Alright...finally time to catch up on photos...

So here we begin way back again in time...back in Berlin. Yes, I am in Israel now, but let's go back about...a month.

One day we went to the Pergamon Museum. Instead of going with Goethe and paying 3euro or so, we decided to go on a Thursday evening, when it is completely free! Yay! The Pergamon is famous for housing the infamous Ishtar Gates of Babylon!!!! AAAAAAAAAAAAH!, the archaeologist in me screamed. It also has a ton on Greek and Roman stuff, of which I know considerably less than the Babylonians, Akkadians, etc. But on the way, we had to walk past Hachescher Markt. There was an Oompa Band! woop woop!

Notice the beer under the drum...lol.

The rest of the band...

And then we made it to the Pergamon!

OMGOMGOMGOMGOMG! THERE THEY ARE! THE ISHTAR GATES!!!!

And again!!! Oh look, it's Bahaous!

The Ox, and important figure in Babylon...one of the major deities of Babylon...

Equally mystical, mystifying, and mythological: the dragon!

Symbol of strength and power in most every culture: the lion!

These gates are made of mudbrick and then fired and painted over in blue glaze. This is an amazing piece of art and architecture, not only for its sheer size and beauty, but because these bricks were individually sculpted and laid in a specific way so that if even one brick was out of place, it would have ruined the entire thing. It's unsure whether they were laid, sculpted and then fired (which would have been exceedingly difficult, since they weren't fired first) or if they were individually sculpted without putting it together first, which would have allowed for tons of errors. However, the gate's scultpure is quite nearly perfect, so it's unsure how exactly this was done...

Ok, it came out blurry, but any archaeologist with the slightest knowledge of Old Testament/Pre-Israelite history would be giggled senseless to see this: ASSURNASIRPAL II!!!!! Yes, one of his standing stones with Cuneiform writing was here!!! AAAAHHH!!!

An example of cuneiform. I want to learn this language SO BAD! This is, unfortunately, not Assurnasirpal's tomb stone, but someone else's. The picture of took of 'nassir's came out badly...

A reconstruction of the Ishtar Gates. Unfortunately, my pictures caught the glare from the glass and this was the best picture...

I should consider myself a terrible archaeology student for not remembering who this guy is. It's NOT Sargon II or Assurnasirpal or Assurbanipal or Supiuliuma. Unfortunately, Lesley and Marcella don't remember either. I'll be asking Heather or Kristina when they arrive (which will be in a few hours! yay!)

This is some of us who went. Left to right: Tanya, Carles, Bahaous, and Monica. I don't know who the two guys on the end are. Other people visiting the museum...

Some beautiful Muslim artwork. I believe this is suppose to be around and alter of some kind, but I don't know enough of the Islamic religion to really say.

Tehe, a funny picture of Tanya, Carles, and Nicola looking through window arches at the beautiful golden ceiling above. Unfortunately those pictures didn't really come out either...

An above view of some of the Ishtar gates!!!! What a spectacular view that must have been, to walk into Babylon through these massive beautiful gates...

Some Greek mosaics. Look at how they made those square swirls come out in 3D!!!!

Hahahaha. Bahaous and Michele posing as the two figures in the Greek sculpture. For a better view of the figures, click on the picture to enlarge it! haha.

Ok, end of this post, next post will have some more pictures...which should be soon.

Yay! I have Internets!

So, haha. I figured out why I couldn't get my internet to work. Yea, my wireless card was turned off. Yep, that's me for ya. haha, oh wells. But now I can Skype without any problems! Yay!

Well, tonight it's already a bit late, but I should hope to get some pictures up tomorrow during some down time...when I get downtime. Um, but it's like 10:30pm now...and breakfast is at 7am. So I should probably get to bed now...or at least soon. And copy down our timetable that's written on the board in here.

Some things I super missed about Israel:

• the crazy music video channel with really weird French music
• HUMMUS & PITA
  
• Bravo juice...mmmm...
• the wafer cookies
• the lovely sea breezes from noon on
• the pottery washing area
• the dig house
• the drippy air conditioning
• the crazy drivers
• that the airport's architecture attempts to copy the ancient Middle Eastern look
  

Things I'm looking forward to/am already happy about for this year:

• so many people who've returned from last year and are now supervisors (Lesley, Marcella, Jason, Mindy, Bonnie!)
  
