking the American tourist to see castles. But we drove by this small one, so I got to see another castle anyways. ;)

We rode this alpine coaster, which in German is another huge word that I have now forgotten. I swear every time I rode the train the German announcement would take about 5 minutes, and then they would come on and say like three words in English.

It was all kids and Felix and I riding this thing.





Here's Devil's Cave. Doesn't look very evil now does it. Inside was hilarious. It was a pretty nice cave but they set up a light show with dramatic classical music that amused me to no end. The goofy guide who narrated in German could also have contributed to that since I had no idea what was going on.








The next morning, bright and early, I left to take a train back to Amsterdam to leave for Tanzania! As you can see I was really awake when I took this picture in front of Felix's house with his parents. They were such wonderful hosts!

June 2 and 3, 2010

Day 12: Nuremberg

Nuremberg is full of history. In the morning, Felix and I visited a museum at the former Nazi party rallying grounds, which has an permanent exhibit dedicated to how Nazi Germany came about. 

Then we walked around to see the Zeppelin Field which Hitler built to hold his Nazi propaganda rallies.  

It was very strange to be there. Hitler's propaganda videos always look so grandiose, but this place is falling apart. I really didn't like being there. It bothered me much more so than any other museum about the Nazis and the Holocaust. It was that podium that bothered me the most. 

Now the German's hold this rock festival in the stadium. They were setting up for it the day that we went there. All those trailers are from various beer companies. 

After that we had enough serious museums for one day and headed into the center of Nuremberg where the  Nuremberg Castle sits on a hill above the city. I thought it was particularly awesome because the people who built it incorporated the sandstone it is built on right into the walls of the city. Besides making a good building material,  the sandstone is also an aquifer and they dug a well to supply fresh water to the castle. There was a bunch more about the geology, but it was all in German, and Felix didn't know how to translate a lot of it into English. 

Here's the view from the top of one of the towers in the castle. Very rainy and cold day, but it was still beautiful with all the orange tiled roofs. 

The beautiful streets of Nuremberg. 

June 1, 2010

Day 11: Neuschwanstein Castle and the Alps

Doing a little reminiscing about my trip this summer today, so I decided that it was time for an update. Grad school is kicking my butt this semester what with taking two classes, teaching, applying for grants and fellowships, working on my own research, and making a poster for an upcoming conference I'm a little overwhelmed and haven't had time to work on my blog.   

On Day 11 Felix and I drove from Munich down to the Neuschwanstein Castle. It was built by this crazy kind Ludwig the II who was obsessed with the German composer Wagner. Most rooms of the castle have a theme based on Wagner's operas. 

Here I am in the courtyard of the castle. This castle is also the inspiration for the castle in Sleeping Beauty, which I believe I loved so much as a child that my Mom used to ask the librarians to tell me it was checked out even if it wasn't. 

We hiked up to see the view from the bridge that used to be the entrance to the castle. It was a little scary to be up there because the wind made the bridge shake, but the view was spectacular with the Alps in the background. 

May 31, 2010 

Happy Holidays Travis!

On Friday, we had a going away party for our friend Travis. He is going to be researching in Antarctica for the next 6 months, so my friend Kat threw a party for him that included every holiday he was going to miss while he was gone including: Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years.

Everybody had to dress up, and dinner consisted of a Thanksgiving type foods and desserts. We also played white elephant with gag gifts. The bubbles were a hot commodity. And finally we toasted with champagne at midnight. We'll miss you Travis!

Emily the midnight ninja

I have a little story to tell that cheered me up and may cheer you up as well.

My whole life I been rather active while I sleep...talking, flailing around...one time my friend Kyndal woke up, and I was sleeping with my feet on my pillow and when she woke up again I was right side up.

My other specialty is kicking. When I was little, my mom, my brother, and I went to South Padre with some friends. So of course my Mom and I shared a bed and my brother had one to himself as this seemed the most appropriate. Well I kicked my Mom so hard I left bruises, and she slept with my brother for the rest of the trip. Well on my recent trip to Cape Cod I was sharing a bed with my friend Kat. Now I thought I had grown out of this kicking phase since nobody has complained in a while, but apparently I was wrong. I  alternated between kicking and trying to cuddle with her. She has dubbed me Emily the Midnight Ninja, which she so kindly reminded me off at dinner this evening. =)

Amazing reasons for infrequent updates

Reasons why I have not been updating the blog =)

May:
Home to Texas
Amsterdam, Netherlands
Berlin, Germany
Nuremberg, Germany and surrounding areas
Munich, Germany


June:
Arusha and much of northern Tanzania

July:
Boothbay Harbor, Maine

August:
Palo Alto, California
Cape Cod, Massachusetts
Home to Texas

In the near future:
September:
Holbrook, Arizona

November:
Denver, Colorado
Napa Valley, California

December:
Home to Texas

All of this means I have more beautiful pictures than I know what to do with. =)

Day 10: Munich

So I've had requests to explain who this mysterious Felix person is... Felix was a foreign exchange student from Germany at my high school when I was a junior. We met because he was in the band, but mostly we met because my high school was the size of a teacup. Over the last 7 years we've kept up through email and instant messaging.

