Journey's End via Sweden

Don't worry, I made it back home, it only took me circling of the world to do it. And if you had taken my bet, you almost would have won. My airplane touched down at 11:51 pm, almost making it 46 days instead of 45. But make it I did.
My final time in Israel was very enjoyable and relaxed. As i mentioned, i was invited to stay at the home of my good friend Sylvie. And it really was so wonderful, to be in a real home, with a room to myself, a sense of normality amidst all that has been happening this month, and cute kids to boot.
The moment I walked in the door, Shai (3 yrs, who i occasionally helped with during the 2011 dig season) took my hand and wanted to show me his home and more specifically his tv :) later that night after jeff had left he whispers to his mom, "is she going home?" -"no, she's going to stay the night" - "really?! does she have pajamas?" -"yes, she has her own pajamas"- "oh!!!!" and his eyes were super wide and he jumped up and down. Haha, he's probably my new best friend.

Kerem in her morning mood, and still cute

Shai, doing everything he can not to go to bed :)

Wed I hung out with the kids playing with all their toys they brought out to show me, and Sylvie as she made little cake decorations and cake for the party we went to later that night. It was a "graduation" party for her daughter's day care/pre-school. It was so much fun, cute kids dancing around, normal people in regular life, and delicious food. And then we watched a movie after the kids went to bed, i think we both fell asleep several times during it...

Kerem feeling beautiful in her dress for the party

Then her husband was kind enough to give me a ride into Tel Aviv the next morning for my flight. That was uneventful (well except for the lady right in front of me who suddenly jumped on a mom and son and attacked them, and i was the most scared i'd been all summer...) and not fun so we won't dwell on that.
Thursday night I made it to my final stop before home- Sweden. It was beautiful. And awesome. And someday I will definitely go back. I it about 5 in the afternoon, successfully made it to my hostel (without asking for directions, score), and then walked back out to explore. Ok, take that back, i did ask once at the information desk for a map and which direction to walk out of the station.

Welcome to beautiful Sweden!

obligatory parent pic walking towards parliament bldg

The first thing I did, of course, was eat. Hot dog type stands are everywhere, so i got the classic hot dog with mashed potatoes on it, it was actually pretty good.
I ended up following the main direction of the crowd and found the long main street of the city as the sun was beginning to lower (though it didn't actually set till about 10pm). Sweden is a really cool system of 14 islands, though it just looks like crossing small rivers to get from one area to the next. As i walked down the main street ( i won't even attempt to spell, but it ends with -aten, all of them did) I ended up walking across the island with parliament (though i didn't know it till the next day) and then over to the next with the royal place and Gamla Stan (the old city) with tiny little streets winding around and a fun atmosphere. And places that sold delicious ice cream. That was a fun place just to sit and people watch and look at the beautiful buildings around me.

 

Friday morning i had a few hours to explore some more- a park, the front of the parliament bldg and palace, more bridges, and cool buildings. And then i met with the group for a free walking tour they do (also in most main european cities too, good to know). Our guide was actually from australia, but he still knew some pretty cool things about the history and fun facts of the city. We learned the story behind the "stockholm syndrome" and the nobel peace prize and why IKEA is the way it is. Definitely a good choice.

Park where i ate my delicious chocolate and orange muffin

Royal Palace

Parliament bldg

Department store where Greta Garbo got her start

Place where they present the Nobel Peace prize

Look! 2 pictures of me in one post, that should make mom happy

And then I had to run back to the airport or i was going to miss my flight. And then my flight ended up getting delayed almost 8 hours! so i definitely didn't miss that! I don't get frustrated easily, but i was getting pretty close, especially when no one knew anything about what was going on and i had to go through security twice just to find that out. But eventually they boarded us after another security check. And after a long 12 hours i made it home, as i said, in 45 days (with 9 minutes to spare :) And now, back to real life...

and my nephew

He really likes the camel i brought home for him (he gave it a kiss right after) and my panda, which is still mine, but i'll share once in a while

Sitting still, for about 2 sec

Walking my Feet off

I really should get one of the shirts i see in the stores as i pass by that say, "I walked my feet off in Jerusalem" because i feel it. But i have a had a rather successful couple of days getting in everything i wanted, with the exception of a few, but hey i need to leave some for next year.
Today i am sitting in the beautiful home of my good friend Silvie who is wonderful and super nice to have invited me to stay. For one thing, it is so nice to be in an actual real home with a room to myself! And she has two very cute kids, Shai (who i would sometimes babysit at the kibbutz in '11) has become my new best friend and was so excited when he found out i was staying the night.

But going back, Monday was my second to last day in Jerusalem, and it was a good day. The itinerary ended up being:
Ramparts walk
You can go up onto the Old City walls and walk from Jaffa gate to Lion Gate along the Northern side. There were some really cool views. Also, between China and here, I am very tired of stairs, especially uneven ones.

Another one fro mom and dad. On the Ramparts with the YMCA tower and King David hotel in the background. (this is why i don't take selfies)

Being creepy and stalking a new friend from church walking on the street below.