• so many people who will be joining us whom I already know (Kristina and Heather!)
• possibly running my own square (also scared to death for this)
• the first day working on the tel
  
• the first grocery store run
• the first trip into Jerusalem
• a trip to Tel Aviv and a stop at Eran's cafe and Jaffa for the best hummus in Israel (or at least Tel Aviv)
• swimming in the Mediterranean
• keeping up to date with the UEFA Cup (um...I don't know what exactly it stands for, but it's the European World Cup). I'm getting live commentary from ESPNLive right now for the Germany-Portugal game! GO GERMANY! BOO RENALDO YOU WHINY BABY! (Kat, make sure you tell Hannes about that last bit. Stupid Renaldo...)

Ok, I guess it's bedtime. But i just wanted to let you all know that I have internets again! YAY!

Right...A "Brief" Update...

Man, it's awfully hard to get used to an English keyboard again! Well, I am sadly not typing to you from my computer. It's decided to be testy and not connect to the internet provided here. Stupid. I'll try to make it work...maybe if I just moved to another location...

Anywho, as you can probably tell, I've made it ISRAEL!!!!! YAY!!!! It's been so amazing already. Let's see, where to begin. Well, I guess my flights. I made it just fine to Berlin airport after 3 hours sleep at Kristina's apartment. I was early for my flight and decided to use the bathroom quickly before boarding. There were a few other women who had decided the same thing. I get out and notice that it was almost completely empty, but there was still a good 40 minutes to take off. So I walked up and the lady taking the tickets said that we had to wait for the bus to come back. TO COME BACK??? BUS??? I was confused. Turns out that for regional flights, you don't actually board like usual...you take a bus to the plane and then get to walk out on the run way and walk up the steps - LIKE THE BEATLES! LOL! Anywho, the bus was late, therefore, the flight missed the departure time, and we had to hop back in line and wait another 15 minutes. Ok, no big deal, I thought, I have an hour to get to my transfer flight in Zurich. Well, we unloaded at the complete opposite end of the airport, were more than 20 minutes late (SOMEHOW I don't know), and I read the board wrong or something, because I headed out to Terminal A, went through security check, only to find out I had to go to the complete other side at Terminal E. I ran. Fast. And made the transfer train (I had to take a TRAM to get to the terminal...) just as it arrived, and made my boarding halfway through the process. This flight was also 20 minutes late. But that was fine with me because I knew that I was meeting my fellow supervisors in Tel Aviv.

So I get through security unimaginably fast with no fuss AND picked up my bag in record time! Then I waited 45 minutes for the other peoples. Didn't show up yet. Um, ok...so I went through customs super fast (I had nothing at all to declare) and immediately saw Eric, my square supervisor from last year! Yay! He was there to pick us all up! Well...some of us. Other supervisors got rental cars. Unfortunately, Eric won't be staying for the dig, he was here for the last 5 weeks on the survey.

But eventually everyone showed up and we all headed out and got here! It's so awesome to be back in a place that is so familiar. Lesley and Marcella are my roommates! YAY! We had two hours until dinner, so we chilled, unpacked, flipped on the Israeli music station, when all of a sudden we hear this sudden WHOOOOOOOOOOSSSSSHHHHHHHHHHH. And it continued with a SSSSHHHHHHH! And I looked at Lesley and we said, "What's that?!" Marcella looked up from around the corner and said, "That's not you guys?" We peer into the bathroom, and here the main water hose broke!!! Water was flying HIGH and hitting the ceiling and spraying the entire bathroom! Water slowly built up and creeped out the door. Quick thinking Lesley figured out how to turn the water off. So the next five minutes we used the squeedgy to get the water outside. We talked to the reception and told them what happened before dinner. We came back from the usual scrumptious meal of chicken legs, cucumber and tomato salad, hummus, pita, kraut, and rice and corn! YUM! I was very happy. Even the orange mystery drink was there again! *sigh* We were all so happy.

Then Steve Ortiz gave his first announcement of the season about what our plans were as far as setting up the dig house, getting the site ready, cleaning out the tool shed. It took a while for it to sink it that we are going to be in charge and setting up. It's quite frightening, to be honest. Lesley, Marcella, and I were talking about it, and we're possitively terrified. But I think we'll be ok.