Felix had to go back to Munich for class, which was perfect as I got to wander around Munich while he was stuck in class. As I am of the opinion that wandering is the best way to travel, I didn't really plan anything.  As I only had the day, I went and found one of the tourist buses to take me around the city. The bus was nice because you could hop on and off whenever you found something interesting.

My favorite stop was Marienplatz, which has lots of cool architecture and shopping, but everything was closed because it was Sunday. I kept walking around just because it was beautiful and there were lots of street musicians, and I was enjoying myself when I came upon a street fair. I bought some chocolate strawberries and sat down and listened to the traditional German music for while. This really cute dog became my best friend as soon as he noticed my strawberries.

It had been threatening to rain off and on all morning and finally started pouring, so I made my way back to the Frauenkirche cathedral that I'd seen to get out of the rain. It's a big beautiful Gothic cathedral with lots of stained glass.








My final stop was to Nymphenburg Palace, which was built in the 1600s! There was a beautiful park behind the palace where people came to work out, or picnic, take a walk, you name it. I sat on a bench for a long time people watching and eating chocolate.

May 30, 2010

Maine with Mom: Monhegan Island

So another day on our trip up to Maine, we took a ferry out to Monhegan Island, which is a famous place where lots of artists have gone to paint. Behind us is the town where there are lots of cute shops and restaurants and way toooooo many tourists.

But there are also some really nice hiking trails, so my Mom and I hiked to the other side of the island to see the views.

Day 9: Rothenburg ob der Tauber

Rothenburg ob der Tauber... another name I cannot pronounce and trying only succeeded in making Felix laugh hysterically. It's a town that has preserved it's Medieval architecture. It's a big tourist trap, but it was a lot of fun or at least I had fun. Felix complained a lot about the Japanese tourists. =)






We spent a little time exploring the town to see what there was to do. One of our first stops was the Medieval Crime and Punishment Museum. Most of the tools of torture were hideously gross, but several funny ones caught my eye. I took a picture of for my brother's benefit. The caption for the Flute of Shame reads:

"This was used for shaming bad musicians. The neck of the musician was forded through the upper round hole and the fingers were placed under the iron which shows the many finger holes. This gave the impression that the musician was playing the flute." 

Now when I read this I pictured my 6'4'' brother wearing this all scrunched up because he is so tall, and then laughed so hard that I cried.

My second favorite reads:

"The delinquent was to sit behind it, while his hands were pinched under the irons, and his feet were forced through the holes in the wood. Every passerby was allowed to tickle the bottom of the sinners feet. Sometimes, salt was rubbed into the soles of the feet and goats licked it off."

They sure were inventive in the Middle Ages...

For lunch we had Schneeballs (Snowball in German). Not exactly the most nutritious but pretty delicious. I'm sure my Aunt Colleen could have found something healthy in them.  They are a specialty in Rothenburg and are hard to describe. It's kind of like a fried dough thing covered in sugar or icing. There is no good way eat them. I just ended up eating mine like an apple. There were children everywhere with powdered sugar on their faces from these things. =)

There is a beautiful cathedral in Rothenburg ob der Tauber called Jakobskirche or the Church of St. James. I was always hoping when I went in one of these beautiful cathedrals that I could find a concert to attend because I remember my brother talking about that when he was studying abroad in Prague, but unfortunately they all seemed to start later in the summer.

May 29, 2010

Day 8: The Berg

Most of Day 8 was spent on the train traveling to Erlangen where Felix was going to pick me up. Felix actually lives in an unpronounceable town called Herzogenaurach. Believe me...I tried to learn. So when I got there Felix showed me a little around his hometown, and then we drove back to his house so I could meet his parents and sister.

Felix had suggested that later we go to this beer festival called Bergkirchweih or just the Berg for short in Erlangen, so I went with his sister, Annika, and his friend, Jensen.  There was a humungous Ferris Wheel, and this pretzel that was larger than my head. It took all four of us to eat it. I'm a fan of fairs and festivals just in general. My friend Marla and I went to a whole lot my last year in San Antonio. She thinks any type of food tastes better on a stick, and I tend to agree with her. I didn't find anything on a stick, but the beer was delicious and they actually give you a big beer mug.




You would not believe how hilarious it is to watch the normally polite and quiet Germans swaying to the music and singing at the top of their lungs to "Livin' on a Prayer" and "Hey Jude" in heavy German accents.

