Too tired to come up with a title

Yesterday morning I got a lesson in pickaxing from Shua. In my square, we were starting to go through a cobble floor, so we had to break up the cobblestones. I took a few swings, and Shua stepped in to show me how to do it more effectively. It was magical. Waves of dirt flew away from her axe like the walls of the Red Sea, and rocks shattered at her touch - I could see them cringing each time Shua raised the pickaxe. (Of course, being cobblestones, they couldn't escape their fate.) Shua went absolutely nuts on that floor, and I stood meekly by. As Austin from UNC said at breakfast, "Shua, you know how when you fear God it's like being in awe and respecting Him? Well, I fear you." Truer words were never said. A pickaxing lesson from Shua Kisilevitz at 5:30am in Israel is one of the best experiences it is possible to have in this life.
I've never had this much fun, ever. The discovery that I can actually enjoy digging in the ground, covered in dirt, plaster, sunscreen, sweat, and potsherds, is one of the most surprising of my entire life thus far. Fine, I don't like the sunscreen part. I could work in my square all day. I want to carefully extract and brush off every piece of pottery and glass, pull out every rock, brush off every surface, pickaxe every floor, trim every balk. This is the greatest thing I've ever done. I don't want to stop working - which actually turned into a problem yesterday right before quitting time; I started getting dizzy and had to leave the village area. Still, I would stay in my square all day if I could. I'm getting so attached it's kind of ridiculous; I'm starting to view it as my child, which is really adding to all the pottery pieces I consider my children as well. By the end of the season I'll be an obsessed wreck.
Every inch of me is covered in bruises, and there are layers of dust on my hands that even the most vigorous of washings will not penetrate. My nails are chipping and my thumbs are blistering, and my face is a delicate shade of primrose, and when I tried to unbraid my hair to shower before lunch, it was so caked with dirt that it stayed in the braid. Still, I absolutely love it here. There's nothing like pulling ancient artifacts out of the ground as the sun is rising over the Galilean hills, and having miles of beautiful Israeli countryside spread at your feet, with Sea of Galilee nestled in front of the background mountains. The winds that sweep over our site from the sea, while they're bad for the shade cloths, feel gloriously refreshing.
Also, yesterday was great because the Trinity folks had a field trip in the afternoon and then went out to dinner. Chad took me, Josh, and Sara to Capernaum to see a Galilean-type synagogue from (allegedly) the fourth century. It was amazing. Then we went to Tabgha to see a monastery, then the Mount of Beatitudes, which was gorgeous. We ran into Shua and Mary at the last place, so we sat with them for a while, sitting at a table under the shade, with a garden full of flowers and trees in front of us, overlooking the Sea of Galilee. So lovely. Then Chad took us to Ein-Gev for dinner; we went to an empty fish restaurant and sat outdoors under an enormous boardwalk-type patio, right on the Sea of Galilee with the sun setting behind it. We gossiped about Trinity goings-on and caught up on each others' excavation stories. A super solid day - great digging in the morning, incredible sites in the afternoon and fun dinner with great people and gorgeous locations. 
Today was a little harder. We're at a tricky point in excavating our square, and I've been exhausted since getting up this morning, and we went to Tiberias this afternoon and I'm sunburned for the first time since I've been here in Israel. My cold is just not going away, so I don't feel particularly well, and I'm really starting to feel all the physical labor I've been doing. Pain, pain everywhere. Also, moving costs me so much energy that it's easiest to just sit or lie in one spot and not. move. one. bit.

