The good, the good, the bad, the good, and the ugly

Hello again friends,

I've had myself a day. Technically, I suppose, my day started in the wee hours while I was still at the 28th of July party hosted by the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) archaeology team. (July 28th is a big national holiday here - sort of a Peruvian 4th of July). They booked a local restaurant pub, hired a DJ, and we partied like archaeologists until the wee hours. I left at 2:30am feeling like an old biddy, as the party was still going strong. Lots of other arch-y folks who work in Southern Peru came too - it was the 25th annual 'Verticality Fiesta' after all. It was a really good time. (Good number 1).

So, the night was short and then I went to the lab to finish up my work there. I am essentially done (this is Good number 2). My sample is not as large as I hoped though, and I had some worries about whether it was big enough for a thesis. This is a question I had posed a few days back to my advisor.

When I checked my e-mail, I got my answer. Essentially, he said that with a sample that small, I'd have to find a new research question. I interpreted this as a red light - essentially telling me that, while this idea might have been good, it was also quixotic and at best might be a paper to write for a journal - not a thesis. So, I spent the next three hours in a state of disillusionment and depression (this would be 'The Bad').

I waited until after lunchtime in the States, and gave my advisor a call to talk it all over. As it turns out, my interpretation of his e-mail was a bit melodramatic and not at all accurate. Yes, the research question may need to be slighty tweeked from the last version that I presented to him, but the general plan is fine. I am cleared to go forward with my thesis using my samples from here, whatever size the final group turns out to be. WOO HOO! (This would be good number 3).

I buzzed around town, taking care of errands. Then after a brief stop at my hotel, I decided that tonight I would eat at the nice place down the road, where entrees cost up to $10! (This is very expensive by Peruvian standards.) I ordered one of my favorite things here, 'corvina a lo macho', which is sea bass covered in a fabulous tomato based sauce full of shellfish and octopus. The waiter checked to be sure they had shellfish - they did! But then he came back and told me that they were out of the fish. Bummer. He suggested 'camarones' (shrimp). Okay fine, I ordered the camerones sudado. I'd never had this dish before, but a sudado with fish is poached in a yummy broth with onion and herbs and served with rice - tasty stuff.

Okay, now we get to The Ugly. What arrives at my table is a bowl of broth, piled high with whole, steamed crawdads (minus the heads but otherwise entirely intact), and an extra bowl at the side for the dismembered bits that don't get eaten. This is not what I expected. For the second time in my life, I am sitting in a restaurant completely mystified as to how to go about eating the food in front of me. These critters are fairly large - 5 to 6 inches long, all curled up with legs and thorax and all. I tug at the legs. They don't come off. I sit staring at my plate. Finally, the waitress notices my distress and I try to explain that I didn't expect them to be whole. She thinks that I think she gave me something I didn't order. I assure her that I know I ordered this, I just don't know how to eat it. So, a little kid from a nearby table comes over and starts attacking one of my camarones with his fingers to show me how to peel it. His mother then comes over, removes the camaron to the scrap plate and tears it apart with her fingers. Okay, I get it. Then the waitress comes over to assist in the camaron-training session and dismembers the entire thing with a knife and fork. This is not quick or easy. It takes a good five minutes. At the end of the demo, she admits that it's easiest with fingers. So there I am, in my swanky restaurant, reduced to tearing apart critters with legs and squishy stuff that comes out of their thorax (I belive I know what this is, but I choose to not think about it).

For those who may not know, I'm a pseudo-vegetarian. Meaning that I eat seafood, but no other meats. I have trouble with food that looks like living critters. Tearing apart gushy crawdads in a fancy restaurant is not appetizing for me. But I also don't want critters who died to be on my plate to go to waste. So, I dutifully tore each and every crawdad in half, peeled the tail, and ate them. They were pretty tasty - just darn ugly. When I made it through the pile, the waitress came back to offer another lesson on how to further mutilate the remains to find more tasty bits inside. I declined. Sorry camerones - I just couldn't do it.

So, all in all, it's been a good day - with a few ups and downs. Tomorrow I have an adventure, heading down to the coast to see a museum, collect some water samples, and work on a side project with museum collections there if they'll let me. It should be fun. I'll tell you all about it on Thursday.

Until then, I hope you're all well and having fun this summer.

Karen