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Handicapped parking (for aliens?)

Yiftah; digs

Have a bit of pity on me if you will. This is part of the ground stone storage room for Hazor, located at the kibbutz across the street from the site. I have had nightmares about this for months, but my few days spent cleaning it up and working on the last few seasons' worth of stuff actually went ok. I'll only have to go back one day this week to finish.

Before I got to work M and L helped sweep and generally clean up for me as it was just too gross for words (thick dust and debris, bugs, rotten boxes, you name it). I wound up working outside here in the front (that's the entrance to the storage room) on this random piece of furniture that L is sweeping around because it was too hot and smelly inside. This looks primitive, but literally right around the corner is the kibbutz supermarket, which provided AC and bathroom breaks as well as cold bevs and snacks.


Back to our lovely weekend at the relatives' up north. Here are some pics of L at the pool, eating Bamba with Maayan and mimicking Yael in her new flowery bathing suit. She also got all bedecked our last evening there in necklaces that Yael made and a new dress.

There are pine nuts just waiting to be cracked open all over the playground area at the kibbutz. Here is M demonstrating not only the expedient use of a random stone to open pine nuts, but also the before and after. They were yummy.

Yesterday we went to Kabri before returning to Degania. Assaf and Eric are working on the Middle Bronze Age palace with a small team this year (which includes Alex) and we went to check it out. The excavations are among avocado trees - can you imagine?

A view of one area of the palace from very afar. L to R: Assaf, me (behind Eric), Eric, and Alex.

Young archaeologist at work.

And the same look as with the ground stones in a previous post. Despite the lollipop and opportunity to do some fieldwork, she just didn't last long. However, this pic is also of interest because I'm holding the contract for our household archaeology book in this envelope - thanks Assaf!

A walk through the fruit trees

This past weekend was great. After spending a few days working on the stone from Hazor, we all went up to Kibbutz Yiftah in the far north and spent a few nights with M's cousin Tsvika's family. They are wonderful, the weather was fabulous and L had a great time with her second-cousins. The first day we were there we went for a long walk in the kibbutz fields to admire and pick the endless nectarines, apples, pears, etc. I like the above pic because you not only see most of the members of our party - Yael, Maayan, Rina, L, Frida, Shuka (the dog) and me - but you can also see the photographer's shadow.

We had to pause frequently so L could dump the dirt out of her fake crocs.

It is now clear that L likes small dogs, and she would not stop bothering poor Shuka then entire time we were there.

Tsvika and Maayan. Tsvika is one of M's two cousins and he looks more like him than anyone else in the fam I think.

A pear.

Eilat, Herzliya, Degania

Eilat is not yet over. A few more pics to go ... one proving that Lilah warmed up to the dogs by the end, and one very cute picture of Sue and Maya.

After Eilat we drove to Tel Aviv to drop Frida at the Central Bus Station and M and L were just totally overcome. The place is like this huge 8-story maze or something that is a bus station and a market with all kinds of cheap shoe stores, food, and randomness. We loitered for far longer than I want to admit. After, we continued to Herzliya and spent 2 nights with Shlomit and Ilan in their fabulous apartment. The topiary in front was very cool.

Lilah demonstrated her Cinderella tendencies again by washing the walls and floor of their balcony.
Then we left, but not before meeting Dod Omry at the Ramat Aviv mall. More malls ... but this is among the swankiest in Israel. I used to stop by here on the way to Tel Aviv U when I did ulpan there and used the library while we lived in Herzliya 2000-2002. It's even fancier now than it was then; here we are having coffee.
We then stopped at Ikea on the drive home to the kibbutz. Yesterday was a really good kibbutz day. We went for a long walk in the evening when the weather is more tolerable, and visited horses, nearby Kibbutz Kinneret, and other places. We took tons of shots of flora, but they will have to wait ... except for this one of L picking olives. There is this little grove of olive trees next to the parking lot and a couple of the trees have olives that are nearly ripe (it's early). Brian - I don't want to ruin a surprise, but you're getting some chunks of wood from one of these trees as a couple of large branches split off while we've been here.

Here are sun-dappled Abba and daughter in the beautiful bamboo-filled entrance to the area with the horses here on the kibbutz next to the Jordan River.


And lastly, in keeping with my recent artistic shots of smashed cups on sidewalks, here's a good one from outside Yardenit (the baptism/tourist trap here next to the kibbutz - right next to the horses). Mollie - I may enter this in a future show.


Now I'm off to Hazor for a few days - the rocks beckon.

what I've learned this summer

Israel's Ikea serves hummus in its cafeteria (and no meatballs).

More Eilat and that's it

We departed Eilat yesterday morning at 6:30 and are now in Herzliya visiting Shlomit and Ilan! Here are a couple more Eilat pics (kind of random). This was taken at an abandoned army base on a mountain above Eilat that we visited one evening. It was really beautiful from up there, and Lilah is all into climbing hills and mountains these days.

This was taken by M at the Dan Hotel. There were several of these posters promoting Yoni's services (which apparently consist of making Israelis blonde) in the hotel.

And sandwiches and coffee at Cafe Hillel in the Queen of Sheba mall on the boardwalk. You can't even imagine what this paltry meal cost; we were probably blinded by the sun as we foolishly walked near the beach on our last day in Eilat in the crazy heat.

