But only briefly, as it was way too hot to be in this thing after like 8:30 am. Generally we enjoyed the lovely weather; there was lots of outdoor dining on the picnic table outside of our room. Here we ate, among other things, giant pita and labneh with zaatar. This pita is so big that it can be worn as a skirt.
The crowded kibbutz pool was full of helpful signage.
The kibbutz is near Nazareth, so we spent yesterday there walking around downtown, briefly visiting the Church of the Annunciation, and touring Nazareth Village. L really liked the doors to the church; she keeps talking about how small Jesus is in these images. There were also lots of beautiful mosaics of Mary and Jesus by artists from countries all over the world.
And then we went to Nazareth Village. I have been using this as an example in classes for a few years but had never been there until yesterday. Basically, it is a faux Roman village from the time of Jesus with reenactors, animals, traditional crafts, etc. It was not as cheesy as I expected, which is something, but I have some complaints. For one, it was noon and hot, and there were only like 2 reenactors working plus a couple of goats and a donkey. For some reason we didn't get a tour of all the reconstructed buildings, which made me pretty annoyed as there were some pretty good installations, tools, etc. that I wanted to take pictures of. Our guide was ok, but honestly his inauthentic dress, Sprite bottle, and frequent text-messaging were all wrong.
Here is a member of our group with one of the reenactors on the watchtower.
This olive press was used pretty recently, as it still had olive chunks and delicious-smelling oil on it.
The reconstructed synagogue was really nice, and Lilah was all smiles in the relative coolness in there.
I sort of recommend this place. In cooler weather with more reenactors it would be better. The gift shop was full of great stuff but it was way expensive (which didn't deter me). We got little replica Roman lamps as souvenirs, and successfully burned one last night while watching Snow White for the millionth time.
Here we are making little cats and dogs in marzipan, most of which did not survive the trip back to Degania.
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.
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!
