Last Day

Today was the last day we had to hike up that hill and get dirty and exhausted. I'm glad it's over from that perspective. On the other hand, we have become very accustomed to the daily routine and attached to kibbutz life. At the site today we "cleaned up" the site (picked up rocks from around the site and swept walls and features). We also took many pictures, and Dr. Schuler took his end of the year photographs of the site. We brought all of our tools back to the shed as well. For lunch, we had one final meal in the dining hall. I slept quite a bit this afternoon, after a late night at the pub the previous night, during which Kat, Andrea, and had a fun discussion with Woytek, one of the Polish students. After napping this afternoon, Mark and I put on our running shoes for one final run north along the shore. My mileage total for running in Israel is 156, or about 250 km. After running I swam in the lake one last time, and it was rather wavy today. On the raft I talked to a 19 year old Israeli guy, a soldier, whose name was Kaisa (not sure of the spelling, but that's how it sounds). Next came our final dinner at the fish restaurant down at the lake. (It was fun, but honestly I could have gone for dinner at the dining hall one last time, especially because we had already paid for those meals.) I did some final shopping at the gift shop, and right now I'm typing. I still have to pack, read my bible by the lake one last time, and go the pub one last time. Tomorrow will be an early start, but that's fine with me, since I'm scheduled to be back in Minnesota before dark Friday night!

I still plan to write a season summary, based off of my notes from Dr. Schuler's final group lecture. Stay tuned for that, as it should be my last post.

So long from Israel, and thanks for following along!