I'm becoming a groundhog

Archaeology is the greatest. And the Huqoq excavation is the greatest archaeology of all the archaeologies. This morning we had French toast. And Bailey and I went hard to the paint (to quote Joshua Pedrick) in our square. We closed a locus and opened a new one, and found something pretty crazy cool (at least, we thought so, and Jodi was excited, so that adds credibility to my enthusiasm). Digging is fun. I don't know how I expected to feel about crouching in the dirt and moving rocks and sifting soil, but I was surprised this morning by how much I was enjoying myself. Also, it is exhilarating to loosen and pull a giant rock out of the ground and realize you're stronger than you thought. (Also, being sweaty and grungy and absolutely disgusting and knowing that it's because you're a boss.) Granted, it would be a lot less enjoyable without the shade cloths and unlimited supply of water. Also, there was a lovely moment where I struck the wall of my square with a pickaxe, trying to dislodge a rock, and apparently hit a worm or a maggot, because it flew in pieces onto my face. That was one of the more unpleasant occurrences of the day. Still, the find in the corner of our square made up for it - I had just loosened a bunch of soil with a giant pickaxe, and Bailey was gathering it with a smaller pickaxe when he discovered something and called me over. I did most of the digging up, and as I unearthed more of it, we got excited and called Jocelyn over, who then called Jodi over, and we were hailed as heroes. Not really. But everyone thought it was cool.
Today I was on b-team. Breakfast squad, whatever you want to call it...basically I loaded food, prepared food, served food, cleaned up food, etc. Helping Shua make French toast was fun, and instructive because she told those of us on breakfast duty that in Israel, French toast is a savory dish, made with salt instead of eaten sweet. You learn something new every day. So, since I'd helped with breakfast and cleanup, I didn't get as much time in the square, which was sad. I wasn't ready to finish working when quitting time rolled around. Check back with me in a few weeks and see if I still say that, but for now....man this is fun.

