saturday evening

Oh dear!!! What a day we've had. We drove for about an hour this morning to go to Gomla - it was Greg, Steve, Mari, Eva and I. We got there about 8:30ish this morning and started our descent to Gomla. The picture that is here is not mine but I do have some like it. This picture is taken from the lookout - a 15 minute walk. We then descended the mountain closest in the picture only to walk up and around the peak you see. It was a great location because of the treacerous descent on either side...hehe. At any rate, if you want more information on Gamla you can go to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamla.

This place also has a vulture sanctuary. Those birds are ginormous with a wing span of somewhere near 8 feet full grown. They leave enormous shadows on the ground. It took us nearly 3 hours to go down, around and back up. On the way back up I was sure that I might die and there were many jokes of leaving me as an offering to the vultures (as well as anyone else when they fell behind). I made is as you can probably tell.

At the parking lot there was a small store where we got sandwiches and drinks. I ate a tuna and cucumber sandwich, something that I would not eat at home but alas, I needed sustinence.

After lunch we took the more family friendly path out to the waterfall. This took just a few hours to get there and back. On our way we saw many Dolmens - or large cist graves that are still in very good shape after many thousands of years. We also were lucky enough to see a vulture family on the cliffs - pretty close with Greg's binoculars. There was a Dad, Mom and baby. Those things are BIG!!

The waterfall looked so refreshing after our day but alas we were not able to get to it. It is the tallest perenial waterfall in Israel and was very pretty.

Needless to say after 5 hours of hard-core hiking I was exhausted and when we got back I passed out for two hours. We are now getting ready to go to dinner and I'm expecting another exciting experience of course.

It is already very obvious that the people who left are gone, it's a different place without them.

Love to you all...

Saturday morning

So we're heading up to Gomla for the day, it's close to the Syrian border and it will be a two hour hike to what we are going to see and there's an animal sanctuary and a waterfall...I'll certainly let you know how it goes.

I slept hard last night and had dreams about people I haven't talked to in years. I have weird dreams here.

Sorry this is short, headed out...much love.

P.S. Give yourself a hug for me...I miss you people.

Friday week two

Yikes, sorry fans, I didn't get a chance to blog yesterday.

Yesterday was a good day, as are most days here. We continued to work in the dirt and look for interesting things. We found some small things like beads and glass, nothing out of the norm. The exciting things were happening last week, but I'm sure we'll get around to more exciting things next week.

Yesterday was a normal day; dig, lunch, nap, pottery washing, pottery reading and dinner. After dinner we had a get together, it was a very unorganized talent show, which actually turned out to be fairly amusing. There was some singing and dancing and poetry. It's strange but I really enjoy the things I'm doing. After the "talent show" Mari and I went down to join the going away party for Brian and Andrew.

Today at the dig we mostly cleaned up for the weekend (which I'll actually get this weekend) and we toured each of the Area's to find out what they are doing. There are 4 areas we're working on: L, M, B and A, I'm working in B. There are some interesting things coming up everywhere but after 12 days of digging in a row I'm pretty beat and just want a break.

This afternoon Brian, Andrew and the Indiana Wesleyan group left. There were some pretty great people that left and even though I just met them I am already mourning their leaving. After they left the group of us remaining for the weekend (others are still digging but gone for the weekend) played water basketball. After that I went back to my room to write in my journal and ending up crying myself to nap (or to sleep whatever). I'm physically and emotionally exhausted. I woke up face down on my journal listening to Bright Eyes which certainly didn't help with the melancholy mood. Now don't get me wrong...I'm loving it here, I'm just willing to admit that it's hard as well.

Tonight we went out to eat, those of us that are around for the weekend, and Mari and I shared a pizza with mushrooms, black olives and CORN!!! Ha, it was actually pretty good and they don't offer meat toppings here of course because of Kosher rules. What a fantastic experience. :)

Well kids, I'm so tired I'm feeling a little crazy, tomorrow we are going to Gamla and I will get up at 6:30 - sleeping in!! Much love...

