The 10 day countdown has finally started! I am so excited to get on my plain home, and have already put together my "Coming Home" playlist! But I can't listen to it until I start packing, or until the day of. In the meantime I've found some good pastimes, including swimming. The Kibbutz has a nice pool, and I've been practicing my swimming. I'm feeling more confidant in water, and at last have figured out how to take a breath without getting water in my mouth...a bit late perhaps, but better to learn at 21 than not to learn at all! We also went to the pool at Timrat, the town just East of the Tel, because we were invited by one of the people who lives there , and who is very involved in the survey and excavation at Shimron. He's the one who has put together the education days, and has done much more for publicity and supporting the work to make Tel Shimron into a nice national park. Anyways, we are going back Tomorrow afternoon again to either swim, or jus...
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Sunday we had "Community Day" for 3rd graders from neighboring schools. Na-Hee and I had a total of 12 groups, for a total of about 120 kids! It was fun working with our translators, Naomi and Daphna, and getting to talk to the kids through them. I also spoke to the kids in what little Hebrew I know, which isn't much! But they liked it when I did, I think. Every time I said "I don't understand Hebrew" they would say (in Hebrew) "You just spoke Hebrew!" I think they enjoyed it and had fun, and their teachers really enjoyed it too. In fact, students from other grades were jealous they couldn't come, and the parents wanted to be able to come along too, and the Israeli Antiquities Authority was pleased with it. So it was a big success! The Arab schools and Jewish schools will be working together next year so that the Arab schools can send students too. We have one more day, on Thursday, to do the same thing for more 3rd grade Jewish children. ...
This past weekend we went to Jerusalem. Most people were wanting to tour etc, but I was happy to stay with a couple of my friends at JUC, and just enjoy being back. I wasn't expecting to feel "at home" going back, but I did! As soon as we drove onto some streets in West Jerusalem I knew, it felt good to know right where I was, and to have the feeling of being comfortable walking around the area etc. Even after just 3 months, I guess I started to feel like I belonged! I have been homesick here at Mizra (our Kibbutz), so it was nice to have a little bit of a break from that. Mostly I just stayed on campus and talked with my friends there, but we went out to eat, and I went with one of them to church on Saturday. I also did a little shopping on the Old City, and it was nice to be able to walk around by myself somewhat. I really must be an introvert! I like to be able to be by myself now and then, and that is difficult at any dig. I did miss all our friends from the semest...
My last post was a bit old, but I thought I'd post it anyways. Today we did 4 grids, then ended early to talk about School day this Sunday. Like I said, I'm going to be helping explain GPR. So I'll practice by explaining it here! GPR stands for Ground Penetrating RADAR (Radio Detection and Ranging). The Box which we pull along the ground contains an antenna, which emits radio waves into the ground. These waves are then reflected back to a receptor antenna, and the computer measures the time it took for the radar pulses to return. Because the velocity at which the radar waves travel differs depending on the material it travels through, we can see where the radio waves have traveled through and reflected off of differing material beneath the ground. This includes objects such as rocks, or differing soil types, so we see a lot of things which are just natural parts of the landscape. However, this also means we can see where rocks are lined up as a wall, or as the foundation o...
Processing data We have hopefully worked most the kinks out of our system (such as glitches with the GPR, etc), and have set a goal of 5 grids a day. This means we measure out five 30x30 grids and run the Mag and GPR over them. And hopefully process a good portion of the data as well. This week we made good progress, even completing over 5 grids some days! This weekend I stayed at the Kibbutz for the most part, but we went out to dinner in Nazareth of Saturday. It was delicious! I really like Arab food. I had grilled chicken in an orange glaze, but everything people ordered looked very good! We will probably go back there again. Now that JVRP has left, there are only 12 of us total, so we go out for dinner quite often. It makes things fun! Sunday we went to the beach near tell Dor. The water was nice and warm! We saw several jelly fish on the beach though, and a couple in the water, so we may not be able to swim much more. Sunrise over Mt. Tabor This week has been only 4 day...
Yesterday I went for a walk after we got back to the Kibbutz, and sat down on a chunk of basalt near a watermelon field to drink my instant coffee and enjoy the view. Our Kibbutz is in the Jezreel Valley, not far from Nazareth. In fact, from where I was sitting, I had a direct view of the mount which is remembered to be the one where Jesus was almost thrown off, after he returned to Nazareth and taught in their synagogue. I was at the top of that mount with JUC about a month ago. This picture is the view I had. It's the pointy one in the middle. Of course, we don't really know if that was the exact mountain, Luke just says "They brought him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built so that they could throw him down the cliff." (Luke 4:29). Nazareth is just behind that mount, in a little bit of a depression, so you can't see it from bellow. Even if that isn't the exact spot, it's pretty neat to think about Jesus growing up just behind it, an...