Soggy mudbrick adventure #2

Today was yet another rainy mudbrick expedition. Again, Benni Claasz-Coockson decided to take us on a fieldtrip to find a mudbrick village, only this time it was even wetter than the last. Especially since this time it actually rained non-stop. It was actually a lot of fun, despite ending up soaking wet and with very muddy shoes.

The hike up, as led by Professor Coockson.

Muddy shoes.

What the surrounding area looked like. Actually quite scenic, never mind that this was right behind Middle Eastern Technological University (METU)

Mudbrick!

All in all I think the hike might've been about 3 kilometers round trip, although it was slow going on the way there since mud ended up weighing our shoes down. At one point I had to run into the woods to pee and I saw THE BIGGEST RABBIT EVER with big fluffy feet hopping away from me. It rained almost the entire time, and midway through the walk up I had to dorkily roll my pants up because I kept on kicking mud into the folded up hems. By the end of the two hour excursion, which was actually 3 hours because our professor got into a minor fender bender upon entering the METU campus, We were drenched, muddy, and definitely ready to go home. However, upon my arrival home I found that my dorm still had no hot water since this morning (the second time this week), and the electricity was out so I couldn't microwave my lunch. Lame.

Here is my strange pondering rant for the day: Sometimes I don't understand Turkish college students, especially in the Archaeology Department, and most especially the boys. Coockson had sent out an email on Wednesday saying "Be ready for a short walk and the weather type of the day" meaning "wear crappy shoes and get ready for a bit of a schlep". Of course this meant that, once again, one girl was wearing sandals and one boy was wearing WHITE nice leather shoes. This was despite the fact that last week we went on a field trip where the professor specifically said wear old shoes and they still wore unfit footwear. So of course, the girl with the sandals looked miserable because her feet were wet the entire time, and the boy was super slow because he was trying not to get his white shoes muddy, which was impossible. In the end, Katie (the other American girl in my class) and I were really the only ones able to properly keep up with the professor, although the girl in the sandals did manage to hold her own up with us despite being improperly shod. I mean, seriously, these people are studying archaeology. They must have at least one pair of crappy shoes and they can't be afraid of getting muddy because THAT'S THEIR JOB. It is very frustrating sometimes.

Also what I would like to point out is the behavior of the boys on this trip. They were the slowest members of the party and also the ones most concerned with the upkeep of their appearance. I feel like, in the States, boys would be embarrassed to not only be slower than the rest of the girls but also cleaner than the girls as well. We actually had to wait for them at the end to finally make it down the hill after the professor and all 5 of us girls had already made it down to the cars. I called them indoor boys, since they're like indoor cats who never actually go outside. It was actually quite pathetic, and the exact opposite of what I was expecting boys to be like around here. However, they are still horribly aggressive drivers which makes for some terrifying driving experiences.