Saturdays are way better in Israel

Shabbat shalom, everyone. 
As I write this, my friends and colleagues are taking an afternoon excursion to the Sea of Galilee for some light swimming. I elected to stay behind because my recently poor health has made me cautious of cold water and long exposure to the elements.
(Speaking of which, health update: I actually slept through the night for the first time last night. I opened my eyes this morning, saw sunlight through the window, checked my phone and discovered it was 7:17 - a vast improvement over 2:30 and 1:45 from the two previous nights - and lay in bed for a minute just thinking "Thank you God." I felt rested, my cold was at about 40%, and things were looking up.)
We have just returned to Hakuk Balev after a field trip. It was the bees' knees. We went to Tel Qadesh first, wrestled through 7-foot high thistles that had really pretty purple flowers but vicious thorns, all the way up a hill, then arrived at the site. It had clearly been a magnificent building complex before it was in ruins - it was very large and had lots of rooms (including a pantry and a granary area) and, according to Dan the Pottery Man (who had excavated there before), was a Phoenician administrative center. Don't quote me on that though; I may have gotten my facts mixed up in the past several hours. I'll confirm or retract that if you ask me in person when I get back to the States. Anyways. It was a gorgeous site, I thought, especially since it had been a bit overgrown and there were flowers and grass climbing up the rocks and over the floors. On the way back down the hill, I ripped the skin above my hip whilst climbing under a metal fence, and didn't think much of it until one of the synagogue square supervisors, Brian, said something about tetanus shots, thus reminding me that I don't think I've ever had one. I threw some hand sanitizer on it after it stopped bleeding, hopefully I don't die.
A hop, skip, and a jump away was a Roman temple. Jodi thinks it was a roofless temple so worshipers could look up to the heavens, because of the absence of roof tiles and such. Also, there were apparently child sacrifices that took place there at some point, which is kind of gruesome. With all that aside, the ruins were amazing - only the facade and a few columns and various stones were left, but it was clearly a beautiful structure in its time. The stonework had some really lovely designs, and the columns were chiseled very intricately; I'm almost certain they were in the Corinthian style.
Next we went to Bar'am. I'm pretty sure that's how it's spelled; just now I tried checking the brochure I got but everything on it is written in Hebrew so I can't verify this assumption. It is pretty close to the Lebanon border, and is the site of a beautiful Galilean-type synagogue, similar to how ours at Huqoq is supposed to be, except that at Bar'am the floor is made of flagstones and at Huqoq it is a mosaic. Interestingly enough, it seems that there was a regional trend of mosaic synagogue floors in the southern Galilean area, as demonstrated by the synagogues at Huqoq and two other nearby sites. In the northern part of the region, flagstone floors are prevalent. It was a lovely synagogue - it had been two stories in its prime, but now only the base, facade, front porch area, and some columns remain. Also, it's significant because it is still standing on its own instead of having been dug up by archaeologists.
After walking around and taking pictures in the synagogue, we picnicked under the trees and headed back. (A quick note about lunch: schnitzel. Schnitzel everywhere. Schnitzel all day, errday. Also, juice boxes here are disappointing; I expected my juice to taste like Capri Sun, and instead got a mouthful of something like melted Benadryl.) We stopped in Safed (pronounced and alternately spelled "Tsefat") for about half an hour - an old, charming town on the side of a mountain. Because it's Shabbat, everything was quiet, all the shops and galleries were closed, and there were very few people on the streets. Nonetheless, we got to roam the cobbled streets, admire the flowers and view overlooking the plains and mountains, and play in a little playground above what looked like a miniature Greek amphitheater. Then we went back to the kibbutz and part of the group went to the Sea of Galilee.
It was great getting to go out today. I've spent the last couple of days closeted in my room, listening wistfully to the sounds of happiness coming from the courtyard, and only hazily aware of the people around me during meals in the dining hall. Yesterday I did get to wash pottery for a while, which made me feel like a full-fledged archaeologist. Then I got bored. And dirty. So I took a nap.
Tomorrow I get to go back out to the dig site. I'm excited. I haven't been there since the first day of excavation prep. I don't want to miss any more of the digging, and we get to start going through the plaster floor in my square. My square buddies are Bailey and Lisa, and our supervisor is Jocelyn. Hopefully everything goes well and everyone pulls their weight and we find some cool things. I feel like I'm behind on everything - pretty sure I've forgotten how to take elevations, and I don't know what I'm supposed to be documenting in my notebook, or even what the numbers of the squares are. Still, everyone's been really nice through this annoying period of terrible feels. They're all very helpful and kind, which warms the cockles of my heart. Another of the perks of getting better is that pretty soon I'll be able to hang out with them all in our free time again - playing backgammon and chess and debating theology and such.
In case you're wondering, yes, I did take pictures. I don't have the camera cable, though, so I can't put them onto my computer until I get home. Patience, patience.
Again, Shabbat shalom and (since it's closer to night than morning) laila tov.

Day 2: Ugggghhhh

This title is the one single word I can think to describe how I feel right now. Well, how I've been feeling all day. Not sure if it's jet lag or what, but I've been having massive troubles sleeping here in Israel. It takes me over an hour to get to sleep whenever I try, and I always wake up a couple of hours before I need to. Today was no exception - I woke up at 1:30am and could. not. get to sleep afterwards. My cold had kicked in with a particularly unpleasant punch through the few hours I'd gotten to sleep, so I felt pretty terrible. I went outside at 4 and talked to Jodi and Shua, and was excused from going out to the site today. So I've spent the majority of the day in bed. It's about 3:45 right now, and honestly everything up until now feels like a haze. I seem to remember Josh coming to check up on me a few times, and Mary asking if I needed anything, and sitting in my bed at some point with Jodi standing in front of me, and trying to answer questions, and drinking something hot, and somebody coming in to change towels, and two men carrying a dresser out of the room while Christina and Mr. Bennick and Juliette hid behind my bed. And there was sooo much bright sunlight that hurt my eyes whenever anyone came in. And there was waking up and going to the dining hall for lunch, and not being able to breathe because of how hot it was outside. And soup that was warm and felt like it probably tasted good. And somehow now I'm back in my bed, and a little more awake, and I'm listening to a video of Caleb Mann's senior song and it's making me feel like maybe there's meaning to this awful thing called existence. I feel terrible for missing out on working, and it's only the second day. But seriously, going to the site today would probably have been the worst idea imaginable. I hope to be better tomorrow; I'd hate to miss the first day of actually working in our squares. My square was excavated a few years ago, and we're going to start this year by going through the plaster floor and getting further to the time period we want (at least, I think that's the plan). Uggghhhh. I have to go die now, please pardon me until next time.

