Everything I own is covered in dirt

Quick update about last weekend:
Last Shabbat was fantastic. We had a long, relaxing morning at the kibbutz, then took a bus to Tel Dor, where we had a beach excursion at the Mediterranean. Oh my goodness, I can't even explain how wonderful it was. Granted, the beach was pretty busy, but ohhhh. The water was a gorgeous clear blue, the sand was light brown and soft, the sky was perfect, and there was a cool breeze the entire afternoon. We had a really nice picnic lunch under some pavilions, walked down the beach for a while to look at the tel, then swam. Sigh. The water was perfect. Clear and cool, nothing gross or alive floating around feet-level, and really fun waves. I did discover eventually that the water contained an unbelievable amount of salt (mainly by facing the shore and being engulfed from behind by waves that I didn't expect to reach my head and pour down my lungs), but because I was at the Mediterranean Sea and it was everything I've ever wanted it to be, I forgave it. 

After showering off and cleaning up, we went a hop, skip, and jump away to Caesarea for a concert by the Idan Raichel Project. It was at an ancient theatre built by Herod the Great, right on the coast. It looked a lot like an amphitheater, and like the Coliseum in Rome, but apparently it's still technically a theatre. We sat pretty high up, and our seats were numbers on the stone benches that served as rows. The concert was amazing. I'm not entirely sure what genre of music it was - I heard it described once as world music, but since I didn't know much about music, I can't verify this. They sang in Hebrew mostly, and there was at least one song in Spanish that was really fun, and there might have been other languages I didn't catch. I can't really describe a concert; how does one explain how incredible music can be? Nonetheless, we all loved it, despite the lack of sleep we got that night. Note: when we arrived at the theatre, the sun was just setting, and the colors streaming over the edge of the Mediterranean Sea flooded the world with beauty and my heart with happiness (I had to make that sentence as cheesy as possible because the setting was exactly like a scene from some sort of romantic comedy).

Back to the present: 
So, it all comes to an end. The month is finally up, which is hard to believe but probably about time in coming. Day before yesterday we finished digging, and yesterday and today we continued the closing down of Areas 2000 (ancient village) and 3000 (ancient synagogue). I already miss my square and my frat. Area 2000 looks so lonely without the shade cloths over it, tools piled around it, and sandbags lining the balks. The squares I worked in look so much smaller without people in them or shade cloths covering them. I already miss our breakfast area under the tree by the synagogue, where we'd feast on salad/olives/cheese/cottage cheese/eggs/french toast/bruschetta/cereal/bread/coffee/tea/cake. Today we'll pack our own belongings, and have a party in the evening. A few people have left already, and a few more are leaving this afternoon. It's sad to realize that I will probably never see most of these lovely people again, but it makes me happy knowing that I got to share a month of my life with them - working, eating, talking, and just living - removed from normal everyday life, doing such incredible things in this beautiful place. Shalom, Israel - you'll be forever inscribed on my heart. (That last line is a play on words. "Hakuk Balev" means "inscribed/etched on the heart.")

Some random thank-yous/acknowledgements:

• Alaina for being such a fantastic roommate the whole month 
• Allison for bringing me food from the dining hall when I didn't go to dinner  
• Andrej for all the Slovakian jokes 
• Austin for the hand hugs and for seeing me as an individual 
• Bailey for calling me "ma'am" 
• Chad for the Trinity people field trip 
• Irene for being such a good sport about the Canadian and Russian jokes 
• Jesse for helping me read Judges in Hebrew 
• Jocelyn for having the greatest laugh and letting me and Bailey call her "Mama J" 
• Jodi for being so understanding whenever I was sick or hurt 
• Joshua for everything, always
• Karen for getting all of our breakfasts ready on site
• Kyle for cheering me up
• Sara for massaging everyone, especially me 
• Shua for teaching me how to braid challah and eat Lebanese food
• Tony for wearing happy colored shirts and keeping up conversations in the square
• Xander for the creepy faces, and for always lifting the heavy rocks
• All the staff for being in charge and making everything happen
• All the amazing friends here - specifically mentioned or not - for making this one of the best months of my life

"Shabbat Shalom, y'all"

^This is what my friend Austin said all day yesterday as Sabbath was starting. It's funniest when you read it with a real Southern accent.

