New Session

On Friday, Monica, Chelsea, James and I decided to share a taxi to the nearby city of Yokne'am. The main objective was to eat a meal that was not located on or provided for by the kibbutz, so we sat at an Italian joint and had some small pizzas, which were decent. The restaurant was in a small mall, so we stayed there for about three hours, just to take money out of the ATM, look at the stores and make some purchases. I bought a book, The Long Earth by Terry Pratchett & Stephen Baxter because I'd already read through the four books I brought along (O What a Paradise it Seems by John Cheever; Better Living Through Plastic Explosives by Zsuzsi Gartner; The Bay of Love and Sorrows by David Adams Richards; and The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien, which I'd read in Grade 7 and wanted to read again before the movie came out.) So far, I'm more than halfway through and it's pretty good. We stopped at the pharmacy since we all seemed to need something from there; I picked up a hot compress for my neck (which was already feeling better by that morning) and sunscreen since I'd run out.

Saturday was sort of a lazy day. It wasn't totally unproductive - I did a load of laundry (by washing in buckets and putting on a rack to dry) and then I went to the pool with my new roommate, Katherine. She's actually in my area but was one of several who had to move rooms in order to accommodate the new arrivals coming later that evening. Nick joined us at the pool and we took a couple of dips in the water, and a couple of drying sessions. Later on, I was hanging out with the Yokne'am crew and we had some beers while we waited for the buses to bring the new people. Katherine and I received two new roommates, which makes for a slightly tighter squeeze than when I shared it with only two others, but so far, we seem okay.

Today (Sunday) was the first day of the new session. We were told the previous day at dinner that we had to board the bus fifteen minutes later because when we get up to the Tel at 5:00 to work, it's still too dark to see anything, so the extra time will give us more sunlight. The upshot is we get to sleep in a tad later; it's only fifteen minutes but it means so much!
I was given a new square to work in and was told to level it down so we could better see the walls, and see if we could find the bottom of it yet or if it kept going. I only got down one layer because I kept finding small bird bones which slowed me up a little bit (very interesting though - I found six whole vertebrae pieces and 1-centimetre-long complete bones). As I was straightening the profiles of the trench sides (which seemed to have been done a bit shoddily by the previous workers there last session! The walls were flat but not straight down to the ground) I found a faience bead and small broken piece of bronze within five minutes of each other. Lucky day, and a great way to begin the new session. Hopefully I get to keep up with this trench a bit longer and not get moved around quite so much, but we shall see.