Hadrian's Wall and Vindolanda

As promised, I have returned to tell you all about our first field trip to Hadrian's Wall and Vindolanda this past Sunday. Hadrian's Wall was pretty amazing, I must say, but what's even more amazing is how I got to see it...on a four mile hike along the wall. I hiked four miles. Yes, you read that right. Michelle Sauer, avid nature hater, hiked four miles along Hadrian's Wall...I almost died. Four miles. I feel like that's how much I usually walk in total in like a month. I was super proud of myself at the end of it because it wasn't just a "walk four miles on this nice, flat ground" kind of hike. There were hills. Lots of them. Tall ones. Some even as tall as multiple humans stacked on top of one another:

Journal Excerpt: "On the walk up to begin our hike, Sara looked at the tall hill and said, 'Wow, that's tall. That's like 10 of me stacked up.' Kaitlin and I respond with, 'Is that how you measure things?' And thus, the Sara-Ladd was born. Sara's real first name is Sara-Ladd, so it became the name of our new unit of measurement. Hadrian's Wall is slightly more than one Sara-Ladd." 

For this rest of this hike, we were measuring all hill and wall heights in Sara-Ladds. It was hilarious. Even though we were dying, (no seriously, I thought my life would end, which is super depressing seeing as I haven't disposed of my pit partner yet) we were laughing a lot of the time. One particularly hilarious incident of laughing occurred even after we had finished the hike and were leaving Housesteads, the Roman fort at the end of our four mile journey.

Journal Excerpt: "On the way back to the bus, we decided to take a shortcut through the grass to save walking time seeing as we had just walked four miles in the treacherous forest. Here's how our conversations went:
  Sara: 'Oh no, now we're off-roading it!'
  Me: 'I'm an off-road vehicle!'
  Kaitlin: 'You're just a vehicle.'
  Sara: 'You're a princess car, and you're following eight other cars to make sure the way is smooth.'
  Me: *dies laughing*

So, I think that about sums up my experience at Hadrian's Wall. After that, we ventured on to Vindolanda, another Roman fort that has been excavated. We walked around the fort for a while, and then went to the museum. The museum was fascinating. They had old Roman coins and letters that had been sent back and forth between ancient peoples. I had a wonderful time and really wish we had had more time to look around and see all the things. It was here, however, that I discovered the gift shop and totally nerded out in front of everyone. In the gift shop, they had these flag-looking things hanging up (I'm not really sure what the official name is, but I'm hanging it on my wall and that's all we really need to know) and there was one that was simply labled 'Latin Grammar.' That was it. I got it...and I was super excited about it...to the point that I'm sure I was frightening. I mean, not as frightening as when I'm in serial killer mode, but frightening in a completely different way, like, "Why is that girl so excited about Latin grammar?" The world may never know...