Last day. s***. THE last day. I don't know exactly how it got to be the last day of my time in Israel. I know, I know, "time flies when you are having fun", but really there are some things you cannoy explain, there are some times when some little phrase does not cut it. Honestly, the bonds that we have made here are the strongest that I have ever seen. People keep asking "did you know so-and-so before you came?" as if it is impossible to become so close to someone in the short weeks that we have. But that is life I suppose, that is "how the cookie crumbles".

I spend a lot of time saying "change is good", and I have some difficulty believing it sometimes...who wants to leave a good things? Who wants to leave something fun and exciting behind them for the unknown? Well, change may be good, but leaving is hard. The past few days have been spent wondering what it is going to be like to not have to wake up at 4am, been spent wondering what it will be like to ACTUALLY have breakfast food for breakfast and not a sandwich. Most of us decided that we are all going to miss those sandwiches after being home for about a week.

My area had a little bit of a mess up the past week, little did we know that the plan for opening the area was to get a topographic wide spread view of the tel, not to dig a big trench like in areas K and J. As Finkelstien puts it "exposure but no penetration" (...without a doubt the BEST that's-what-she-said moment), so the last couple days have not been spent digging in our beloved squares, but rather clearing more ground for the new squares that are going to be opened in the next couple of weeks by the newbies and the 7 weekers. I guess that's okay...I know they would just mess my square up anyway.

we all sort of worked hard. Really hard. Potential slave labor hard. Oh-my-God-I-am-so-tired-I-want-to-die hard. The exhaustion that sets in at 8PM and seems never to be cured with sleep creates a mind numbing sensation where time has no control. Day after day of pick axing, digging, burning, sweating, yelling, hitting snooze, eating hummus, hiking the tel, hydrating, clearing areas, sweeping....oh the sweeping. Never has time moved so slowly as when you are instructed to "sweep your square to clean it up". Honestly, archaeologists seem to have missed that crucial day in 3rd grade about how dirt is DIRT and is DIRTY and is the opposite of CLEAN. We have had some amazing times on Megiddo, during the ungodly hours of the morning when your body is raging against every movement--this is made only slightly better by the amusing fact that the Palestinian prison down in the Jezreel Valley that we get a view of has morning calls at 7AM...7 seems like such a luxurious lie in, those prisoners have it GOOD. People start asking what time it is around 6, waiting for that "breakfast!" call that seems to never come. Some yell "no! I don't want to know", as if they could hide from the unrelenting, overpowering grip of time. You can run, but you can't hide. Come to think of it, I don't really know why we were so excited for breakfast...after the tenth or twelfth cheese sandwich with cucumbers and onions at 8:30 AM, breakfast starts to lose its luster, and turns into more of a social hour. In fact, this whole dig is like a social hour. Pottery washing become like the archaeological café, sit and chat with your friends for a time.

In fact, more than that, we have all become a family. In area Q the bonds that have been forged are astounding. I find I keep hearing "did you/they know each other before this?", as if it is impossible to become so close in so short a time. But, alas, time never does what you expect. I think when you wake up at 4 with someone everyday for 3 weeks, you start something stronger than a friendship, you start connecting. After breakfast when we take the second hike up the tel of the day we all were rejuvenated, fresh and ready to dig. We area Q-ers usually came back to find that Stanley, the resident gopher has left some nice little piles of dirt around the area, as if saying "dig here, you are going too slow"....every couple of hours you hear a "Stanley!" and you know that a new hole has been discovered, and that again time has been disrupted...as cute as he is (we imagined), Stanley is messing with our precious stratigraphy. Every once and a while I think about all of the things I am going to miss, the 4AM bus, that early morning trek to the Area Q (yeah area Q!! Exposure, but no penetration), those black millipedes, the ant vortexes, the chocolate bars with pop rocks, the sore hand from holding a trowel for 8 hours, the weekend trips to wherever, the horrible kibbutz food, the great kibbutz food, hummus at EVERY meal, the pub, the lectures with drinking games, the excitement over breakfast, my random-Israeli-candy-bar-of-the-day, sandwiches for breakfast, Turkish coffee, having a guard, the sticky heat, the excitement over finding a small bead, pottery washing, bone washing, Tel tours, tourists taking pictures of us, sleeping on the bus, walking down the tel at 1PM, that first shower you take after getting back, having just eggs and chips for dinner, having no dinner, sunscreen, those damn flies, spider bites, Norma, the undying desire to find a really big wall, the unrelenting urge to destroy really big walls, pick axing, sleeping in wheelbarrows, elevensies, port-a-potties, those white drinking water containers, naming pottery buckets, sitting around with everyone on the last day, enjoying the sun, the Brits, the Israelis, the Norwegian (), the Australians, every person I met, Ian, Philippe and his crazy rock removal, the fact that the wheelbarrow path is the highest priority, watching Cline run around with his camera, feeling gross and dirty, not missing TV, passing out at 8PM, thinking 10PM is REALLY late, Ben's laugh, Norma's laugh, Area Q, Area K's sing along that we could hear everyday at elevensies, Jen's fruit leather, Marshalltowns, finding bones, the prison breakout sirens, watching the sun rise every morning, the Jezreel valley, hearing Rafi complain, watching Robyn yell at Rafi, hearing Mario all the way in Area Q, dumping stuff down the Tel, the shade, seeing how far we have come since the first day, pretty much EVERYTHING.So, Thursday I am off to New Zealand to continue my crazy year abroad. First I get to stop off in Thailand for a few hours and finally in the end, after 25 hours of travel I will be in my home for the next year. Maybe I'll meet Frodo!