Day 1: Success

So. Exhausted.

Cue moans and groans. Okay, in all seriousness, today was really fun. Except for the fact that I woke up at 2am and couldn’t go back to sleep before we left at 4:30, the early morning was nice and cool and everyone seemed to be in high spirits as we left. The hike to the site after the bus ride was a surprise, but it didn’t seem bad at all. In fact, hiking through tall grass with the sun rising over the Israeli hills around us was pretty great. When we got to the site, we got our assignments. I volunteered to join some group that seemed to be doing something important, only to discover that we were clearing a trail to the soon-to-be-created latrine. Glamorous, yes I know. It was actually really neat – we used hoes (I forgot the Hebrew word – sounded like “toeya”) to move rocks and weeds, and our hands to pull out the giant stalks of thorny brush (hooray for work gloves), and overall made a pretty b.a. trail. Despite the fact that I was the only girl – the other girl left after a few minutes – it was a good ol’ time and hard work in the early morning cool was not a bad way to start off the day.

Buuuuut then it got hot. Fortunately after Miki (one of the people in charge) ran out of things for me and Jesse (new friend) to do, I helped Shua (co-director) out with breakfast, which was way awesome because we were in the shade and playing with food. I cracked nine dozen eggs to start out. Let me just repeat that – NINE DOZEN EGGS. I cracked one hundred and eight eggs into a giant freaking bowl and mixed them. Let me tell you, trying to dig up every single yolk to break it is not an easy task in a bowl that contains over a hundred eggs. My hands smelled like raw egg for the rest of the morning. Yummy. My other Trinity student friend Sara and I rolled out the breakfast mats under the breakfast tree, and we all helped out as much as possible before we finally ate. It was a great breakfast. The entire group clumped under the tree on the mats and ate together, and Seth (a square supervisor in the synagogue, I believe) had to tell us his life story (as punishment for protesting this tradition). One of the Druze men who was helping clear rocks in the synagogue area told us about the Druze tradition, with Shua translating. It was fascinating. Then there was more work. I can’t remember everything I did, because it feels like ages ago and I’ve napped since then. The morning went on for about a million years. I remember there was a lesson with Shua about elevations, there was piling bags of dirt from last year’s village squares, there was the maddening task of untangling a spool of rope and cutting skeins from it, there was unloading bags of dirt from the village squares (Josh found a scorpion, which was exciting, and Chad and I flipped out over a FREAKING ENORMOUS lizard, which was even more exciting), and there was so much sunscreen and drinking of water. 

Overall a pretty solid day. Everyone in my room napped and got woken up by a knock on our door as the lecture outside in the courtyard was starting. Awkward. I'm sitting in the said courtyard right now with Andrej, Alaina, Irene, and Megan, who discovered I am blogging and wanted to be mentioned. They're cool people. Andrej is entertaining us with stories of his fumbles with the English language (he's Slovakian). 

On another note, I'm sick. I've had a sore throat for a couple of days now, and today I also got attacked by a few more symptoms of the common cold. Pretty miserable, considering I'm having a hard time sleeping and also didn't bring any medicine. Irene gave me some lozenges and vitamin C, so that was nice, and hopefully I'll be better tomorrow, just in time for another round of dust in my lungs. In case this sounds too pessimistic...never fear, I am having a lot of fun. It's super good times here in Huqoq.

