I Made It Back! And it is HOT

Well, now I'm back in lovely Berlin! yay! After Lesley and Marcella and most all the other supervisors left, I felt extremely lonely and sad. I wasn't looking forward to Sunday at all when I went to bed Saturday night. I woke up right at 7am and laid around around 9am, trying to sleep more, but couldn't. I finally got up, showered, ate some of the leftover foods in the room for breakfast, and took the laptop out in search of internets, hoping also to bump into either Steve, Gary, or Dan to see what was up for the day in the dig house, etc. But no one was around, so I just interneted for a good long while before Gary finally found me and handed me the key to the dig house because they were heading out to Jerusalem for the day. I bought my train tickets to Bamberg to pick up my large suitcase from Kat and spend the night. :D That'll be this weekend!

I packed up pretty much all my stuff after internets and went for lunch in the cafeteria...but it was dark. I think I was pretty much the ONLY person staying there. But I didn't have much of an appetite, so I wasn't too disappointed. I skyped with the fam for a bit, took a nap, found a cup of noodles that Marcella never ate and ate that for lunch (thank you, Marcella!!!), finished packing what little was left for packing, and then I went wondering about with my camera around the kibbutz. Well, I didn't really stray too far because I actually found tremendously interesting things in the immediate area and played with some of the features on my camera and walked around barefoot. I also tried my hand at emo myspace pictures of myself. lol. They turned out horrible! It was the most beautiful day I had ever seen in Israel, so it was pretty impossible for me to feel sad about being alone. It was actually severely refreshing for me.

Then Steve, Gary, and Dan came back and I thought I'd lost the dig house key (turns out it fell out of my pocket when I was rolling in the grass for my self-photo shoot). I heard negotiations for coming back next year with the guest house peoples (who did nothing but sing our praises and can't wait for us to come back again next summer; they even said they want to have the people open up their houses and invite groups of us in for dinner or coffee some afternoons, which is super super nice of them to offer that!). Dinner was also dark in the cafeteria...so I didn't get to eat before we left for the airport. While saying our last goodbyes, Steve actually said to me, "I don't know if I asked you this personally, but you are mostly definitely invited back for next year." YAY! THEY LIKED ME! The only thing is the dates...June 16th to July 18th...MADDY'S WEDDING IS THE 20TH OF JUNE!!!! Gonna need to figure that one out....

We stopped to fill the gas tank in the rental car because it was on empty...it was over 250NIS!!!! That's....over $80 to fill a compact car's gas tank! *passes out* Gary's plane was scheduled to leave around 11:30pm and Dan's at like 12:30am...mine at 5am...which meant I was going to be sitting in yet another airport yet again! But I had heard wonderful things about the Tel Aviv Ben Gurion Airport, and let me tell you something. IT. IS. TRUE! I hadn't been so comfortable sitting all day at the Neve Shalom Guest House. Sure, a grilled cheese and olive sandwich with a large coffee for dinner was 50NIS and I had to use my card because I only had 20, but I sat in that area on some comfy table couches for 4 hours and finished reading "The Picture of Dorian Gray" (fabulous book, by the way, especially if you love cynical puns aimed at the society of the late 19th century in London). I was able to sort of doze off for about an hour, too. Not really sleep, but doze.

Of course getting through the security before check-in was slightly disastrous. Man, I am not quite aggressive enough for Israel. People kept butting in line in front of me for the x-ray machines. All I was thinking was, "These people are SO lucky that I am in absolutely no rush..." Then the machine decided to go bonkers JUST as my stuff was placed to go in. Took like 7 stickers...I don't know what the significants of the stickers were that he kept ripping off and replacing on my bags, but they seemed to be attached to making the machine work...Then I had to take my stuff to get inspected...of course. I had nothing to worry about, but you know how you always start to panic anyway? WHAT DID I PUT IN THERE THAT I DIDN'T KNOW I WASN'T ALLOWED TO HAVE?! I think it was just that my bags had dust on them from digging because the lady took like 5 swabs of my bags...OH and she laughed when she saw the hookah. I did not buy a hookah. Someone else bought this cute little hookah, and then on our LAST DAY in Jerusalem saw a large fancy one that he absolutely fell in love with and decided to buy that one too. I jokingly told him that he had to give me the little one then. He took it seriously. After the volunteers left, I had gone out on our back porch and there was the little box with the hookah in it. So I had to find room for this little hookah in my suitcase. sheesh.

ANYway...every x-ray machine check point, my bags got swabbed...lol. Then I finally get through and I see that I still have 2 hours before my plane even boards. So I walked around the duty free store for a bit...bought a large pack of mars bars...yum! And a ginourmous box of Kinder Bueno Bars for my precious brover Eric because I know how much he's in love with them. Didn't have enough sheckles...they asked if I had USDollars and I realized that...I DON'T HAVE ANY USDOLLARS, only Euros and Sheckles! haha. So I paid in Euros...but the bill was too big...so my change back was half in Euros and half in USDollars...so now I have $6. lol.

Then I took an hour nap in one of the large comfy chairs they have at the terminal. Boarded...flight went fine...arrived in Zurich with enough time to chill and wait for 15 minutes before boarding for BERLIN. And I saw the most beautiful site I have ever seen in the world: the Swiss Alps as the plane was ascending. It was so gorgeous. I have to get to them one day.

And now I'm in Berlin! Yay! Man it was HOT today! I had sweat rolling off me as I walked from the UBahn Station. And I wore jeans because I thought it would be nice weather. So I was HOT. When I got to the apartment, Suzanne came down to help me with the bags and was like, "Oh, it's really hot out there! Let me get you something cold to drink...." I went to change my literally WET clothes and saw that my face was beat red. lol. That's how hot it was. I hung out with Suzanne, talked for 2 hours, ate some broetchen (small roll with cheese/butter/marmalade), drank a tasty, cold bionade (organic fruit drink that the closest thing I could liken it to would be like flavored water...), and had a cup of "good health" Asian tea that Suzanne and Soeren's Japanese friend had brought for them when she visited them earlier in the summer.

I was revived enough to go to the Goethe Institut and take my test! I was slightly disappointed because I wanted to make it to B1,2 but I was quite solidly placed in B1,1. Oh wells. I'll just have to ask a lot of questions about the harder grammar that didn't quite stick in my head from the last semester of German at Lyco. Then I walked around a bit, bought some stuffs I knew I would need, bought some tasty 2euro pizza and an expensive and not very tasty 3,95euro organic bio iced cafe latte. Never going to that coffee place again! I know where the good one is, anyways. Then I bought my MonatPass for the UBahn. Stupid 72euro pass...so expensive...pff.

I think I want to actually take more of this time around to be a bit more of a loner. I almost clung to people last time around, but that one day by myself at Neve Shalom made me realize that I like to be alone, too. I want to explore a bit of the nicer (and FREE) things in Berlin...like the parks, the churches, the memorials. Stuff that I can sit and think about things in. I need to do some sitting and thinking, I think. ...HAHAHA!

I know I'm repeating myself, but I am excited about this weekend, heading down to Bamberg again to see Kat. She's going to be spending a lot of time studying, which is ok with me, because there are some places in Bamberg that I didn't get to see as much as I wanted to (particularly that little tea store...I want to get a bunch of tea....).

Ok, I think I'm gonna try to get up a bunch more Germany pictures from last time around up. Try and finish that off ASAP so I can get Israel up...I'll be doing this, of course, while I unpack and set up the room. OH! And I just got an invitation to eat the dinner that smells so yummy with Suzanne and Soeren. More foods!!!! *stuffs face*