Travelogue, July 3-12 July 13, 2009
Posted by argotnavis in Archaeology, Life, travel.add a comment
I arrived safely in Tel Aviv on the Fourth of July, and after an annoying delay, made my way into the city to stay at the Ophir Hotel for the night. The hotel was fairly decent, and was a good introduction to how certain things tend to work in Israel. The most important of these things, for me, is that, despite the number of coffee shops here, no one drinks decent coffee. Generally a “coffee maker” tends to refer to an electric jug and a packet of instant coffee, which isn’t quite what I have in mind when I say those same words. So far this has been the usual experience, though, and unfortunately I am quite bad at making instant coffee, which I didn’t even know was possible.
Anyway, on July 5th I made my way down to the Kibbutz Revadim to meet up with the rest of the dig team. The taxi driver had no idea where it was, and after calling someone finally decided to actually break out his GPS and figure it out. When we got to the kibbutz he told me he had quoted me a price that was far too cheap, given the distance, but that he’d let me have it anyway. This was sort of suspicious, since he charged me just about what everyone else was charged for the same trip, but he didn’t charge me any more, so no harm done.
The dig has been going quite well, and I think it’s definitely a good introduction to the months ahead. I’ll probably be some kind of archaeologist by the end of this.
Over the weekend we headed to Jerusalem and stayed in the lovely Petra Hostel, by the Jaffa Gate in the Old City. It’s not much, but for the price it’s a decent place to stay, once you get over the hole in the bathroom ceiling. We ended up seeing a lot of stuff, although since most of the time we had was on Saturday, some of the things we wanted to see, like Hezekiah’s Tunnel, were closed. It’s a very cool place, though, especially once you get over the narrowness of most of the streets. Unfortunately, I forgot my camera, so I have no pictures of this trip. Hopefully I’ll be able to get some of the pictures someone else took.
More to come.