Jaffa gate from above

Damascus gate from above

Herod's Gate from above

Lion Gate and in the background, Golden Gate. From above

Rockefeller museum
The walk finishes at Lion Gate, so i walked from there over to the museum. You know, it's really hard to find a place to get a cold drink during Ramadan, and it was hot! Really one of the greatest museums in the world. Such a great collection of pottery all categorized and awesome. I might have completely filled up my camera with pictures there... Here are some examples:

Tram up to Makhane Yehuda
For the first time I rode the new tram! It was really nice and way easier than trying to figure out buses. And it was super easy to know the right stop, it actually tells you. So i made it to the market and walked around for a while, it was fun. There was also a great selection of food places, i found a crowded, but super delicious pasta place. And then had a Re:bar smoothie (sort of like Jamba Juice), also very delicious, and very nice to get something other than falafel and shawarma (though i still love both very much). And, one of the highlights being in this area was that most people start of assuming you speak hebrew. So i for the most part spoke in my simple hebrew and people were pretty nice and let me, that was fun.

Tram

Pasta Pasta!

 Bus to Ketef Hinnom
Also another highlight: made it on the right bus, got off on the right spots, never got lost once, score. And even found the tombs here at Ketef Hinnom. It was rather tricky, though. These are 1st temple period tombs and a pretty significant place where they found some silver scrolls. And the only thing i could find on their location was that it was right next to St. Andrews church. So i went there, the receptionist guy had no idea what i was talking about, not even the name Ketef Hinnom (and that's hebrew!) Finally I went back down and around to a museum for some random guy on the hill below the church and was super lucky that at least one of the girls knew what i was talking about as far as looking for old caves/burials. To get to it you had to go through the building and around to the back where it's just hidden between fences and weeds. But i made it! And it was pretty darn cool.

Pretending to be dead where bodies would be lain to decompose before their secondary burial. :)

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Body spots to put their dead until only the bones would be left and then they would gather them up and dump them in the cave cavity underneath.

Walk up to Emek Refaim
Luckily, this place was near where we had walked on Fri, so i just took the bike path back up and went to my new favorite book store down that street. Also, i am running out of pictures because my memory card might have been filled with pictures of pottery...
Bus to Yafo st center
Made it back, without getting lost.
Russian Compound
The stop ended up being a little farther up the street and i had remembered Jeff pointing out the direction of the compound when we were on Yafo the other night. So i wandered around and found the area which i hadn't even planned on for that day. So pleasant side trip. Unfortunately the church was closed on Mondays (random) and the hospital was boarded up. But hey, at least I saw it.    Russian Hospital

                                                 Russian Orthodox Church
Mamilla Mall
I walked from there down to the Mamilla Mall to sit and relax some. I had also heard about the Aroma cafe sort of like Starbucks. So I tried it, which gave me a good excuse to sit down. That is one annoying thing here, you can't sit on any chairs or tables by a cafe/restaurant without them either making you order or kicking you out. The ice cream was really good though.
Hostel
And then I walked back.
Whew.

Tuesday, after two busy days, i decided to take it easy, relatively. I got some pastries and milkie and had breakfast at a little restaurant, the guy let me sit for just ordering a drink. We had a nice conversation, and he gave me the cheaper of the tourist prices, so that as kind. I hung out at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, found a cool cave niche to explore,but had no light do it, next time i'll come prepared and hopefully it will be open. There were a ton of Russian tour groups, so i had fun eavesdropping (what else do you do when people talk thinking no one else understand them?).Also, fun fact, the Garden Tomb is closed between 12 and 2 for quiet time, wish i knew that before i walked all the way over there, not fun. So i went and hung out at Zach's shop for a while, he always has pretty reliable news about everything going on and loves joking. I had my last falafel at a little place next to the hostel, run by cute older ladies who must be sisters and are super sweet. One of their sons came and talked to me, he lives in Sweden right now as a table tennis player, it was interesting. Then I went to lie on the grass at Teddy park right outside Jaffa gate. It was very pleasant just laying there and watching the kids play in the water, until some guy decided to come talk to me, luckily only the last half hour before i had to go. I don't know what it was with today that so many people felt like talking! He was Palestinian, and I told him I was Russian (sometimes i like to get away from the American stereotype), so english was out. So we had a passable conversation in Hebrew, that was interesting.
And then Jeff picked me up and we went to Hod Hasharon to Silvie's for dinner. And that's where i am now, just hanging out and relaxing.

No title because I fail at thinking of one

For those wondering, this is why watch at night. The Iron Dome working way out over Ashdod.