Settling in and stuff

Everything was better today. Everything was good today. My day started well – despite the fact that we didn’t have to get up until 8:00, I woke up at 6:15, tried to go back to sleep, failed, then checked my grades and went out into the kibbutz. (In case you’re wondering, Mom and Dad, I pulled an A- in Brit Lit and a 3.689 for the whole semester. Not too shabby. Also, Chia-wei went ahead and gave me an A instead of an Incomplete.) I walked around for a bit, then joined the couple of people who were reading under the shade of the tree in the common area place courtyard  thing. As more and more people got up, we all sat around and talked until….BREAKFAST!

Breakfast got an all-caps because it was great. So. Much. Breakfast. Scrambled eggs and fruits and salads and dessert-like things and citrus-y juices and yogurt and cereal and weird cake-like things with the consistency of bread pudding. Brad (who’s here for the third time) and I peered and poked at some light brown balls for a while before I bit the bullet and took one, to discover that it was an entire apple, either baked or boiled, and drizzled with chocolate. Anyhow. We breakfasted, then had an orientation in the courtyard, under the tree. There were lots of introductions, and much talk about safety and the daily routine and whatnot. We got our work assignments; I’ll be working in Chad’s (Dr. Spigel, but I get to call him Chad here, super duper cool beans) area, the ancient village. The square supervisors there are Josh, Brad, and Jocelyn, and I'll be in Jocelyn's square, which is an old one we'll be reopening. Tomorrow we begin work. We’ll spend the first few days clearing out the site for excavation; apparently it’s been grown-over since last year or something. The first few days are supposed to be the hardest because we’re prepping the site (I’m guessing moving a lot of plants and rocks?), and we won’t have shade cloths, so that’ll be way fun. Hopefully I’ll come out unscathed, or at least with a minimal amount of sunburn or broken bones. I’m already a little pink, because….

…..we went to the Sea of Galilee today! It’s a lot smaller than I expected. Actually, everything here is a lot smaller than I expected, and a lot closer together. We can see the Sea of Galilee from the kibbutz, and Tiberias from the beach we visited. It’s weird how things that seem far on the map of Israel are about as close as neighborhoods in Houston are to each other. Or…whatever. I’m pretty tired right now. Point is, Israel is way small. Back to the Sea of Galilee. We (the students) took a bus, saw some cool scenery, and got to this little beach that was pretty shady and windy. The water was very pleasant, and everyone kind of ignored the rope boundary that signaled where we weren’t supposed to swim. For a while, a few of us stubbornly remained on the approved side, but eventually everyone crossed over. No one went in past their shoulders, I don’t think. After swimming, I sat in the shade for a while, which was really nice. We got back two hours ago, and are now about to go eat dinner, having just completed area meetings (synagogue and village). We in my room – Jennifer from Trinity, Allison from UNC, and Alaina from University of Toronto – napped for a bit before crawling out of bed and stepping outside for the meetings. Allison's in the village with me, and Alaina will be in the synagogue. Anyway, it’s food soon and bed right after, so the next time I write it will be after I’ve gotten a taste of field work. 

A little opinion here and less narration – I’m really enjoying it so far. It’s been a lot easier to meet people than I expected. People for the most part aren’t being cliquish with the folks from their schools, so we’re all just hanging out and getting to know each other. I’m having a much easier time making friends than I expected, so that’s been good. Mostly everyone is nice, and it seems like it's going to be fun. I'm excited to see the site and to start digging, although I'd like to work in a new square so we get to make new discoveries instead of digging up things that have already been found. Oh well. I'm sure it will be fun anyways. Food calls, must answer.

The part wherein I travel

Whelp, I’ve been awake for a solid 30 hours now, and am cozily tucked into my bed in the kibbutz, chatting with my new roommates while we all wrestle with the slow internet. Let me just give you the harrowing story of my travels today.

