More From Israel!

Alrighty! Here are some more pictures of Israel! First up, our day in Tel Aviv at the beach! Yay! Lesley, Marcella, and I had quite an adventure using the Israeli bus system, but everyone was very helpful. The bus driver even drove a bit out of his way to drop us off at a stop for the bus that would take us directly to the beach. ^_^

There was a little mall by the beach we went to...and there were these statues of naked guys playing accordions upside down...um, I don't really understand, but hey, it's Tel Aviv...

Alright, this was an on-going joke we have with one of the supervisors from last year. So, we've said that Marcella had a romantic fling with this guy named "Shlomo"...that's Hebrew or "Solomon"...and we're looking for evidence of the gate at Gezer being "Solomonic". Ok ok ok...it's an archaeology joke, probably went over some people's heads...

Yay! The beach!!!!

Except that there were the black flags of DEEEAAATH! Which meant we couldn't go swimming. Nuts.

But they don't mean that we're not allowed in the water...hehehe. Yay! My feet in the Mediterranean! Oh wow, you can see my flip flop tan pretty well...

Um, yea, there were lots and lots, I means LOTS AND LOTS of jelly fish. Dead jelly fish. And they were large jelly fish. Here's Lesley poking one with a stick to make sure it's dead...

Yep, it's dead...

Since we couldn't go swimming, we decided to go climb on the wave breakers. There were people fishing on it! And you can also see the prettiness of Israel back there. That must be the nice area of Tel Aviv. Shucks. We got stuck with a dirty section of beach.

A surfing school! No, I'm making a pun on a "school of fish"; these kids were seriously in a surfing school, learning how to surf. It was nifty to watch.

Yea! Climbin' on the rocks!

Lesley's king of the rock!

Waves breaking against the rocks...pretty...

The dirtiness of the beach we were at. Gross foamy stuff...and a foam letter "s". Uh huh...

So we made ourselves a glace...glaci...glacee (WHY DON'T I KNOW HOW TO SPELL THAT WORD?!) to keep the waves back! Just as in ancient times, ancient glacis protected the city from waves of invading enemies!!! Yes, we are geeks. Oh yea, what is a glaci? It's a man-made, very steep, earthen rampart built up along the sides of a city to prevent the enemy from easily invading the city.

Haha, this is one way we archaeologists document our progress. Those brick-like things that the photo board, meter stick, and north arrow are sitting on are, in fact, mudbricks from the destruction level!!! dun dun dun!!! We were removing them because they were in the way of our finding the good stuff underneath the destruction level. Stupid mudbricks. hahaha. Poor Sam, he was our designated photographer this season...and he's awfully afraid of heights.

Alright, now I move on to the JERUSALEM TOUR WITH GAVI BARKEI!!!!!!! WOOOO!!!!

A beautiful overview of Old City Jerusalem, including the Temple Mount and Dome of the Rock (golden dome) with the southern wall of the city and New City to the south (bottom of the picture). And yes, everything you see in this picture is now modern day Jerusalem. It's fairly large.

Oh, more of Jerusalem. That's the Mount of Olives and the Jewish Cemetery in the middle of the photo.

OMG, THERE'S HERODIAN! That place is amazing. It's the super large volcano-looking mountain in the distance. It's also in the west bank. That's where Herod built a large fancy palace-fortress for himself, swimming pool included!, and where his grave has very recently been discovered. The buildings on the hill in the foreground are part of Jerusalem, I think...

Yea! That's the outer wall of Jerusalem during the First Temple Period (King Solomon), proving that Jerusalem was much larger than originally thought. Um...I believe this was discovered, erm, in the 60's? I can't remember...it proved Kathleen Kenyon's theory wrong. I don't remember exactly when that was...I'm such a terrible archaeologist...psh.

Yea! That's Gavi! THE GAVI BARKEI! The man in the green hat. He took us inside this little cafe place in the Jewish quarter of Old City to show us the medieval (?) ceiling that's still in use.

GREEEEEEEK!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Ok, I don't have my lexicon, so I can't translate. Sh, don't tell Dr. Johnson! But the transliteration is "Metochion Gethseimanase". Ok, the second word is "Gethsemane" in English. But I don't know what "metochion" is...neuter accusative singular. lol.

Ah, here is the Holy Sepulcher!

Ah! I'm caught in the middle of a battle between a crusader knight (left) and a Muslim soldier, most likely a Janissary - Islamic elite forces during the Ottoman Empire(?) (right)!!!! haha. *super serious face* Don't ever say "crusade" in the Middle East unless you have a death wish. No lie. And no, I was not stupid enough to say that. I won't ever say that. I don't want to know what happens if one were say just things.