Wednesday week two

First of all I'm really sorry about the unoriginal titles of my blogs. At any rate...last night we were coerced into doing a youth group get-to-know-you activity by being told that it was a fun surprise. We did the circle game where the inner circle moves and we share things about ourselves. The problem was that it was already really late and also there was a major language barrier being that we do not speak Arabic and most of the boys do not speak English all that well.

After that we had a going away party for Allen (the 70 year old) because he was leaving today. It was a pretty good time but those boys are crazy.

Today was a full day at the site. I continued to help Greg with the reading levels, archiving and other duties of the like, I feel good that he trusts me to take those things over so that he can access what everyone else is doing. The other work I did today was emptying buckets for people. We found a great deal of exciting things today; some pounding stones, a piece of quartz, a sea shell (which connects Dan to the sea people at Tyre), and some bronze as well as another grave and a secondary burial. It was a full day and probably the hottest since I've been here.

This afternoon Mari got stung by a wasp but with benadryl and Advil and cortezone cream she is feeling much better now. We went up to some Romans ruins on a field trip this afternoon. It was a lot of uphill walking in a lot of heat but as always, the view was beautiful and it is always much cooler at the top. On the way down we found a fig tree and I took a picture sitting under it and then cursing it (hehe ok I know I'm a Bible dork). We also picked some figs and I had fresh fig for the first time ever. It was actually really good and does not taste much like a fig newton.

What a time I'm having! It's wonderful here and I am really enjoying this trip. I so wish that I could share it with you other than just in photo's, but that will have to suffice for the time being my family and friends. Much love!!!

Tuesday of 2nd week

Last night we took a walk twice around the kibbutz, I couldn't get enough of the beautiful lights in the mountains (small towns), the stars (very bright) and the wonderful air. Do you ever feel like the air is so good you can't get it in fast enough? That's how I felt last night and it was wonderful. I've never enjoyed just breathing so much.

The stink eye must have worked that we gave those young boys yesterday during work Owens because they were much better last night. A little guitar playing but nothing that couldn't be drowned out by ear plugs.

Still I woke up rather tired and cranky and ended up yelling at some of the guys in my section at the site. Of course they did deserve it because they were being really immature and not being careful at all. We were taking up some side slabs which are very heavy and they were trying to impress people by taking them alone but they couldn't do it and kept dropping them near people and tipping almost into the pit. Stupid boys (actually the two I'm talking about are 33 and 70 but still stupid boys).

We continued what we were doing yesterday today and Greg taught me how to read levels and keep numbers so that I can be his right hand woman for archiving. It's nice because then I get mini-breaks from the hard work. I am getting some nice muscles though, I'm rather impressed with myself.

Well I am going to go and take a 2 hour nap before pottery reading. Much love...

Monday week two

It's a little hard to keep track of the days here, they bleed into each other. Today we worked on looking for a street or a wall underneath the graves, we are moving on to the next level, always an archeaologist I suppose, no time to dwell on anything.

Last night the 14-17 year old Arab students came in, all boys, and kept Mari and I up until past two with their drumming, guitar playing and loud antics. Let me tell you how ticked off we are, it's a lot. We went over at 11 to ask them to quite down with virtually no result and 5 minutes later they were back to be just as loud. Needless to say we are a little tired and cranky today.

Not a long one today, just wanted to check in. Much love...

Sabat

This morning we went out to the graves and finished taking them up, I do have some amazing photos from today that you'll have to wait and see when I get home. We removed all the graves and tomorrow we will move on to I don't know what actually.

After lunch we (Mari, Eva, Nick, Allen and I) drove the the Sea of Galilee and swam for a little while. As we swam we were looking at mountains going high in every direction that we looked. We floated on our backs and just enjoyed the view for awhile. On our way home we also stopped by so that I could step in the Jordan River.

I feel God here in a real way. I am falling in love with the land of Israel. Today was the first day that I felt homesick. I wanted to be in a familiar place with familiar people. With people that I've known longer than a week. I miss you my family and friends.