Saturday all the volunteers arrive, and we'll be in meetings all day! Yay for meetings! haha.

But the main point of all of this was to let you know that I am alive and well in the amazing country that is ISRAEL!!! WHOOP! ok, that is all, I'm off to bed. Good Night.

Brief Update but No Pics...

Ok, doesn't appear to be any pictures. Internet's not letting me upload them. Stupid internets. I hope it doesn't do this to me while I'm in Israel...I had the best luck when I was in Berlin. Wait...but I'm using Kat's computer. Stupid Kat's computer! I mean, wait, I'm sorry Kat's computer!

Anywho, I had quite a lovely time with my widdle bruvver. tehe. It was quite enjoyable but at the same time made me realize that if Eric and I ever lived together by ourselves for a much longer period of time, I think we may kill each other. lol. This is why one doesn't live with siblings, I suppose. haha. But we went all over Bamberg a million times, saw two of the Germany games for the European Football Cup. They lost the first and won the second, but they've won a total of 2 out of 3, which means they go on to the quarter finals! Yay for Germany!!!!

Our room would have been considered a wee bit small, but for two people just staying a week, it was perfect. It was like a miniature beach house...without the beach. But a lovely view of the mountains around Bamberg. Oh, and dad, I asked Kat's dad, the Matterhorn is in Switzerland and so almost a 5 hour drive from Bamberg. lol.

We went to Nürnberg and saw the zoo (where the horrendously popular polar bear cub Flocke is!) and I took quite a few pics and videos. Yes, we did go see the polar bear cub, who's grown quite large already, and snapped a few pics. There were BLEACHERS so people could SIT and WATCH the bear for presumably and infinite amount of time. Um, Eric and I left after I got my couple pictures. He was just chillin on his little bear bed by the water, so it wasn't extremely interesting. After the zoo we went to the Dokument Zentrum, where they have a museum about WWII and the Nürnberg Trials. There were even copies of entire original manuscripts and presumably the original recordings of the Nürnberg Trials. It would have been quite a bit more interesting for me had my stupid little audio device decided to work. But it didn't! So I did my best to understand the written German descriptions and shared Eric's audio thingy for the various movies. The museum was placed inside one of the many abandoned Nazi buildings Hitler had built all over Nürnberg. It was named the most German city of Germany and so made the center of Hitler's huge parades, celebrations, speaches, and architectural triumphs, most of which were never completed. I wanted to walk around and see more of the abandoned half-buildings, but Eric was "bored" and "tired" so we went back to the center of the city and got some ice cream and wandered the streets for a bit until our train left. It was a nice day.

Super early this morning I saw Eric off at the Bahnhof. His train left at 7:02am. Yep, that meant we woke up at 5am to make it in time. I actually almost cried. I was sad to see my widdle bruvver leave. ;___;

Then I took a bus back to the apartment, finished packing, and carted my stuff back to Kat's (with her help, of course). Currently I am having the last of my laundry washed up so as to have the optimum number of clean underware and socks for Israel upon arrival. lol. My train leaves tonight at 6:16pm for Berlin. There I'll be staying with a friend overnight (I'll be arriving about 10:30pm at the Hauptbahnhof) and waking super super early (7:15am) to make my plane to ISRAEL ISRAEL ISRAEL ISRAEL ISRAEL!!!!!!! Can you tell I'm quite a bit excited to go to ISRAEL. I really love that country. *sigh* I can't wait to start digging again!!!!! After a brief layover in Zürick, Schweiz (Zurick, Switzerland....there are coincidentally NO flights directly from Germany to Israel and NO German Airlines that fly into Israel...talk about holding a grudg! lol), I'll arrive in Tel Aviv Ben Gurion Airport at about 2:30pm (Israel is either 7 or 8 hours ahead of the East Coast...I can't quite remember...). omgomgomg, this time tomorrow I'll pretty much be in ISRAEL!!!!!! *ahem* anyways.