So it's finally Shabbat, which means no digging today, thank goodness. I've definitely slowed down, and my energy saps much more quickly than it used to. Even the joints in my hands hurt from gripping tools. Basically, this is a much-needed day of rest. Last night was a party night, and today we could eat breakfast anywhere between 8-10. Unfortunately, my body woke me up this morning at 4:30 (drat this sleep cycle), and I napped a bit until 6:30. This afternoon we're going to the Mediterranean Sea for a swim, and then afterward we're going to Caesarea to see Idan Raichel Project in concert in a theater built by Herod off the Mediterranean coast. Here's a picture of the theater: http://images.fineartamerica.com/images-medium-large/caesareas-amphitheater-hugs-michael-melford.jpg. Apparently tickets go lightning-quick, so Jodi's being able to get tickets for a group our size during the week of this concert is pretty amazing. It's going to be incredible, or so we've been told. I am excited.
I might take a nap now. Or read. Or go sit outside and do nothing. I have a whole glorious three hours to do anything I want. It's beautiful.

Just some things

Digging, digging, digging. Okay fine, I actually didn't do that much digging today. I spent the previous two days in the lab because of my ankle (which is still a bit swollen and a delicate shade of turquoise), scrubbing bones for probably about 10 hours and a lifetime of carpal tunnel. That being said, getting to go back to the site today absolutely thrilled me. Overall it went fine; it was a little bit difficult getting over walls in my square and navigating around rocky areas, etc., but I didn't hurt my ankle any more and I did get some things done. Yesterday I came to the site because we were taking pictures of the students and staff from the excavation's consortium schools for the press release photos, but had to leave afterward because Jodi didn't want me working. Today I got to do things, so that was nice. Working in the Bro square always makes me cheerful. Everyone slings good-natured insults back and forth, throw around subtle (or not so subtle) digs at each other (heh, I'm punny), and overall has a ton of fun. The original group was Josh (name so far undetermined), Tony (Baba), Xander (Brother Bear), and Austin (Brosaic). I somehow became a Beta Rho as well, and recently, Bailey and Lisa have started working in the square as well. Today, Tony was hurt, Bailey worked on breakfast, and Lisa was in the lab, so our numbers were few.
After excavating today, we all had pottery washing in the guest house courtyard, and got picked up by the bus at 3:30. We hiked a bit to the Wadi Amud prehistoric cave, then went to Tiberias for a couple of hours. Now I'm not a huge fan of Tiberias, but I will admit that when Josh and I had gotten falafel for 14 shekels from a stand right off of the street, having watched the man make it and hand it to us steaming hot, and got to sit in the shade eating the savory goodness...I forgave Tiberias its feel of being dirty and gross. Then we got shawarma, and then I got another falafal to bring back for Tony, who forwent the trip in order to rest his injured back. I almost ate Tony's falafel on the way back, but managed to hold out (mostly because the few bites of shawarma were so darn delicious and filling). This evening we had a mosaic workshop - it was basically arts and crafts for students doing archaeology. We got squares of some string mesh thing, and a massive amount of pottery bits, and we just made our own mosaics. I had literally no ideas for several minutes, so after watching Josh start on his Greek inscription and Tony get halfway through his portrait of his mother and Jocelyn begin an abstract series of swirls, I decided to throw together a basic shape - which I did. Tomorrow I will inspect my mosaic heart to see if it somehow improves its appearance overnight. Until then...bedtime. I'm on breakfast duty tomorrow.

Desert ramblings

We got back this afternoon from a weekend-long field trip to the central Negev Desert. I’m not sure what to say about the desert other than that it’s….desert. Very desert-like, as it were. Lots of dirt and sun and...desert.

