Archaeology and hike in the desert: Mamshit

Two weeks ago, we were lucky to get the chance of visiting the desert again! Uri, the oldest son of Yossi (the professor who had picked us up from the airport), was planning a trip to the desert with his friends and he offered us two seats in his car :-) In total, we were eight people: six Israelis and us, so that we learned a lot about the country and had a long conversation about politics in the car.
We drove to the Mamshit National Park with an archaeological site (UNESCO world heritage) and a hiking trail trough a valley.  The ancient city had been founded 2000 years ago by the Nabateans, a people who lived in the desert and had an extensive trade network on the Arabian Peninsula and in the Levante. Their most famous city is Petra in Jordan.  At Mamshit, one can also find Roman pillars from the time when the Nabatean kingdom became a Roman province. In addition to living houses with mosaics on the floor and a tower, we also saw a street of the former Nabatean market and a Byzantine bathhouse - all very impressive!
Then we walked through the Wadi Mamshit, the valley of a dry river. Only due to the recent rainfalls, there were few ponds. We even saw a few animals in the desert: marmots, birds, lizards, insects, rock hyraxes (looking a bit similar to a marmot/marten), a fox and camels (from a nearby camel farm)!

 

Sun, rain and sandstorm

What a climate zone with 30°C in November! When we arrived here in mid October, the temperatures climbed even above 30°C and it was so humid that we were already sweating from doing nothing. Even at night it was still too warm for us. In our second week here, the rain season started. Rain here is not the same as rain in central Europe. When it starts, it is no drizzle, but immediately an extreme rainfall that might be switched off as suddenly as it started. In the last week of October there were also strong storms that caused short power outages. However, after the first rain of the season, it did not cool down very much. At least it is less humid now and temperatures in the past week (first week of November) ranged between 20 and 30°C.
On Wednesday it was quite grey and the view was not very clear. At first we thought that it was just cloudy and foggy, but later we learned that a lot of sand from the desert was in the air due to strong winds from the north of Saudi-Arabia. This caused a severe air pollution and such a restricted sight distance that some flights had to be cancelled.
In fact, our apartment gets dusty very quickly when we leave the windows open. After the sandstorm, in particular our balcony was covered by a layer of red-yellowish sand - now we know where it came from.

Anyway, it is a funny feeling to walk outside all the time in a t-shirt although it is already November. I won't complain!

Old Jaffa, concert and Rabin

On Saturday, October 31st, we visited the old part of Tel Aviv: Jaffa, an old Arabic harbour and trading town that now belongs to Tel Aviv. From the Jaffa hill, one also has a nice view of the coastline of Tel Aviv.  You can find mosques with minarets, a synagogue and churches in this part of town - and  a lot of tourists. Indeed it is a beautiful district and quite a contrast to modern Tel Aviv. In Jaffa, we walked through paths of old stones, from the main square on a hill down to the lively harbour where we watched the sunset.
Directly after sunset, we were surprised by a sudden, very loud sound: from the mosque! The imam was starting his prayer, amplified by loudspeakers on the outer part of the minaret.

Later in the evening in a different neighbourhood, we had a delicious dinner in a restaurant located directly opposite of the entrance of a large synagogue. The place was full of young people and we were lucky to get the last free table. We ate eggplants and eggs in a spicy tomato sauce and green Jericho beans.

Afterwards, we walked along the elegant Rothschild boulevard towards the concert hall. There I listened to an overwhelmingly beautiful concert by my former class mate Igor Levit from Hannover who is now a world-renowned pianist, the designated conductor of the Berlin Philhamornics, Kirill Petrenko, and the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. Inside the concert hall, it nearly felt like being in Europe.
Meanwhile, Matthias was walking around, taking pictures and by chance ended up at the square in front of the town hall with a crowd of people and music. Then Bill Clinton spoke. It was in honour of Yitzhak Rabin who had been killed exactly at that place 20 years ago by a Jewish extremist after Rabin had signed the Oslo Accords for peace with the Palestinians.

