Day Two - better

Day two was great. We started excavating and were assigned to our squares which meant less carrying and more working with a trowel. I like my team, everyone works very hard and is focused. Sleeping has not been easy as I have an Olympic gold medal snorer in my room. Honestly, I considered driving home last night and even did the calculation, one hour drive home at 9pm and up at 3:30 to get to the Tell by 5 - that would leave 5 and a half hours sleep at least. Which was probably more than I thought I would get. I was tired though and so toughed it out. What can you do. I even called bwo and let her listen to the unbelievable sound and she was speechless. This is real excellence in action.

Today was really great. I loved that there is so much to learn and everyone is so patient and happy to answer even the most trivial of questions. Usually in the afternoons we will be washing pottery, but seeing as we have only just started excavation, there is no pottery yet, so we had a few free hours before our first fieldwork course lecture at 6pm. Then supper at 7 and a talk at 8. So it's a full day. Somewhere in between all this I will have to think about doing the reading for my University of Leicester class and do the work for the fieldwork class I am taking here. But, all in all the people are great and I am learning so much. The weather has been fine and the kibbutz is breezy with wonderful views of the hills. So it's quite a happy blackpetero you have here today. I know, I know, it's not what you pay me for - I am sure I will find lots to be miserable about (I do have the snoring thing though).

Here is a picture that Eric Cline, one of the big bosses took on day one. You can see I get dirty. I'm more like dirtydustypetero than anything else. You can see my trusty swarmy knife in my hand as I work on the constant job of getting our shade to behave.