Well… I’m at it again. After a year of pretending to be an adult, I’m almost back to having as much in my savings as I did before my year abroad. Which means, of course, that I have to spend some of it on more traveling. Because I was a teacher over the last few months, I have summer off. And I want to take advantage of it. I’m probably not going to be a teacher next year, so who knows when I’ll have another summer completely free. And with all that’s been going on this year, I decided that there’s really no reason to put off achieving my goals.
I’ve been blessed enough so far in life to check a ton of stuff off my bucket list (which is almost exclusively travel-based). I’ve lived in two of the coolest cities in the world; seen a real viking ship, been in some of the most amazing museums; visited Venice during Carnivale, Dublin for St. Patrick’s day, and Rome for Easter Mass; seen the pope; skiied in three European countries (four if you count the accidental wrong side of the mountain adventure); visited incredibly beautiful churches, mosques, and synagogues; gone scuba diving between two tectonic plates; seen the pyramids and rode a camel in Africa; visited Petra; walked to the top of the Leaning Tower of Piza; seen some of the world’s most famous artwork; been surrounded by ancient ruins in Italy and Greece; visited 48 states and 28 countries; and gotten a masters’ from one of the top 100 universities in the world. I know. It’s insane how much I’ve been able to do so far. And I certainly wouldn’t have been able to do it without a lot of help from my parents, who not only have given me the travel bug and important travel skills, but also always make sure I’m fed.
The truth is, I’m in a pretty good position to achieve most of my current travel goals in a decent amount of time. I want to hit my last two states before I turn 25 in March, and luckily my parents also want to hit their 50 states soon. I want to get to all 7 continents, which will take a little longer and some convincing for my mother, but I think I’ll be able to manage at least one more continent before I turn 30 (I’m at 4).
And now I’m moving on to the other goals, the ones that aren’t so travel-centric. I don’t have as many of those, and some of them are going to be much harder to achieve than hopping on a plane and spending some of my savings. I have to decide once and for all what I really want to focus on before I get a PhD one day. I need to find a job that is not draining and offers me enough money that I can eventually move into the city. I need to hunker down and finally have a draft of the story I’ve been working on for 10+ years that I’d actually be proud to let people read.
All of those goals are going to take time. But I realized quite suddenly last fall that there was one goal that I could fulfill without too much effort. That goal was going on an archaeological dig.
Going on an archaeological dig has been super high up on my bucket list pretty much forever. I’ve always loved history and the things people can learn from historical artifacts. The Field Museum has always been my favorite museum because of the history it has dug up and preserved within and beneath its walls. I spent my 7th birthday at the Field Museum. A little later, I saw this video about people digging up a wolly mammoth baby. I was absolutely OBSESSED with the movie and the idea of scientists working to preserve the specimen so that others could see and study something so old and informative. Because of that movie, I really wanted to be an archaeologist when I grew up, until my mom reminded me that I would get really dirty and would maybe not have access to good showers. As I grew older, I realized that I didn’t really have a science-oriented mind, and so the idea of being an archaeologist never entered the realm of possibility for college majors. It was always a “I want to be an archaeologist when I grow up, maybe I’ll go on digs when I’m retired” kind of thing.
But, as with most good things that I’ve stumbled onto in my life, I got bored and started doing some research, and realized that it was a goal that was actually very achievable for me right now. Many Field Schools will allow volunteers, and most will admit graduate students, no matter what major. As I am going back to start my master’s in Higher Education at Loyola in the fall, I technically qualify as a master’rs student. So, I applied. And I got in.
I will be going on a two-week archaeological dig in Bulgaria this summer through the Balkan Heritage Field School. I will be staying in the small beach town of Sozopol on the coast of the Black Sea. I will be working on a dig site that used to be an ancient trade center between Greece and Thrace. Later, it fell under Roman rule, and was eventually a point of conflict between the Bulgarians and Byzantines. I get to attend lectures and actually dig in the field. I also get ample time to explore Sozopol itself.
In addition, I will be spending a few days before and after the dig in various cities in Bulgaria, such as the capitol Sofia, because why pass up the opportunity? Surprisingly (or maybe not so surprisingly for anyone who realizes how close Bulgaria is to Greece), there are a lot of ancient ruins, in addition to early and medieval Christian sites. I chose this program because it was one of the few two-week programs and my summer commitments are inconveniently spaced out. But the more I researched Bulgaria, the more I realized that I could not wait to explore this relatively untraveled gem.
I’m leaving in a little under a month, and I’m finally sitting down to plan out everything that I want to do and see. I’m pumped! I will be gone from July 1-July 24th. In that time, I’ll probably get very sunburned, I’ll hopefully learn a lot, and I know I’ll get to see some amazing things! I cannot wait to report back!
WANDERING 