One of my majors for my degree is archaeology. Perhaps not the most obvious of choices for a Media and a Communications degree but anyway! While I was in Denmark, I thought I would take advantage of being right near objects and bodies thousands of years old, so I took a course in Viking Age Religion.
We had an excursion the other day to bog lands, and me, being the Aussie, of course had never experienced a bog! To me, it was essentially a really large mud pit! Right from the word ‘go’ of the excursion you could pick who was on exchange and who was a local, just from the way they responded to the bog. Of course, with a 20 kilo limit, I wasn’t likely to pack huge water-proof boots or wet weather pants! Yes, wet weather pants are common here, and like a raincoat, are a a water-proof layer you put on over your jeans. I think the fact you can’t find these anywhere in Aus, yet they’re a staple piece of clothing here, is a reflection on our two climates. And yes, it does rain all the time here!
But anyway, I arrived at the bog, and seriously struggled standing upright!!! If I wasn’t literally sliding down hills, I was slowly sinking whilst trying to listen to the lecture. On the two occasions I tried to subtly slide out of my ever-deepening footprint, one resulted in a huge “SQUELCH” noise, which disrupted the entire class, and made the lecturer burst out laughing at the obviousness of my ‘non-Europeaness’. The second time, to avoid the loud noise, I slowly lifted my foot, and it came out with great ease...my foot that was! My boot remained firmly implanted in mud!
But it was great fun! We actually visited three different bog areas around the countryside. It was so exciting to really be amongst it all. Studying European Archaeology at home, I am sometimes reminded just how far away we are; but here, we visited a site just freshly covered up after digging. The guy who performed the dig passed around a skull and various other bones for us to look at. They are still coming to conclusions about the site, and knowing we were the second group of people after the actual on-site archaeologists to see the evidence, and hear the possible interpretations was really exciting.
I was really aware that this was an experience that could only occur when on exchange in Denmark!