First of all, a piece of advice – don’t pack the night before you’re set to leave for a month-long trip. Yeah yeah, seems obvious. In my defense, I did have all my stuff laid out and arranged in (mostly) neat piles, for days in advance. Packing is just one of those things I don’t do well. I didn’t know HOW to get the bloody things into my suitcase. So I didn’t go to bed until 2:15 last night, which in hindsight – and even at the time – was a pretty poor life decision. (Never fear, everything I needed did end up packed.) Also, I was stricken with a particularly serious case of the bad feels last night. The six hours of sleep I got didn’t improve my condition or my mood. In fact, I felt pretty terrible, and my poor parents had to deal with me not being able to make decisions, answer questions, or really do anything more than walk around like a zombie on the verge of completely breaking down. Somehow we got out of the house and to the airport, and I dragged myself through security and onto a plane. It was my first time (that I remember) being on a plane with two aisles. I had a window seat and only one seat beside me, and the flight was pretty short. I did some reading and half-dozed against the window, though I did notice that the woman beside me drank a fair amount of alcohol and began painting her nails until the flight attendant asked her to stop. 

At Washington, D.C., I got a sandwich which was delicious primarily because I didn’t make it, washed it down with a heavy dose of ibuprofen, then boarded my flight to Munich. I must say, I was impressed by United’s entertainment system – I hadn’t expected such a large selection of movies, shows, and music. Over the almost-9-hour flight, I watched a New Girl episode, a 30 Rock episode, and Oz: the Great and Powerful, and listened to some classical music while reading. I got a quarter of the way through The Ball and the Cross by G.K. Chesterton (which I’d begun reading a while ago but never finished) on my boyfriend's Kindle, then stopped when my head started spinning from the complexity of the theological arguments. I started on a book I’d purchased for the trip – The Problem of Pain by C.S. Lewis. I’d started it maybe a year ago, but hadn’t gotten very far, so I was determined this time to complete it. C.S. Lewis is such a fascinating author. I like his style. Anyways. This flight, I was again only seated beside one person, but I was in the aisle seat, so I had no obliging window or wall against which to lean my head. This was a pickle, as I’d planned on sleeping several hours during this flight. When the lights were turned off, I turned my ipod on, leaned my seat back, snuggled into my blanket…..and didn’t sleep the entire freaking time. Sure, there were periods when my consciousness got foggy for a few minutes at a time, but my body hurt from sitting for a solid third of the day, and wouldn’t let me be comfortable, and my head kept jerking awake every time I even sort of dozed. The seats didn't lean back very far, and not sitting beside a window was awful. My hazy restlessness finally just gave up when I jolted out of another half-snooze with the realization that my stomach was killing me. Since you’re reading this, you probably know me, and thus you probably know that my digestive system isn’t worth peanuts (which is fine, ‘cause I don’t like peanuts anyways). Now, I hadn’t had a stomach ache since I left school last week, so this discovery was particularly unpleasant. I hoped the breakfast they gave me would alleviate the pain, but alas – my lot in life is a bitter one. It didn't go away for the rest of the day.

Let me just say this – the airport at Munich is WAY cooler than any American airport I’ve ever seen. There’s a stretch of it that’s basically a mall, with swanky stores, not just those sunglasses stations or duty-free shops. They also have a sleep lounge, which is the most brilliant thing I’ve ever seen, and I don’t know why every airport doesn’t have them. I wanted to go in and nap, but I had a connecting flight in less than an hour, so that was unfortunate. I also wanted to take a picture, but then I didn’t want to be that foreign tourist creepily taking pictures of rooms where people sleep. The Munich airport was great. I loved it. It just felt like Europe, and it got my mind off the pain in my midsection. The coffee shops and restaurants had their menus chalked in German, and there were other interesting things but I can’t remember them right now because everything from the past gazillion hours of being awake is now running together in my head. Oh. Here’s another thing about the Munich airport, but not one I particularly loved. After passport checks and security by my gate (which by the way, was interesting because the man who waved the magic wand thing over people to detect metal wouldn’t let me come through until he had given the wand to a woman and stepped back. I thought that was cool…and also convenient because the woman was not afraid to get up close and personal with that metal detector stick), we boarded the plane to Tel Aviv. However, we didn’t board the way we board in the U.S., where people board by group number and there is almost an entire hour scheduled between boarding time and takeoff. In Munich, first class passengers were invited to board, and then suddenly everyone got up and packed into a clump. Boarding time was only 25 minutes before takeoff, but with the mass of everyone lining up at the same time, it took 45. The line to check our boarding passes and the line to get onto the plane were both very, very slow and crowded, and the plane left 25 minutes late. 

