here's a new slideshow of pics

Advice to...whoever wants it

So after my adventures these last couple of days, I decided i would share a helpful list of things that would help anyone wanting to travel, ok mostly if you wanted to travel to Israel, but some could apply elsewhere:

1. At a bus stop always sit on the side of the road going in the direction you want to go, if it's facing the opposite way it means the bus has already come from there and you'll have to ride around for an hour until you realize you have to change bus routes to get back where you wanted, or until they kick you off at their last stop, then you know for sure you have to change routes.
2. Don't stay at the new palm hostel across from Damascus gate, unless you are a boy or in a group, and don't care about what's in your luggage... or have no luggage
3. Pandora does not work outside the USA... sad.
4. Sometimes places close by about 5 or 6, even though their website says 11pm
5. Don't eat your cold leftovers for breakfast at the bus stop on the way to the Hebrew U, they have microwaves in the common areas
6. Don't have batteries in your luggage, they will search your bag, open the package, and delay your luggage
7. Going to libraries to research is the same all over the world: you still fall asleep half the time and end up only getting about half of what you want done
8. Become a boy, its basically better (definitely easier) everywhere exept maybe the airport
9. Find a Genie so they will magically make you able to speak hebrew and arabic fluently
10. Sometimes they food right from the street guys isn't always the most sanitary, don't inspect it, just eat :)

Don't worry, if I ever discover any more I will let you know.

Whoa, so I finally figured out how to post after clicking enough links, the page is all in hebrew and i don't know computer hebrew yet. So back by popular request (ok actually like 3 people) i'm continuing by blog once again (though there's really nothing to do with Egypt or Africa, except maybe that i've met a couple people from there). I finally made it here to Israel after 2 days and 2 transfers and 3 days of no sleep and a lost bag! And yep, i still love it here!! I got a sherut (van taxi thing) straight to the center for church on Saturday and managed not to fall asleep during sacrament, definitely a great feat. Crazy enough, as i was sitting outside the center I happened to meet a tour group which turned out to be the Naegles'. So I got to tour around with their group for the next three days. It was wonderful, I went to quite a bit of places around Jerusalem I hadn't been able to go to last year like the baptismal site on the Jordan, Wadi Qelt (traditional site of the good samaritan), hezekiah's tunnel ( so cool, imagine slot canyons with water and a roof that half that time makes you bend over), the pool of bethesda, rabbinical tunnel (amazing, tunnel that runs alongside the western wall underneath the city to much of the original stones form herod's time, yad Vashem (holocaust museum), and some sites of the Via Dolorosa. The group were so nice, buying me lunch and for some of the places, and it was nice to go to places with other people, to be able to discuss spiritual insights and learn more of the gospel together. I also made a new best friend, i started speaking to the driver in hebrew and now he loves me, he gave me gum every time i left the bus, free water, and bought me a popsicle (that is if he actually bought it, i don't really know if he did...), and spoke very slowly for me to understand him. Yesterday I went to the Tell with Jeff to help a little, i didn't do much, but at least i got to hear what was going on this summer. Yesterday I had to go into the New City, Givat Shaul, to pick up my phone. I was very excited that I succeeded in getting there and back, figuring out the bus system and not getting on the wrong one once !!! It is pretty great, and I even managed to fool a few people into thinking I was Israeli (or at least that I knew Hebrew). Today I'm going to the Hebrew U to do some research, at some point I'll have internet on my own computer and put up some pictures. Congrats Erica, that's exciting!!!!! Mozel Tov!!! -lahitraot

shabbat shalom wa mozel tov

This is my very last post from Israel, I leave tonight for the airport and will soon be on my way home. This last week has been a lot of cleaning up an and packing, wednesday Michelle nd I spent all day in the office doing registration and boxing and cataloguing everything and going crazy, but it was fun working with Silvie the one in charge of all that. The rest of the time we just hung out and finished some paperwork then had a pizza party (pizza, an amazing invention, i haven't had it in 6 weeks, it was wonderful, even if it was kosher). And i did actually go in the pool for about 5 minutes, the first time this whole month, ehh, it happens. We came into Jersualem this morning, and were able to spend some time in the Israel museum, that was cool, especially since it's been closed for about five years for renovationa dn just opened monday, so we were just able. As far as pottery goes, it didn't have too good of a collection, but it did have a a general sweep of lots of diffrernt things, and it was pretty cool seeing things in person that i've read and heard about like the aleppo codex and sennacherib prism an stele from ekron. I had my last 6 shekel falafel, it was as always delicious, i added some more spicy stuff and was even better even if my mought was burning like crazy.
It is definitely a hard day today, i am ready to come home and see everyone and have a small break, but it is so hard to leave, i could stay here forever and never be bored. This land is absoplutely incredible, it has captured me. The sounds and smells, the history, even the crazy storekeepers trying to marry you, it's great. There are so many ties that pull me, It may not be the same place it was when Christ walked the streets, but you definitely feel a type of sacredness to this land and a connection that doesn't come in many other places. Eric and I were walking around the old city and he remarked how great it is when you realize that transition you've had going from tourist walking around and not knowing what's going on around you, to totally feeling at home and knowing where you're going and how to get there and the way to fit in (as much as you can when you're a blonde haired, tall american young girl). Shalom from Jerusalem, I will see you soon.

