Sorry it's been so long since I updated...

June 2

First Day of Digging. We were on the bus by 5:30. When we got to the dig site, we divided into the groups we would be digging with for the rest of time. Lauren and I had been joking about finding the Q source all semester, so we asked Elizabeth if we could work in Area C. She said of course and we were joined by various other people with whom we would become very close, very soon. Members of our group included: Tony, Eugene, Cowboy Nic, Michaela, Laura, Wilde, Joan, Katie, Ingrid, Katherine, Lauren and I. And Elizabeth.
To begin, we weeded and cleared leaves. After that we set up tarps and sifters. Then, then we finally got to start digging. This is so much less exciting than it sounds. What we did was this: loosened up the dirt, swept the dirt up into buckets, sift the buckets, repeat. We were not supposed to move larger rocks right away because they might make up a wall. (Rami thought that what we were digging might be a wall, but the results were still inconclusive by the time we left.) We cleared the dirt from around them, photographed the rocks and then moved them. And then we started the whole process again. I am very annoyed with myself for not getting before and after pictures of this.
Since this was our first day digging, we didn’t have everything straightened out as well as we did later. We were still sifting our own dirt this day (Tony, Eugene and Lauren took over this job later. We developed a system.) I only sifted about 2 buckets though; the system was starting to develop. Nic helped me with one of them. Pretty sure he was laughing at me because I was having trouble dumping the remaining rocks out of the sifter.
That day we followed what would become our normal routine in Area C. We would get to the site and set up the tarps and steal tools from the other groups. We would work until around 7:30 and then Wilde and Joan would leave to go set up breakfast. The rest of us would keep working until about 8:15 and then go down for breakfast. Breakfast consisted of hard boiled eggs, meat or cheese, cucumbers, tomatoes, bread, this really delicious chocolate spread (like nutella) and fruit. We would have about 45-60 minutes to eat before going back to work. We worked again until about 11:15 at which time we would have a Popsicle break, and Elizabeth would take us on our missions/secret adventures around the dig site. Tourists also came by every once in a while and would take pictures. That was kind of cool.
This was also the day that Elizabeth began to teach us songs which eventually helped turn us into the most musical of the sites. “Run Rabbit” was the song she taught us the first day; later on she would also teach us “Waltzing Matilda.”
After digging that day, I went down to the Lake to swim. Nate, Lauren and a few other people from Truman as well as the other groups were down there. I walked out to where Lauren, Nate and Nic were talking to the life guard Israel. Israel did not know English very well so it was an interesting experience. We were trying to learn Hebrew, and he was trying to learn more English. This created some interesting communication problems especially when we tried to figure out how to describe silly so Israel could tell us how to say it in Hebrew. I don’t think we ever managed to get that one. Nic was very interested in learning the Hebrew word for Beautiful (Yafeh or something along those lines.)
After swimming, I went over the museum where we finally got to see the Jesus boat (since the museum was actually open at this time.) I was also able to use the computers there, which was nice. I emailed my parents and updated my web log. The boat was not as exciting as I was hoping. There was a picture of it in our book for Mappold’s class this semester and frankly, that was enough. The process they used for getting the boat out of the lake was interesting, though. It took a lot of work and some polymer stuff to get it out of the lake without it disintegrating.
After seeing the Jesus boat, a couple of us went to the Kibbutz store. On the way there we saw a dog that looked like the offspring of a lion and a golden retriever. I decided to call it a digon. After not recognizing the front of the store, I lead everyone around the building before we actually went inside. It was pretty cool. Lots of food, labeled in Hebrew (who would have thought…). I bought some amazingly delicious chocolate truffle wafer bars. I also saw this really cool stroller that a lady had. It was a play pen on wheels.
At this point in the journal I was keeping I wrote “Quick dry clothes = amazing!” And they were. With the Amazing Israeli sun and very little humidity, my clothes could be washed and dried in under an hour.