Fort sweet fort

I have moved in to a better accommodation few days ago. I didn't tell you about the other one so I will do it now. I have been living in a small village called Al-Qal'ah. The name got my attention immediately because in Spain there is a famous city called Alcalá (de Henares) which obviously comes from the Arabic. It means something like "The Fort" and it takes its name from a massive Portuguese fort hardly few yards away from the house. The fort was built on former settlements, the oldest of which is as old as 4300 years and it belongs to the Dilmun civilisation. In fact, it was considered its capital. Apart from some hiatus, it seems to have been populated ever since. The fort is called Qal'at al-Bahrain. It is a UNESCO World Heritage site and there is a museum about it, small and very interesting. A place where, after a couple of hours, you have seen everything and have learnt a lot without realising you were doing it.

Al-Qal'ah is a Shi'a village, so low-middle class people live there. Some have even animals in stables and there are some vegetable gardens, flies, hungry cats and dirty roads. However, it has its charm and it was beautiful once since all its houses are totally painted. Alas, the colours are fading. I was living in a house which has been used before by other teams of archaeologists, Danish and French to be precise (who work on the fort). It is old and dirty, dusty. It wasn't too bad but it is not a place where you would be comfortable living a long time. Besides, the facilities didn't work very well and we were many people already so I had to share a room with 2 or even 3 people more (big room though).

The thing is that last weekend there were more people coming, the last member of the team who comes just for one month. We had to re-organise the bedrooms and the result was that one of my room-mates and me have moved to a different place, much better. The reason why I have moved to this better place is because, by the end of the project, I will have been here 8 weeks, longer than others. So they all agree that I should be one of the persons who moves to the best facilities. The museum of Qal'at al-Bahrain has 4 rooms available for archaeologists in case of necessity. One was already used by Javier and now one of my colleagues and me share another. It is a brand new building with excellent facilities, clean, nice, right on the beach (dirty and muddy rather than sandy beach though -but the view is nice!) and it is located less than 5 minutes walking from the house in Al-Qal'ah across the fort.

Ok, I just tell you all this in a short entry because you'll understand much better the next entry I am preparing, with plenty of photos to show. Give me few days more and you won't regret.