On this flight, I had a window seat, so I fully intended to sleep through the four hours. However, after I crawled exhaustedly into my seat beside an elderly couple who seemed like quiet people, and gratefully leaned my head against the oh-so-friendly wall on my other side, the stewardess spoke to me, asked if I spoke German, then asked in English if I would mind switching my seat with the woman with whom my elderly neighbors were traveling. It was an aisle seat. I know what a bummer it is to travel alone, or not be able to sit with your loved ones on flights, so of course I said yes, and nearly burst into hysterical weeping as I waited to be escorted to my new seat. The couple seemed very grateful, as did the woman who took my seat, so that was nice. However, my aisle seat was now in close proximity to three small children, and would not let me look out at Germany, the Balkans, or a corner of the Mediterranean Sea. It was so hard to not just melt into a shuddering puddle of tears, but maybe at this point I was just too tired. The flight attendants were young, blonde, and pretty, and extremely pleasant and accommodating despite all the numerous requests everyone around me seemed to be making about switching seats, etc. They impressed me. Also unlike in America, people were walking around the cabin even as we taxied toward the runway, and only sat down and buckled up a couple of minutes before takeoff. We were fed a pretty large breakfast – scrambled eggs (which were hot, even though they looked more like chopped-up bow tie pasta and tasted pretty questionable), cubed potatoes and spinach, a croissant, a roll, a little bowl with sliced cheese/sliced meat/mound of cream cheese, a container I’m guessing held yogurt, and jam and butter. I ate most of it, then my stomach began to hate me again, so I stretched out as much as I could, wrapped up in my blanket (which was thicker and softer than United blankets), and tried to catch a few winks. It was incredibly difficult, and didn’t really happen, what with not having a pillow, people walking around and making noise, the stewardesses rolling by with their carts, and the people beside me wanting to get out of their seats. I dozed off a few times, but was constantly startled awake by noise, so it was a pretty useless endeavor. I had a moment – when the plane touched down and we were taxiing into the gate and people were getting up – that I realized I felt worse than I ever had in my entire life. I felt like I couldn’t move, like every single fiber in my body hated me, and like there was no foreseeable end to this pain of existence. It was one of those moments I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy. Somehow I staggered off the plane, wasn’t questioned by the security people standing outside, and made my way to passport security, where I stood in line for a good half hour behind some very obnoxious American students before being interrogated by a very unpleasant lady in the booth. 

Finally, with lots of miscommunication about where I was supposed to meet the group, I finally met up with my people, and we sat around for another hour or so before piling onto the bus and leaving. We got to the kibbutz after dark and met the folks who were already there. There was assigning of people to rooms, there was food, there was mingling, there was a glorious shower in a bathroom that doesn't have shower walls, and there is finally a warm bed and an actual room. Tomorrow we swim in the Sea of Galilee, so that'll be fun. Also, I love it here. The people are really nice, the kibbutz is neato, and I'm in Israel.

Also, I'll probably never be this bitter again for the remainder of this trip, so hopefully my next post won't be this abominably long.

Final note: it has come to my attention that Josh is also blogging. I promise I'm not copying his idea. I wrote the majority of this post in the Ben-Gurion airport, and just now saw his blog.