Mizpeh

Our hair blew in the breeze atop the observatory in Eilat this week. In addition to the view, the numerous aquariums with exotic fish and the underwater observatory (which Lilah visited when she was 3 months old and loved), one can play under the burning sun on the fish-themed playground.

Eilat - the beach

At some point during this past week we went to the beach one morning. We haven't gone more because it's just truly too hot (43 degrees celsius, which is around 109) most of the time. Why are we here in the summer again? Anyway, we went to the beach near Herod's and the Dan Hotel where Yoram works. The beach is pretty nice, with sand and even little fish swimming around in the COLD water. The people watching is amazing here.

Still life

Eilat part 1

I forgot one awesome picture from the Dead Sea (see previous post). This kid was getting the cast on his arm wrapped in Saran Wrap so he could enter the trashy kiddie pool at the Tsell Harim Hotel (note plastic chunks of pool at the water's edge). On Thursday we picked up Safta at the train station in Beersheva and drove 3+ hours to Eilat, which is the southern tip of Israel. It's basically a resort city on the Red Sea, bordering Sinai and Aqaba in Jordan. On the way we stopped at Hazeva and I took this pic of the branch of the Aroma Cafe there, which proves M's point (made to someone last week; I don't remember) that there is an Aroma in every hole in this country now. I guess one shouldn't complain as the only other food option at this rest stop was Burger Ranch.

M's brother and family live in Eilat and we're staying with them for about a week. One of the first things we did was go on a big food shopping spree on Friday. Here's Lilah drinking yummy strawberry goat's milk yogurt in the cart in front of apples and cheap red peppers (a little more than $1 a kilo - awesome!).
Lilah bonded instantly with her cousin Maya.
She has most certainly NOT bonded with Henry the bulldog or with any of the other 3 dogs here.

the south

We've been on the move this past week. Last Sunday we drove two hours from the kibbutz to Jerusalem. We stopped by the Albright to drop off a box of rocks for Susan, and saw Jill, Norma, Dorothy, Sy, Sarah and Helena during our brief visit. I hadn't been there in two years, but not much had changed (except for the construction of a new improved building where the Wright lab once stood). We then drove across town to the Givat Ram campus of Hebrew U so I could check in with the Lady Davis office (they are graciously supporting my research this summer) and have lunch with Natalie, whom we hadn't seen in years. Then we drove 1 1/2 hours south to Kibbutz Lahav, which is north of Beersheva, so I could work on the ground stone from Oded's excavations at Tel Halif from the past two seasons. Lahav was great - very laid-back, great weather (even cool at night), and, best of all, Jimmy and Glenda were there. I saw Jimmy for probably 1/2 hour the entire three days we were there, but I spent more time with Glenda, which was great. There is a bedouin museum there and so we went one day to check it out. It was pretty hot, but there were some awesome, somewhat creepy dioramas of life in the desert. There was also a forest with pistachio trees nearby (they weren't ripe).

On Wednesday, after two days of hardcore ground stone analysis (heh), we went to Arad for a bit. I had never been there before. Before we hit the big city (not) we visited the tel, which I had also never seen before, amazingly. Our visit was pretty good, although it was hot so there were complaints from the small member of our party, who wanted to be carried a lot. She also had to 'use the bathroom' a lot while we were there, which was pretty easy to manage because we were the only creatures around except for a guard who was snoozing in his SUV and the lizards who were darting in and out of the stones of the walls of the Early Bronze Age houses.

First we went to the Iron Age temple, which I was pretty excited to finally see in person. The lay reader may be interested to know that this is the best-preserved temple from the 'Old Testament' period, when there was only supposed to be one temple - in Jerusalem. Weirdly, considering it's such an important site, the signage was pretty badly done in English.

And although I have some guilt about this, we posed in the Holy of Holies in this temple - where there are reconstructions of the two standing stones found there (Yahweh and Asherah?) as well as the two incense altars that once stood in front of them. But I have been wanting to do this since W.G. Dever struck such a pose in one of my favorite Biblical Archaeology films, in which he debates C. Meyers about the goddess Asherah (I can't remember the title of this one - which I think was done for TLC - but I have it on tape if you missed it).

And look what was standing just outside the HOH, not far from the mudbrick altar - a grinding slab? Is it in situ? Is it meaningful in some way? Who knows.

By noon it was way too hot so we went to the 'city' of Arad to do something. We of course ended up in the mall, which was kind of cool because it is truly on the edge of the desert. I think we are actually doing a mall tour of Israel this summer, but what else can you do when it's so hot during the day? I think this action shot conveys the high-energy feeling of the Arad Mall.
Then we drove another half-hour to the part of the Dead Sea with all the resort hotels. I somehow convinced M that we needed to stay there that evening despite the price. We stayed in the crappiest resort hotel in the area (don't believe the pictures on their website - it is a bit decrepit but whatever), and we did get two good meals included in the fairly high price. Here's Lilah at the 'salad bar' - M's dream buffet of hummus, eggplant salads, cabbagey things, tehina, olives, etc. etc.

Lilah had scratched her back a bit during an outdoor toileting expedition at the tel earlier in the day, so when M carried her into the indoor salt pool she let out a shriek like you wouldn't believe (the Dead Sea water burns all fresh wounds, hangnails, freshly-shaven skin, etc.). So we hung out in the kiddie pool outside in an attempt not to bake in the 100+++ heat. In the evening, M went with all the Scandinavian tourists to the sea itself, where he floated for you.