Simplicity

.
The Tiberias dig is over but I don't want to leave the subject without showing you where I slept (or tried to) for several weeks.
For a big smile you should really click on the first photo.

It is the backside of my hotel/hostel, part of which had been torn off!
Fortunately construction of the new addition, the loud pouring of cement, started only on the evening I left.

The front is a little better, with some of the Old Tiberias basalt stone.
My dormitory room was on the top floor.

I grabbed the single bed on the side and let the backpacker girls have the four close-to-each-other beds. New roommates came and went; big turnover.

One day a big windstorm brought down the ceiling panel in our bathroom. Luckily the shower curtain rod caught it.

Yep, conditions were spartan.

The "grown-ups," the mostly older volunteers who came to the dig from abroad, stayed in the nicer hotel just up the street. But they were willing and able to pay for it. We had lunch and dinner at their hotel.

It was in the 90s F (low 40s C) most of the time, even in October-November. Most of the young folks in my room were anti-airconditioning. With the windows open, you could hear traffic on the busy streets below all night.

But when you have to rise at 4:00 a.m. you learn to sleep through almost anything.

The view to the south was the old cemetery with tombs of basalt.

A post on that is planned.

I spent lots of time hanging out the window, savoring the different moods of Tiberias, in haze, in sun, once even in rain.

The old Greek Orthodox monastery was nice to look at. I even managed to get inside the church once (a post will follow). The old monk does not open the gate very often.

The Sea of Galilee was right across the street. Here is a rare clear view of the Golan Heights on the eastern shore of the lake.

Tiberias attracts many Israeli and foreign tourists and pilgrims.

From my simple dorm room I could see the real hotels. So many, so big. Too big.

.

I miss the old days when we dig volunteers used to sleep as a crew, all in big tents or in the former stable of an old monastery or in straw bungalos or in a big old kibbutz house.

.