Enough about that. Let's see. The hostel where we stayed in the Negev was about 5 hours from our kibbutz, in Mitzpe Ramon. It was a lovely stay. The rooms were spacious and had lots of bunks and the bathrooms were really nice and I got to room with three great girls - Irene, Alaina, and Sara. The hostel sat right near the edge of a cliff overlooking a giant crater. Giant isn't even a good word. This crater was e-nor-mous. The evening we got there, a bunch of us climbed up and sat up on the cliff during the sunset. With the desert wind sweeping in chilly and strong, and the last rays of the sun illuminating the vastness of the desert falling away at our feet, there was nowhere else in the world I would rather have been. Everyone stayed up late and bonded, and we had breakfast and went field-tripping in the morning. We went to Shivta, the site of an ancient Nabatean town in the Negev. The tour was going really well, and we were seeing really cool things like a cross-shaped baptismal and a huge stone church...when I stepped down from a single stone step, landed on an uneven rock, heard a popping noise from my ankle, and was suddenly on the ground. I seem to remember there being people around me, and then Josh was there, and then we were moving, and then Josh was carrying me. Somehow or other I ended up in the shade with Jodi, Chad, Josh, and Seth, and a tiny bag of ice was miraculously produced and placed on my ankle, held there via my nerd sock being folded down (my idea, hooray for me). Chad and Josh stayed with me while everyone else finished the tour, and then Josh carried me to the bus and we all went to a Bedouin tent for lunch, where we sat on floor pillows around little tables and stuffed our faces with hummus, a goat cheese whose name I forget, cucumber and tomato salad, a spicy sauce, and pita to dip all these things. It. Was. So. Good. After the eating, we had coffee (or tea) and baclawa, then went outside to ride camels. Unfortunately, because of my ankle, I was told to stay behind, so I napped instead. After mourning my lack of camel ride, I fell asleep in a hammock under a tree, with cool breeze blowing over my face and music playing behind me in the Bedouin tent. It was heavenly. And when the group got back, I got set on a camel and it stood up, walked a few feet, and sat down again. My ten-second ride was fun while it lasted though. 

Hmm. What else happened. Not much, I guess. There was more hanging out at the hostel, then this morning we went up to the edge of the crater again before we headed back toward Hakkuk Balev. There was a short stop for a hike to some natural springs, which I didn't do, then a long ride broken only by bathroom stops and a lunch break. Now we're back at our guest house, admiring our new dig T-shirts and chilling before our freedom ends and we go back to work tomorrow. Technically, I'll be in the lab tomorrow, but that's a minor detail. Hopefully my ankle will get better and I'll be able to go back to the site on Monday, but I won't worry about it now. 

A couple of final thoughts before I sleep: 

-Israel is so gorgeous. Even the Negev has a bleak, bare beauty that takes my breath away.

-Joshua has taken such good care of me since my ankle got twisted - he's wrapped my bandage, carried my things, carried ME (some pretty long distances too), helped me walk, propped my legs up on the bus, stayed behind with me even when the group was moving pretty fast/doing things I couldn't do, and overall been really, really sweet. I don't deserve him. 

-Only a week and a half left! I can't believe it. Time has flown, and sometimes it's been really hard (and will probably get harder, actually), but this is the best time I've had in...years, probably, and it's still hard to believe I'm in this amazing place with all these incredible people, getting to do such exciting things. So much hooray.

I know a secret...

…but I can’t tell you. Sorry, but policy mandates complete confidentiality and blah blah blah. But for realsies, there are some suuuuper cool things going on at Huqoq that I can’t talk about yet, but which are nonetheless ah-mazing. And I can’t wait until our forced vow of silence is lifted, because your mind is going to be blown (I hope).

Anyways, today my square joined with Brad’s square to take down a balk, and there were a ton of us, so I worked in the Bro square instead, for the second time this week. It was a party. For those of you who are wondering, the Bro square = Josh and Co. (Tony from UNC, Austin from UNC, and Xander from Baylor), and it's absolutely swell. They are probably the coolest group of guys ever. After I found a couple of neat things in one of their loci, they said I could be a Beta Rho (Omega - or Omicron?) with them, so that obviously made my day. I never thought I'd be part of a frat. So right now it looks like we (and currently I am identifying myself with the Bros) are excavating a storage closet or something, based off of the stuff we’re finding. Oooh, also today I spent the whole time before breakfast surveying with our surveyor, Jim, who wears short shorts, exclusively speaks in hilarious one-liners, and is generally a boss. I went all over the village area holding the Staff of Ra for him to find from “his office,” as he calls the spot on the hill where he keeps the surveying equipment. I don’t remember all the technical terms, so please pardon my lack of specificity.

