One of the things I did not expect from going to field school: impromptu excursions and unscheduled dancing. Yesterday after the dig, we were told to meet in the restaurant at 4 p.m. for the wine tasting tour because Villa Terres is also a winery. Everyone but Nico went on the tour, and we started around 4:10 p.m. since we weren't sure if other people were coming, too. Once everyone had arrived, the woman began giving the tour in Bulgarian and Angela translated for us. We got to see where the wine was made and it was explained how they processed the grapes and the steps between grapes being processed and testing the wine for impurities during the fermentation process.
After we had finished the tour, we were taken into the room where they stored the wines in the barrels while they fermented and had the walls lined with the bottled wines (we were shown how they bottled the wine as well). She said the wine cellar was kept at 18° Celsius (which is an ideal temperature for me, so I was very comfortable) and said we were going to try a few wines. She explained how to swirl the wine in the glass to see the color and release the flavors, then we had to sniff it and take a small sip, then swirl it around in our mouths, and swallow to see what the aftertaste is like (which is different from what I've seen where the last step is to spit out the wine into a bucket - but the buckets on the table were for us to dump out our wine before getting the next one if we didn't want to finish it). Instead of dumping out the remainder of the wines into the bucket, most of us just drank it faster before she brought us the next one.
I liked the first wine the best and the second one was close behind, and then I don't know how to categorize the other two. They weren't terrible but weren't to my taste. Either way, we all finished about a total of two glasses of wine (each one was poured about 1/2 of the level you usually fill a wine glass to) before our lecture. Mathilde was definitely feeling the wine.
We went from a room that was 18° C to a room that felt like it was boiling in comparison and I was pretty upset about it. Once everyone was there, they turned on the air conditioning, but it took a minute for it to kick on. The entire lecture I was pretty spaced out - I felt warm and slightly dissociated. She was talking about the different types of pottery used in the ancient world and found in Pistiros. It would have been really interesting, but it was a lot of information at once, and right after the wine tasting. After the lecture was over, I went with Cyrene to the little fruit stand across the way.
The people who work at the hotel are part of a Bulgarian dancing troupe, and so Angela arranged for them to dance for us. They even wore their traditional clothing! (I'll be posting pictures later on my other social media sites, so stay tuned for that!) One of the girls explained to us how the costume varies in different areas and they told us they were going to do a few dances for us. Three guys and four girls were dancing, and I got a few videos of that. One of the things I didn't know about Bulgarian dancing is that they do a type of yell when they dance, which startled me the first time, but after that, it was all smooth sailing.
After about three or four dances, they invited us to learn to dance with them. I tried, but I was super bad at it - a few other people picked it up way easier because there were some dancers in our group, but it's been so long since I've had to learn a dance, it wasn't something I picked up right away. It was fun either way, and we kept doing the traditional dance, and the troupe let some people in our group put on the Bulgarian costumes. We have some pictures and videos of the group in the traditional clothing dancing.
The music changed a little after that to more current music (well, aside from the Macarena, which is a song I don't remember being quite as long as we were doing it), and it became a bit of a dance party. Gena was doing the two-step and the worm and taught Donny (one of the dancers who is a waiter where we're staying) how to do it. He told me he wanted to do ballet, too, but his parents wouldn't let him (which is a shame, really, he's a very talented dancer). It was past 10:30 p.m. when we all decided it was time for bed.
I told Angela that we would be asleep in our pits today, but luckily we all seemed rather awake during the dig time!
After we had finished the tour, we were taken into the room where they stored the wines in the barrels while they fermented and had the walls lined with the bottled wines (we were shown how they bottled the wine as well). She said the wine cellar was kept at 18° Celsius (which is an ideal temperature for me, so I was very comfortable) and said we were going to try a few wines. She explained how to swirl the wine in the glass to see the color and release the flavors, then we had to sniff it and take a small sip, then swirl it around in our mouths, and swallow to see what the aftertaste is like (which is different from what I've seen where the last step is to spit out the wine into a bucket - but the buckets on the table were for us to dump out our wine before getting the next one if we didn't want to finish it). Instead of dumping out the remainder of the wines into the bucket, most of us just drank it faster before she brought us the next one.
I liked the first wine the best and the second one was close behind, and then I don't know how to categorize the other two. They weren't terrible but weren't to my taste. Either way, we all finished about a total of two glasses of wine (each one was poured about 1/2 of the level you usually fill a wine glass to) before our lecture. Mathilde was definitely feeling the wine.
We went from a room that was 18° C to a room that felt like it was boiling in comparison and I was pretty upset about it. Once everyone was there, they turned on the air conditioning, but it took a minute for it to kick on. The entire lecture I was pretty spaced out - I felt warm and slightly dissociated. She was talking about the different types of pottery used in the ancient world and found in Pistiros. It would have been really interesting, but it was a lot of information at once, and right after the wine tasting. After the lecture was over, I went with Cyrene to the little fruit stand across the way.
The people who work at the hotel are part of a Bulgarian dancing troupe, and so Angela arranged for them to dance for us. They even wore their traditional clothing! (I'll be posting pictures later on my other social media sites, so stay tuned for that!) One of the girls explained to us how the costume varies in different areas and they told us they were going to do a few dances for us. Three guys and four girls were dancing, and I got a few videos of that. One of the things I didn't know about Bulgarian dancing is that they do a type of yell when they dance, which startled me the first time, but after that, it was all smooth sailing.
After about three or four dances, they invited us to learn to dance with them. I tried, but I was super bad at it - a few other people picked it up way easier because there were some dancers in our group, but it's been so long since I've had to learn a dance, it wasn't something I picked up right away. It was fun either way, and we kept doing the traditional dance, and the troupe let some people in our group put on the Bulgarian costumes. We have some pictures and videos of the group in the traditional clothing dancing.
The music changed a little after that to more current music (well, aside from the Macarena, which is a song I don't remember being quite as long as we were doing it), and it became a bit of a dance party. Gena was doing the two-step and the worm and taught Donny (one of the dancers who is a waiter where we're staying) how to do it. He told me he wanted to do ballet, too, but his parents wouldn't let him (which is a shame, really, he's a very talented dancer). It was past 10:30 p.m. when we all decided it was time for bed.
I told Angela that we would be asleep in our pits today, but luckily we all seemed rather awake during the dig time!
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