As usual when you wait a week to write again, there is way too much to write about. To finish last weekend's report, some of us had a picnic at the garden tomb saturday, then Darra and i ran over to the City of David and Hezekiah's tunnel sunday morning before we had to leave for the kibbutz. We got stuck with this huge tour group from we think Spain during the 3D movie section. You know those loud groups of oblivious, loud tourists and kids running all over? That was it. So as soon as the film got out we ran ahead of them as fast as possible to get to the tunnel. Success. Actually double success, we got there at the perfect time that there was no one else, so we were the only two going up the tunnel. Though probably if you were there too you would just be laughing at us. First of all, turns out phones don't work very well as flashlights, so all we had was a tiny pinlight Mark (another supervisor) had given us. I was in front with the light, and being slightly claustrophobic, tend to go much faster, especially in the small areas i have to bend way over. You would hear Darra coming behind, occasionally shouting out for me to slow down, she is very short and her legs don't go that fast. She also almost got a concussion, and we had a moment after turning off the light for a second of freaking out because the light wasn't turning on. Turns out I just fail at figuring out the button, but it was funny because i had been considering playing a trick like that on her, and it happened, not even on purpose. So that was really fun ( it was really) and we ended up having to run practically all around the old city and made to our spot right as Jeff as pulling up to pick us up to go .whew.

How high the water came up to Darra...

We made it to the inscription at the end of the tunnel!

This week was super small in numbers and we only got one final day of digging Monday until we had to take the canopies down and then just sweep everything like crazy on Tuesday. Thursday we went up for pictures with the drone this year (so awesome, and way better than the balloon we have used) and covered everything up to protect it for the year (always a fun day with stress way up and heat making people very snappy) But on a good note, Darra and I managed to fill Zach's bag almost halfway full of rocks throughout the morning until we had to basically make him open his bag on the bus to notice! we would stick some in everytime we passed it, it was pretty funny, people would watch us to, and not even say anything.
We also took a trip to the lab at Bar Ilan to store everything there. It was actually the first time I'd been, and it was awesome, so many beautiful ceramics everywhere! As you can see, my pot is displayed! and it was awesome, Darra was laughing at Eric and I at how excited we were getting with everything.

The vessel restoration area, i wish i had put it together

My pot!!

Beautiful sherds from our site, this is a philistine bird, it is awesome, just take my word for it

As you probably heard, there was some craziness with the airlines this week. It was really pointless and mostly political. So that was our excitement for a while, Darra ended up getting to stay the whole week (for free) because her flight got cancelled twice. She finally got to leave this weekend with everyone else as all the airlines came to their senses again. The rockets have gone down since the ground troops went in, and unfortunately it has turned into a war down in Gaza, with lives lost on both sides, it is very sad, we keep hoping that there will be peace soon.

This weekend was our last here, one change is that with everything going on we've had to change our usual spots, and explore other areas. Friday we went to Emek refaim street in West Jerusalem, which is just a fun cafe road and near a walking path and artificial beach (with no water, kinda odd), and finally ate at a waffle bar, delicious. We walked on the hill opposite the old city with an awesome view and beautiful houses, even found a shady grass area to nap.
                                

The funny thing is that the lion is the symbol for Jerusalem, and here he's riding a bike :)

Waterless beach in the middle of the city

Saturday was our last day at church here, it was very small with all the students gone, but nice, and only an hour long. We celebrated Jeff's bday by getting him brownies (a tradition we have on the tell for bdays). I ran all over with Jillian for her last minute things, and hung out at our shopkeeper friend, Zach, he always gets us "mormon" tea to drink, then we drove her to the airport. Saturday nights always the best night to be out, so coming back in we stopped at Jaffa gate and had a birthday meal for Jeff so at least he can say he did something. And oh man, that was one amazing burger, so good! even without cheese. It's fun to sit along that street and watch people go by as the street slowly gets more and more busy. And to hear all Jeff's stories and history lessons going along the area. He also took me down close enough to Damascus gate to at least see the Ramadan night festivities (i'm not supposed to go as a girl, lame), it was fun to see the lights and crowd.

I stayed on the rooftop last night, the view is definitely worth the less than comfortable mattress and sounds of the muezzins and church bells going off through the night. Always an adventure.

Night view of the Dome and Mt. of Olives from my bed

Morning view of the same thing.

Today I started on my list of places i haven't seen yet. Mostly over in the Jewish quarter. To the Wohl museum, where they have an amazing excavation of the 1st cent. palatial mansions, it was beautiful. And spent an hour with an old jewish guy who lived there his whole life and named himself my tour guide, i learned some pretty cool things. And then I spent several hours at the David's Tower museum, which was pretty darn awesome. It had a beautiful view from three different towers, and the main exhibit was on medicine throughout the land's history which was surprisingly, quite interesting. And I got to take as much time as I wanted everywhere I went and not have to worry about holding people up as i stared at old walls and artifacts and read every single sign :) So all in all, a very good, successful day.

Beautiful floor and awesome stone furniture/pots

what it would have looked like

Awesome random door when i got only semi lost today

Look, even put one in there with me, just for you mom and dad

At the David Tower excavation museum

Ballista stones still piled up from the siege (2nd cent bce)

View right next to the tower instead of just from the street

Hmm, black buckets and wooden trays, I guess archaeology hasn't really changed all the much since 1969