cool things

Some of the exciting finds and understanding that came out of this season-

http://www.jpost.com/Features/InThespotlight/Article.aspx?id=182962

http://gath.wordpress.com/

breakfast with the exorcist

so i think it's pretty funny that this page is titled christina in egypt, because basically i was in Egypt for barely four days, and the rest of the 5 or so weeks have been in Israel. but anyways, had another great weekend, last full one in Jerusalem :( i'll at least get one more day, finally getting to go to the israel musuem and the shrine of the book, it's been closed for renovation and just opened yesterday. It was mostly a relaxing one, went to church for the last time, i will definitely miss the spectacular view during sacrament meetings, and then to the Rockafeller museum with Eric, stacey, and michelle. Eric is working on making me a master pottery reader and so we went through and he tried teaching me all he knew and keeps trying to test me, once in a while i get it right :) so i'm learning and slowly becoming a pottery geek, which is a bad tihng according to jeff (he is) but it's fun:) The rest of the time we hung out and did some walking through the old city and ate some more amazing food :) Oh and one morning we were seated at a breakfast table with what turned out to be one of 5 exorcists from argentina who just got done with a congress in Rome and was making his annually visit to Jerusalem, it was pretty interesting, he was a nice guy, you meet some pretty cool people here. We also managed to find marshmallows (it is incredibly hard to do so) and made tropical marshmallow, exploding cow, tea biscuit s'mores (in a fire i made) sunday night. It was pretty great, talk about working with what you have, but they were delicious, and if you have never had exploding cow before, you are definitely missing out.

Everyone lately has just been finishing up and cleaning as we get ready to close up the season. Last week was one of the most exciting with the juglet and cooking vessel and some things in the other areas like a brick destruction level, though yesterday as we were doing our last digging and starting to clean, we had some more excitement. i, and eric, was starting to take out the vessel, when we got another pottery piece sticking out of a different material. We decided to follow it down and dig it out, mostly because we didn't want to leave it exposed for a whole year until next season. I started digging down and it just keeps going, I got down probably close to 15 cm when Jeff and Aren came over and told me to stop. So far we had the side with intact handle of a large cookingpot/storage jar with the rim seemingly intentionally broken off. We had to stop because it was getting to deep and we don't have the time to excavate around it. So we have to leave it and rebury it, hoping nothing will happen to it for the next year, it was a sad blow to the excitement. You always find the best stuff at the end, like in the square over i was helping with as well, there is a huge plaster installment that dives as well and we still don't have the bottom, but it looks like it abutts the EB/MB (depends on who you talk to) wall and we have to bury that as well :( there are two going theories for the cooking pot/jar i have though, either it's just a storage jar dug into the ground, or it is a baby burial ( as has been found in the iron age/LB surface types we're on), I'm hoping for the latter, it would be much more interesting.

yesterday was jeff's birthday, we had a great party, first of all a couple of us ran to the top of the tell before he got there and made a coca cola tree witht the bottles hanging from all the branches, he was pretty ecstatic, and then one guy's wife made a cake and brought popsicles, it was fun. Last night we also got to go to a concert in the Bell caves,it was really fun, this small natural theater with bats flying around and great acoustics, it was vivaldi, loved it.

Today was the last day for us all on the tell sadly, only a few get to go tomorrow to finish getting ready for the photographs and aerials, but there's a chance I can go and help, so we'll see.It was all sweeping and dusting, yesterday we had taken down the shades so it was a very hot, draining day, but already the area is looking good and you can start to see the big picture and connect all the different squares, it's cool to see the line of stratigraphy our area is especially important for, that we can look on surfaces from the crusader period all the way down to early bronze on this side of the tell. we came back to the kibbutz and did some pottery writing and i also help load tools and equipment and take them to the storage unit which felt like a sauna inside. Tonight is a lecture by Arim Mazar, an important guy from the Hebrew university and is supposed to be really good, I'm excited.

the miracle of Tisha b'av

It's so crazy, i only have a week and a half left i can't believe it! i don't want it to end, especially just as i'm getting to the good layers ( i hate how that happens). I am learning so much and i'm even starting to learn to classify some of the pottery though not near as much as there is. but yep, I'm hooked, this is even more fun than US digging, pretty much i just get to blast big holes in the ground with a pick axe, who has time for measely troweling? Except of course when i almost kill a tiny vessel with it (which i didn't, just knocked off part of the rim, so sad, I don't know if I'll ever get over that)

We definitely experienced a Tish b'av miracle, it was pretty much one of the most amazing days, this whole summer i've been telling everyone i was going to find a whole vessel, that was my goal, and they didn't believe me. We got to a surface at the end of last week and Jeff asked me what i was going to find when we took it down, he laughed when i told him a complete vessel just like area D. three days later i did! and in an area where no one had found a whole one yet :) it was a very cute baby one and next to a huge (we think) base of a cooking/storage jar :) this happened towards the end of they day, so we won't know too much more about it until tomorrow, it actually was not supposed to be in that spot at all ( i told you, a miracle), so we'll see what it turns into. I got to take it out and carry it back to the kibbutz, and got to ride in the car too :) I was pretty darn excited, even the four hour pottery reading didn't phase me too much. Yep, that's why i dig :)