Dears,

Today's menu:
(The pictures are clickable.)

A Trip to Negev

As I promised in my previous report, the main topic for the present report is a trip to the Negev Desert

The staff of the Institute was organizing a trip and apparently they needed more people for the trip to take place. I was lucky to learn about this on time and I join them. The trip had a Hebrew speaking guide, but Azriel Levy was there and was translating most important info for us. Us, because Martin Goldstern was in Israel at that time too and he went for the trip as well.

As said above, our goal was the Negev, an more precisely one of the three enormous, crater-like erosion cirques or machteshim, which are unique to the region: ha-Machtesh ha-Gadol (the Large Crater). Machtesh (hebr. מכתש) means mortar and more on them you may read here.

We met early morning on a bus stop in the front of the main entrance to the campus    . We boarded our bus and went South. After some 2-3 hours drive we arrived to the first goal of the trip, the Large Mortar/Crater.

   

We walked a little here and there    , we considered the fate of reckless drivers  , and generally enjoyed the scenery

Personally, I was very impressed by petrified trees

After a while we re-boarded our bus and went to see colored sands. There are several places in the Negev where one can find sands of different colors in a relatively small area. This is beautiful! I really do not know why the pictures do not show this. Still, this is what I can share with you:

After the colored sands we directed our bus to springs     and   (En or sometimes ein means in Hebrew a well or a source). There were no real springs there, but that's desert after all. A little bit of moisture is a well, a well is a stream, a stream is an ocean...

Since I mentioned moisture, I have to add that beginning of March (when we went on our trip) is the best time to visit the Negev. I already noted in one of my previous reports that plants here are very aggressive and if they get some water they will grow. Well, in March there is some (though very little) water in the Negev:

Next we went to visit Bedouin's camp. I guess most people know who Bedouins are, but I am not sure if the young people in the camp really knew that. The place was set to provide some entertainment for tourists and it did not have too much in common with the desert-dwellers. I think all staff there were Israelis from North...

The most Bedouin element in the camp: Bedouins treat the guests in a tent. Note: men in front, women in back
A couple of stories, a presentation of the coffee ceremonial: and then a dinner
I should not forget the camels: Unfortunately, I could not ride any of them as there was no time left.

We did not have time to enjoy the camels because we had one more place to visit: Mamshit, one of the Nabatean cities (the most famous Nabatean city is Petra). Most of the buildings were built during the Late Nabatean period, after 106 CE, when the Nabatean Kingdom came under Roman hegemony. During the Late Roman period the city got a wall, and during the Byzantine period two churches were built. Look at what is there today:

Fresco depicting
Psyche and Cupid		 and even more frescos
Mosaics
Group pictures:

Finally, some desert pictures of me:

Bye Spring, Hello Summer

The end of March marks actually beginning of Summer here. You can recognize it by orange trees in town     and by the fact that lawns get covered with flowers faster than they get mowed   , and finally by what I eat. See, it is March when I get a taste for strawberries, tangerines, pomelos, persimmons    as well as cantaloupes, Passion flower fruits and sheseks   .

March is also the time of bird migration and spreading H5N1. We got the virus here, but we also have a very good solution for future - promoting the right kinds of birds would stop the epidemics.

These birds are not spreading the influenza virus:

Purim

In March we also celebrated Purim. I did take a part in the celebrations (you know, the one that is described by one should drink on Purim until he can no longer distinguish between the phrases "Cursed is Haman" and "Blessed is Mordechai").

Dressing up in masks and costumes is one of the most entertaining customs of the Purim holiday.

All ladies regardless of age want to dress like Queen Esther:
Most of students dress up as whatever comes to their minds:

Wikipedia

I spent a lot of time talking about Wikipedia with Martin Goldstern. He is a really tough case of wikipediholism, he has been contributing to Wikipedia for several years in 4 or 5 languages. So we talked about Wikipedia, about

vandalism and
vandalism in Wikipedia: 		I was very impressed when I noticed that any place we go, Martin verifies and corrects the Wikipedia info

Seriously, he has downloaded Wikipedia to his Tungsten and every trip is for him a fact checking expedition.

I think that we all are using Wikipedia and that for many of us it is the number one source of info. No doubts it is getting better with any moment - continuously something is added, something is corrected. And it makes sense if we all try to help them. We may

I know, many people are doing all of these three things, many some. I am just pointing to still existing needs and opportunities.
Also I would like to report that I bought a new digital camera. I bought it from this man:    The camera is cheap and not so good, but the shop owner managed to convince me to buy lots of extras for which I paid more than for the camera. Oh well....

Notes to myself - what I achieved in March:

To keep track of what I accomplished each month, let me note that in March:

A Polish version of this report is available here. The next report may (but does not have to) be posted on May 7th, 2006...

Yours,
Andrzej


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Last modified: Sat Apr 1 15:07:59 IDT 2006