Into the Desert

On Friday, October 30th, we went into the Negev desert. The trip for international researchers of the Weizmann Institute was organised by the Visiting Scientists Office - what a fanstastic offer! The full bus left early in the morning and we went first to the national park Ein Avdat. On the way it was already fascinating to look out of the windows, see the desert, some small villages with camels and kibbutzim. In the days before our trip, there had been quite heavy rain. When we arrived, the desert looked as dry as expected, but some ponds in the were fuller, the tour guide explained, and at some few places we could see some fresh green and even flowers which had just exploded out of the sand.
First, we hiked through a canyon between white rocks. The water, a waterfall and plants in an oasis looked really beautiful. We also saw ibexes and a vulture, but all participants survived the tour so that the vulture had to wait for other food ;-) From the river, we hiked up to the rim, which was quite steep, but offered a great view.
The next stop was the tomb of David Ben-Gurion, the founder and first prime minister of Israel, who was also committed to the development of the desert for agricultural use. From there, we enjoyed a breath-taking view of the landscape.
Furthermore, we also stopped at HaMachtesh HaGadol, the second largest crater in the Negev, and during sunset at a beautiful place with water, where children even went swimming.

I am sure we will travel to the desert again!

Recommended blogs

If you are interested in more information and impressions from this region, I can highly recommend you to have a look at the following other blogs:

• the video blog "Zwischen Mittelmeer und Jordan" (in German) where a German journalist (ARD correspondent Richard C. Schneider at the Tel Aviv studio) reports about current happenings in Israel, interviews different people in the Israel and provides a lot of background information, e.g. on the conflict at the temple mount: https://www.tagesschau.de/videoblog/zwischen_mittelmeer_und_jordan/
• the photo blog by Matthias, of course there is a correlation between his and my blog, but on his you will find less text, therefore pictures of higher photographic and artistic quality: http://bluerambler.jimdo.com/
• the blog of a young volunteer for a social project at Bethlehem with detailed, shocking reports about the reality in the Westbank: http://emgoesbethlehem.jimdo.com/

I hope you will also keep reading my blog ;-)

Only 10km away: stabbing attack in Rishon-LeZion

http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/1.683774

http://www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/Breaking-Suspected-terror-attack-in-Rishon-Lezion-3-wounded-431802

Presentation of the new postdocs and culture of discussions

The weekly national particle physics meeting took place at the Weizmann Institute yesterday. After the seminar and the tasty lunch, the agenda said "Introduction of the 3 new postdocs" (Ryosuke, Matthias and me). We had been asked to prepare short presentations to introduce ourselves and our research interests. What a nice opportunity to start discussions with our new colleagues from the Weizmann Institute, Tel Aviv University and the Technion in Haifa. Each of us prepared 10-13 slides and we thought it would take ca. 15 minutes per person. We had underestimated the seminar & discussion culture in this country ;-) During our talks, there were already very many questions so that it was quite interactive and took twice as long as estimated... But the audience stayed awake.
This weekly joint meeting is a really interesting format of seminar, journal club and discussions. Next week, we will all go to Haifa (in the north of the country) and I am looking forward to the trip and the physics!

Weizmann choir

Of course, I am also looking for a music ensemble here :-) I have already practised the viola in the apartment (no neighbour complained), and there is even a music room on campus that I might try out soon. So far, I have not found a university orchestra.
Instead, there was an announcement that the Weizmann choir was looking for new members. It was very nice to meet singers from many different departments at the first rehearsal of the new semester. Most of them were from Israel and at the beginning, everyone should introduce him/herself and say where he/she lives. "Shalom, ani Elina mi Germania ve achshav ani gara be Rehovot." Yeah, I can say few sentences in Hebrew :-) Most likely, I won't understand the answer, though...
To make it easier for us few non-Hebrew speakers, the first rehearsal was mostly in English. It was fun to sing, but unfortunately, we sang only half a song during the long rehearsal. Given that the Hebrew course will start soon with 5 hours/week, I decided not to join the choir. Staying for 3 years is really different from just one exchange year. I have time to start an activity later...

Friday in Tel Aviv

We spent a fantastic day in Tel Aviv :-) At noon, we listened to an impressive chamber music concert of the Musethica Chamber Music Festival in the conservatory. (Just arrived in a new country, I knew about the festival thanks to my cousin who works for this association.)
With a colleague whom we met already at a summer school last year we walked through a park along the river to the former harbour of Tel Aviv, but now there are rather cafés and a market hall for specialities. Then we walked along the beautiful beach and through streets that were also mentioned in the dialogues of our Hebrew textbook from the course that we took in Germany :-)
In a café we ate delicious salads, for example tabouleh with bulgur, vegetables, pecan nuts, parsley, mint - and of course tchina (tahini), a sesame paste that is added to seemingly nearly every dish.
Sunset at the beach was beautiful.