Hahahaha, ok. This is Transvestite Belle. She is Lesley and Kristina's traveling gnome. She was birthday present for Lesley from Kristina a few years ago, but she's one of those knock-off dollar store barbi dolls, supposedly Princess Belle, so she looks really funny. In fact, she looks like a man. So they dubbed her "Transvestite Belle" or "Tranny Belle", and they take her along for all their world travels and take pictures of her in random places. It's super amusing. Here's Tranny Belle with the possible Janissary.

Lesley (left) and Kristina (right) posing as the statues. hahaha.

My roomies and fellow Lyco assistant supervisors! yay! Marcella's on the left and Lesley on the right.

HAHAHAHAHAHA. Man, ok, this picture completely sums up Nate. I was trying to get an awesome picture of Gavi...and I think that may be Dr. Knauth next to him, but Nate jumped into the picture at the last minute. It was his goal to jump into at least one picture that EVERYONE took. I do believe he succeeded.

Hehehe, this was actually telling us how high the water level is in Hezekiah's tunnel, but you could get a picture of yourself as the kid. Silly roomie. That's my Lyco roomie, Heather!

Tranny Belle was jealous and wanted to get in on the action, too. haha.

The Jewish cemetery on the Mount of Olives.

Oh man, having the most prominent archaeologist of Jerusalem as your tour guide is the best thing ever, because he can get access to anywhere he wants! We actually got to see the (Albright Institute's?) archaeology of the City of David! Hell yea! This is a bath, possibly a mikveh (Jewish holy bath for cleansing purposes)?

Man, Albright Institute with their "in" with the Antiquities Authority. Psh, don't tell me they're not prejudiced. Psh, they get to dig with a conveyor belt to move their dirt out. Psh, we're just more "serious" archaeologists because we can push wheel barrows! No, I'm just whining, they can't use wheel barrows because there's no where for a wheel barrow path, and they have to dig underneath of a walkway, and it would be just too difficult to dig without that conveyor belt. (Disclaimer: That entire explanation was just in case someone read this who would be horribly offended by my difficult-to-realize sarcasm and in obvious whining).

Um, so...this is what happens when you ask a good friend to hold your camera and purse while you use the bathroom...

Oh man, Sara, that's a severely attractive face. lol.

BONNIE! WATCH OUT! A MONSTER'S ABOUT TO EAT YOUR HEAD AND NATE IS ABOUT TO RUIN YET ANOTHER PICTURE OF MINE! Psh, look at that face. She knows that you can't touch that...

hahahahahahhaha ahahah ah hahahhahaha hahhahaha. HA. I love these people.

Yet again, Tranny Belle, that attention whore, wanted to get in on the action...

...by attacking Sara and Michelle!

Outside Hezekiah's tunnel on the steps of, I believe, the Siloam pool. Gavi giving some more of his very long yet very interesting speeches.

Smile, Marcella! We always said she would make a perfect model...

Lesley saved our lives from the giant cricket! Haha, fun back in the room. This was also a few weeks after we had the very large scorpion in the bathroom.

Yea! That's my silo in my square!!! ^-^ It was about 1m in width and we went down about 70cm...and still haven't found its bottom.

Two of my volunteers, Roger (left) and Nole (right). AND GOOFAS! The goofas are between the two of them. An archaeologist's most treasured tool...after a trowel, of course.

Kristina! She found a pretty little jugglet next to the tiny wall in the square she was working in. This is what a real archaeologist looks like. Oh yea... haha! There's even a little MC box in the pottery bucket!!! AND A BONE BAG! Oh man...haha. Oh, MC is "material culture", e.g. flint, worked stone, metal, worked ceramic, beads, charcoal, olive pits, other carbon material, etc. AND she's using her trowel PERFECTLY, I might add. And makushone! wait...that's not how it's spelled. It's a Hebrew word that means, "little pick". And also a hard brush and dust pan!

Alright, this is a video of Gavi in Hezekiah's tunnel talking about it's discovery by, I believe, Charles Warren and it's natural formation and maybe a bit of Hezekiah's project? You can hear the kids in the background that annoyed him so much. hahaha.

Yea! Walking into the tunnel!!!! Super cool....

Aw, man, my stupid wireless mouse just died on me. Now I need to buy batteries...psh. Alright, I have just one more week left in Israel, but it's a lot of pictures and I don't feel like trying to do them right now...I think I'm gonna do my homework and try to watch some TV, which I haven't done in a while. Or maybe read. Or study German. HAHAHAHA!

Ok, I'm off!