Yesterday we went on a field trip (which I don't think anyone knew about until breakfast yesterday morning) to Hippos/Sussita, where there were lots of cool things I'll remember later probably, and a goooorgeous view of the Sea of Galilee and the surrounding hills. I can't even explain how beautiful it was. Also, I don't have pictures because I didn't bring the camera, so that kinda sucks. But anyhow. That happened. Hmm, what else has happened the past few days...? Um. Not a whole lot, I don't think. I experienced the spring that's right near the site - the water was cold but absolutely still and clear. I didn't even realize there was water in it, looking into it from the top. That was nice. Also, I've discovered that walking back to the kibbutz from the site is way more fun than taking the bus - it isn't much longer of a walk from the site to the kibbutz than from the site to the bus, and overall it takes about 15 minutes less than riding, so there's time to shower before lunch. Also, I went with a few people to a (Lebanese?) restaurant and we had the best food in probably the entire world. We sat down at the table, and a basket of steaming hot pita and thousands of plates with sauces and vegetables and dips just showed up in front of us. We were told not to get full (although it was very tempting), because eventually our main courses came out. I don't know what they were, but they had chicken and one had pine nuts and one had a white sauce and they were both excellent. Then there was coffee outside, which was lovely and much better than American coffee. Ugghh, just thinking about the falafel is making me hungry again.
Tomorrow we head out for our big field trip to the Negev. There will be ~5 hours on the bus, lots of site visiting, CAMEL RIDES, and ~5 hours on the bus again. It is going to be nuts. I’m looking forward to it. Tomorrow will be a short day of work, and we won't work at all on Friday. I wonder if we'll do anything for Shabbat...maybe not, since we'll have spent the entire afternoon on a bus. We shall see.
I haven't gotten sunburned yet, so that's nice. However, I have more bruises than I can count, the makings of blisters and calluses on my hands, a cough that won't go away, dust in my hair that is stubbornly refusing to come out, and angry-looking scars on my foot from bashing it on a sharp underwater rock in Sachne. This dig seems to be designed to break down the weak, eager bodies of paper-writing/book-reading college students in order to build them into machines of warcraft/archaeological superiority/survival mode. I might even be able to beat people up now. Except...when everything in my body stops hurting. Maybe.

Of snakes and swimming

I have never been this worn out. It's ridiculous. I even worked in the lab yesterday and went on field trips today, so I haven't actually done field work in two days. And I'm still exhausted. In all fairness, everyone here is petering out too - bus rides are getting quieter and afternoons in the courtyard are becoming steadily less-attended due to people opting to nap instead. Maybe it's the fact that the tail end of this week has been invaded by a pretty torturous heat wave. Maybe it's the fact that our weeks have six days of working instead of five like in the States. Whatever the cause, everyone is tired. 
Not much has happened this week. On Wednesday (I think), I spotted a snake on the edge of my square and started yelling, and an uproar ensued in the ancient village area. Apparently it wasn't venomous, but the snake was pretty long - at least, I thought so - and certainly scared the senses out of me and Chad, who was in my square and is apparently as bad with reptiles as I am. Miki caught it and people petted it and whatever, and that was it. The other day, we finished excavating my square, so we closed it and my group moved to one of the squares that was finished last year, so we can excavate one more layer to see if we can find the base of a wall. Yesterday I was assigned to work in the lab with one of my roommates (Alaina) and my fellow Trinity student (Sara). We worked on bones and data entry, went to the site for breakfast, and came back to work on bones and pottery until everyone else came back. And last night we had a movie night and stayed up late since we could sleep in until 7:30 this morning (SEVEN THIRTY, can you believe it?!?! Who needs THAT much sleep, amiright?). 
Today we went to a Crusader castle on the south side of the Sea of Galilee. The site is called Belvoir, French for "beautiful view" - and very aptly named, if I may say so. It sits on a mountain overlooking the Jordan valley, and the view is breathtaking, even though today it was slightly obscured by mist. We wandered around the castle for a while, then went to the synagogue in Beit Alfa. The mosaic floor is wonderfully preserved, and we watched a short film about it that was so bad it was just incredible. The mosaic was clearly not made as skillfully as any of the other mosaics I've seen from that time period, but at least it was well preserved and we could see practically all of it. After that, we were all worn out from the heat, so we went very happily to Sachne - a gorgeous natural water park - for lunch and swimming. The sandwiches were good (mainly because they didn't have schnitzel in them), and the water was gorgeous. It was clear and cool and pretty clean, and there were caves and waterfalls and large open pools, and everything went swimmingly until I swam into a giant underwater rock and bashed my left foot and leg. Josh and Jeremy (our bones specialist) and Alaina and I sat in a cave for a while, but after I kicked another rock with my other foot, we figured it was time to not swim anymore. My foot started bleeding as soon as I got out of the water, so I limped to our picnic area, and Josh got me ice cream. 
The bus ride back was longer than any bus ride ever, but it was nice to not have to move or walk around in the hot sun. We're now back at the kibbutz, and I'm sitting under a tree with a bandaged foot, surrounded by people all relaxing in their own respective ways. 
Dinner is in an hour, and then sleep. It's back to the field tomorrow.