Tuesday....

So, the second day of class started with a trip to a museum that house a huge model of the city during the first temple period. The museum worker gave us a full presentation on it. When we got out our professor started this long diatrabe at her in hebrew and a girl next to me whispered, he's telling her all the ways the model is wrong! I thought he was trying to be tactful by speaking Hebrew, but then he turns to us and goes "Ah, as I was just telling her, the model is all geographically wrong, I told them to have a geographer on hand when they made it but no, the topographical lines..." and so on. Later in the museum he pointed out the wrong maps and how there were even different versions of the same map in the museum which was clearly confusing. I LOVE that he's so openly critical of like, the rest of academia as a freakin whole. He's like no, everyone ELSE is wrong...I'm right.

So, the museum was fun, we learned about burial grounds, and artifacts like jewlery and ancient hebrew writing and you can even trace back some of our english letters to the picture forms so we know why our letters are shaped the way they are! Havent you even wondered why an m looked like an M? There's a reason. Yeah.

So then we wandered the Jewish quarter of the old city where he disproved more scholars on ancient pavement that they said was a road and he said was a plaza. By the way, he has his reasons, which sometimes he shares and sometimes he doesn't for fear of word getting around and someone else stealing it before he can publish on it. Which he swears has happened before. He gives us hints that none of us get.

So, class is always interesting with this guy!

After class I was really excited to go on the tour to Jaffa and Tel Aviv. And Jaffa was beautiful! Right by the mediterranean sea! Yeah it was great until I realized our tour guide sucked and he would rather sit us down and show off his knowledge than SHOW us things. He told us all these random stories about Napoleon and one of his wives, and medusa and different versions of greek myths that were told in Jaffa prior to the greek ones and all this random stuff while we melted in the hot sun. I THINK they had some connection to Jaffa but he was crap at mentioning that. Or maybe I missed it. Consistently for three hours. It would have been fine if he had been a good story teller, but his english was so heavily accented and somewhat broken that half the time we could follow it at all! So, by the end, as his stories got less and less relevent and we fell further and further behind I wanted to strangle him.

By the end I was almost angry, since we didnt even get to Tel Aviv and left and hour late. I mean it was painful just sitting and not getting to see stuff, finally getting up and around the corner we'd be sitting down again. Someone even asked "Does he think we dont LIKE the walking part???"

Though we did get to go to a flea market and have some free time. I finally bartered. I was so happy with myself I didnt realize how much useless shit I bought. Everything there was absolute junk but I just loved the feeling of getting a shop keeper to settle on MY price. Though after i left and realized I had bought yet another thing I didnt need and my pride wore off, I was hitting myself for wasting money. But I finally felt I was doing it RIGHT! It meant a lot, if for the experience if nothing else.

The worst part is the nicest necklace I bought the charm fell off. BUT I realized and picked it up. Then going to put the charm and necklace in my backpack I realized the charm was no longer in my hand, even though I was maybe ten feet away from where I had dropped it. I looked around, it wasn't on the ground, or in my bag which I had just unzipped. Had it fallen in the minute I had taken to move to the side and unzip my bag? It couldnt have, I was holding it! In my hand! I think the shopkeeper magically took it back. I was so devestated. I had gotten two necklaces for 50 shekel, around 12 dollars, which is fine, but the cheaper one was not worth that much alone, and that's what im left with!

Then I got an anklet and ring for forty shekel (ten dollars) and another necklace for 30 shekel (7 dollars) so in all I had spent 30 dollars and should have gotten three nacklaces, a ring, and an anklet. Not bad. Especially when they were starting me off at 180 shekel a necklace! That's almost 50 bucks!

So. Still sad about the charm I lost. But but but, tomorrow Jessie and I and another girl, Cary ARE GOING TO THE BEACH. Its a meditarannean beach! I have been trying to get more people but it's so hard to get a group together. Like, really hard, between different class schedules, non returned calls and texts and...well, that's it. BUT I am going to the beaaaach! Win win win win win win win win. Nothing better go wrong or I will cry!

Edit: one more girl is in!