May 28, 2010

Maine with Mom: Whale watching!

Been too busy to update the blog because I was in Maine for most of the week! My Mom and I drove up to Boothbay Harbor last Sunday.

On Monday we decided to go whale watching and in the process got a nice tour of some of the coastline around Boothbay Harbor. Lots of lighthouses of course.

We only saw one whale the whole time, but he was very friendly. Apparently if the whales decide they don't like you, they can swim more than 3 km away before they need to come back up for air. This one just hung out at what was apparently a very good fishing area. He or she would come up about every 4 minutes or so and hang out at the surface for a while before diving back down again.

It's called a finback whale, and although it doesn't look like it in the picture, the whale was actually huge - about 70 feet long. It's the second largest whale. The reason it doesn't look that big is that the fin is really far down its back, making it look deceptively smaller than it is.

The whales leave behind these circular marks in the water from the oil on their tails as they swim through the water.

In general it was just very pretty there. I took these after dinner as we watched the sun set. 

Day 8: Currywurst and museums galore

On day eight Cat and I went to the Reichstag, which looks like all the other building built in the 1800s, but the Germans built this dome on top of the building, which has a great view of Berlin. You can see the line of people waiting to get in. The day we were there it was raining, but it was still pretty impressive. You can walk all the way up to the top of it on this winding ramp. I don't know why we both ended up wearing all brown and khaki that day, but it's pretty amusing now.



Next we headed to the Pergamon Museum, which I highly recommend. I didn't take my camera in, which was a big mistake. The museum houses the Pergamon Altar. A very large portion of this alter was found in Turkey and transported to Berlin where it was partially reconstructed in an abbreviated version of the altar, but it seems huge when you are in there. These friezes are amazing and I wish we could have spent more time there. We only spent a few hours, but you could have spent a whole day at least. There is another whole section of the museum devoted to Middle Eastern Art. Istar's Gate was just as impressive as the Pergamon Altar, and we didn't even know it was there. The gate and processional way into the city of Babylon were decorated with blue tiles and low-reliefs of lions and other animals. The crazy thing is that they had no idea exactly how to reconstruct the tiles because nothing was left intact so they based it on artwork from the same time period.

For lunch we happened upon this place that sold currywurst, something I had been meaning to try as it is a specialty of Berlin. It's basically sausage smothered in kind of a cross between ketchup and BBQ sauce and topped with curry powder. They gave you so much that Cat and I decided to split one, but every German we saw had one to themselves and half of them were just eating what looked like a double order of currywurst and no french fries. =)


Our next stop was the Topography of Terror, which was a museum that had just opened in May. It's built on top of the former headquarters of the Gestapo and SS. These bunkers are all that's left. The museum details how the Gestapo and SS were able to do what they did using propaganda and fear. Not an easy museum, but very good and free!

Our last stop was the Checkpoint Charlie Museum. Has to be the worst museum I've ever been in so don't was your time. There are so many museums (that's pretty much all we did in Berlin) that are worth going to see that it seems criminal that we wasted our time in this one.

May 27, 2010

Day 7: Second time's the charm?

Cat and I are all about finding free things to do, so when we found out our hostel was offering free tours, we thought "Oh our hostel seems pretty legit, let's try this." Well second time was not the charm, but again it was very entertaining. Our guide was this crazy guy who was a model/actor and said things like "Berlin is very multi-culti," throughout our tour. He also at one point referred to the graffiti covered area we were in as "Little Paris." And as I'm looking around, I'm thinking to myself...now I've never been to Paris, but I imagine it would be prettier than this. We ended up just taking a nice walk through random parts of Berlin.

Berlin and the area around our hostel especially is weird. You walk down one street and it looks like this:

You walk a little further and come upon a nice park, but the walls around it are covered in graffiti. This is just normal as it's turned into an art form for Berliners. Once you get used to it, the graffiti is kind of amusing as it many times consists of a lot of random English words. Lots of the buildings have murals painted on them as well.

We then walked down the Unter den Linden to the Brandenburg Gate...

And then made our way over to the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, which is this huge field of these concrete blocks that are different sizes and the ground often slopes different directions. At first glance it looks and feels more like a playground, but if you are thinking about what it was put there for, it actually makes you feel very uneasy because the ground is so uneven and you can't see very well, and it's easy to lose people in there. It's actually built on top of the former location of the administrative offices of Hitler's regime. In the middle, there is a museum that is free to the public and has so much information about the Holocaust that it is hard to absorb it, and you leave feeling hollow.

Our final stop of the day was to the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church. The people of Berlin decided not to rebuild the church after it was destroyed during World War II as a memorial of the cost of war, and I'd say it's pretty effective. It's in the middle of this huge and modern looking shopping center in what was West Berlin making the contrast all that much more striking.

May 26, 2010