Luck seems to have shined a bit on me for my travels because the other supervisors who are arriving on a group flight from New York at 2:55pm. I merely need to wait 30 minutes or so in the airport and get to head out with all the supervisors!!! Yay!!! I won't be traveling to Neve Shalom Kibbutz all by my lonesome, though I am quite used to it by now. It's really not such a big deal...though maybe that's because Germany's public transit is one of the more reliable and safest in at least all of Europe. In Israel, I think the only way I'd be able to get to Neve Shalom would be by taxi (but with all the supervisors, I think we'll have our travel bus...or car rentals...), which wouldn't have been too cheap, and is quite safe...except for the way the taxi drivers actually drive...or the way that EVERBODY drives in Israel, which is as fast and crazy as you can drive. Seriously. haha.

I'll be leaving my humungous red suitecase here with Kat and only taking my little suitecase and my carry on. Thank God. That'll be MUCH easier...But then I may have to take a train back to Bamberg AGAIN to pick it back up. However, Kat said that she wanted to come up to Berlin and see the city again and kill two birds with one stone by seeing me as well! But that would all depend on what her testing schedule is like, because that begins in the beginning of August. Must wait this one out a bit...but hopefully not for long.

Ok, wells, I should probably stop typing now and get back to finishing all my repacking and what not. I'll update about arriving in Israel as soon as I have a chance to use my computer! Not sure how long that will be...we'll see...SHALOM! ...Well...I need to get ready for ISRAEL.

A Few More Pics!

Well, today Kat and I said goodbye to Denise and Melissa. They're on their way back to London...and then they leave tomorrow back for the U.S. of A. Oh yesh. And then tomorrow...ERIC COMES! YAY! We pick him up from the train station at 1:30ish pm. But here are a few more pic updates. Here are some of the peoples from Lyco who went on the Berlin May Term whom I met up with! I forgot to get a pic of Dr. Cagle! :( I'll steal from peoples' pictures...

Yay! There's me eating a Rostbrotwürstchen! Yummay! And Kristina. Hello Kristina!

Mmmm...leftovers from people who had eaten there previously. The bird thought that German food was yummy, too.

It's my roomie! Hiiiiii Heaather!!! And Kristina again!

I don't really know this kid too well, but his name is Eric. He ordered Berliner....ah, poo, I forget what it's called. But they take Berliner Kindl, Berlin's super advertised beer (equivilent to Coors or Bud) but you can order it "red" or "green" and they put Raspberry or whatever the green stuff is, and it's syrrup, and it's super sweet, and it's just god awful tasting. blech.

Here is a pic of the Prater Bier Garten. It was so cool.

This was us at the super duper yummy Middle Eastern restaurant, which I'm going to go to again when I get back to Berlin! Super Yummy! I want their HUMMUS and I'll compare it to Israel! *licks lips*

Yay! This was the night we went out in search of the night club Tresor. It was ok for me, but Heather was living it up. That's really her thing. haha. Oh, the girl in the maroon tank top is Martha.

Well, that's all for now...I need to transfer more pics from my laptop to my thumb drive so I can upload them from Kat's laptop. Wait...I'll be at that little apartment tomorrow...I could just use internet then! Yay! I won't have to keep mooching from Kat!

I went back to Berlin today to get my enormous red suite case back from Suze and Sören. I sat and talked with Suzanne for the longest I'd ever sat and talked with her. It was nice. I also met up with Kristina for lunch before her Goethe Institut class, too. She seems to be doing really well! I'm glad, we were all a bit worried for her, but she seems to have adapted to the situation quite nicely. Next Monday when I head back to Berlin to fly out to ISRAEL (WOOOOOOOO!!!!!), I'm going to spend the night with her. My flight leaves Berlin Tegel Airport around 7:30am, but the latest train from Bamberg to Berlin is 12:30am. The next train would get me to the Hauptbahnhof at 6:30, which is cutting it WAY too close, seeing as it takes at least 30 minutes by bus to get from there to the airport. So I gentely asked if her hosts would be ok with me spending just one night. Kristina has an extra bed in her room, so it wasn't a problem at all. SWEET! FREE STAY! tehe.

Ok, wells, I guess I'll get to reorganizing my stuffs. That's my update and more pictures to come later, and I will make more of them. Oh, these pictures look really small. Sorry about that...I'll have to make sure that's fixed for the next post. If you can't see the pics, just click on them and they'll open up bigger...

Bis dann!