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I just arrived in Italy last night and unfortunately I do not have Internet at the apartment where I am staying... so I am writing this from an Internet Cafe near the Termini Train Station.
There are 9 people who have voted for the name. TOMORROW IS THE FINAL DAY!
The people in Bethlehem are very friendly. Everywhere we went people offered us Arabic coffee (a small cup of strong coffee with cardemon), tea or lemonade. Sometimes they gave us Sprite or Coke. One day when we were visiting the Wi’am office they first brought us coffee and then tea and after that lemonade. I guess it is good because it is very hot there and you should drink lots of liquids! On our last evening there we went out for a typical Palestinian Barbeque. We went to a restaurant where there were grills out in front and lots of chicken being grilled. We sat at a table and the waiter brought us lots of different small salads on plates (humus, tahini, eggplant salad (baba ganoush), chopped tomatoes and cucumber, and others that I don’t have names for. Then they brought a plate of the barbequed chicken to the table. There is always pita bread that you dip into all of the different salads. We had forks, but I think the traditional way to eat is to tear off a piece of pita to pick salad up a bit and eat it. The chicken was delicious.
The day ended with a surprise. Last week both The Professor and I had our birthdays (June 18 and 19) and somehow they had heard about it and so they brought us a cheesecake decorated with our names and with candles. I don’t think this is the traditional Palestinian way to celebrate birthdays though! It was so nice of them. We also accompanied some Wi’am staff while they delivered groceries to people in need. They delivered toilet paper, sugar, salt, rice and olive oil to about 100 people in the last few days. The person who drove us around had an older car that was manual (you have to shift manually). When all four of us (the driver, Zoughbi, The Professor and myself) and the groceries were in the car it could not make it up some 
of those hills. Twice we had to get out and the professor and Zoughbi pushed the car.
One of the main memories I will have from visiting here is the roads. I was totally amazed at the way that people drive around the town. Many of the roads were so skinny I wouldn’t try to drive ONE car down them let alone two! Also Bethlehem is built on hills, so the roads are more like terraces that weave up and down and sometimes they are pretty steep. Sometimes you do a hairpin turn where you cannot see the oncoming traffic at all. Often there was two way traffic and parking where I would imagine only a one-way street. The people have developed a way of navigating these streets. They never seem to slow down and they don’t wait for other cars, but there seems to be some polite understanding about who gets to go next. I never saw an accident and I felt safe with the people who drove us around, but I wouldn’t want to give it a try!
Last night we spent the night in a hotel in Tel Aviv. The hotel was across from the beach, so we went out to the beach, sat in soft sand and watched the sunset in the West. Beautiful! Then we slept well in our air-conditioned hotel room until 4 am when the alarm went off. This is our armadillo friend in the Tel Aviv Airport. We name him/her on Tuesday!Today is a travel day Israel to Cypress to Athens to Rome. All day… Oh well, I think I will get a lot of reading done.Here are some last thoughts about Bethlehem before I switch to writing about Rome.
Hebron-This is an important place for Christians, Muslims and Jews because it is traditional site of the burial place of Abraham, Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca. Abraham is remembered as the father of all three religions. There are important stories about them in the Old Testament, Koran and the Hebrew 
Scriptures. Hebron is listed as the place that Abraham buried his wife Sarah. It was a Jewish sacred site and then in the Middle Ages Christians built a church there. Saladin, an Arabian ruler, conquered the area 
and the church was turned into a mosque. Right now it is still a mosque, but there is an area for Jewish worshippers.Church of the Nativity-In Bethlehem the site that most of the tourists come to see is the Church of the Nativity. It is built over a cave, which is the traditional site for the birth of Jesus. Three Christian groups share the building; Greek Orthodox, Roman Catholics, and Armenian Orthodox. 
The entry is really small and brings you into a large Orthodox church. You can tell 
it is orthodox because of the front of the church where there is an iconostasis (altar area specific to the Orthodox). Then you go down some stairs to the nativity cave. From there you can go out another
way to the Armenian church and that connects to the Catholic Church. Lots of busses come with tourists who go to the church and many have worship services in the cave before they go on to the next place.Children in Park-On Saturday before we left we went with all of the Wi’am kids (their summer program) to a park. This week was Danish week and there were Danish Lutherans who prepared some music for the kids. This is the one place that I saw grass and swings 
and shade trees. It is a really nice park. The kids seemed to have lots of fun running around. The group gathered for a performance of the Danish group. There were lots of drums and rhythm instruments and movement so that all of the kids could participate. The leaders brought falafal sandwiches and bottled water for everyone. Falafal are delicious balls made with ground
chickpeas and spices and then deep-fried. They look sort of like meatballs, but they have no meat. A sandwich is actually pita bread with falafal, humus and some chopped tomatos and cucumber. I think they are delicious.
I am still in Israel and I just finished talking with a group of teacher in Vermont who were taking a course on using Web 2.0 tools in the classroom. It was amazing to be able to connect with them. It was short, but exciting. I hope it motivates these teachers to try something in the future. They had to guess where I was calling from, so I used these pictures to give them some clues. 
The bread and butter that is hard to see here has Hebrew writing.
There was one thing that I wish I had answered differently. Someone there asked about the reaction to Obama’s speech.
I was struck in Turkey at how interested in Obama many people we talked to were. I told them how in Turkey I talked to a guy from Zimbabwe who is studying in Oslo, Norway and was on the trip to learn about archaeology in Turkey. He was very positive and hopeful in his comments, In Turkey the comments were all really positive.
In Israel it is different though and I actually have not talked to any Israelis yet, so I cannot honestly answer the question, but now I will make that one thng to explore while I am here. My American archaeologist friends told me that many Israelis are worried about how the Obama foreign policy to Israel will work out. They do not like his middle name and are concerned that he is really Arab. There are also others who do like Obama. It is complicated, like everything.The Skype conference was fun! I would do that again! Anyone else want to Skype? If so, just comment her or email me at janicef@jfriesen.net.
The new mascot to look for in some of the photos that I post is an armadillo with a cowboy hat. Texas has the armadillo as the state animal. The card on this armadillo says, “Texans have fallen in love with this mammal through the years in so far as to adopt it as the state mascot in 1981”. I need to come up with a name for this mascot and so I am going to put up another poll and I hope you will all vote. But first of all I need suggestions of names for the poll. What should we name the armadillo?Yesterday was another LONG traveling day. Here is what we did: 7:30 am taxi to the port at Kusadisi, 9:00 am ferry to Samos, 11:30 fight to Athens, 3:00ish (I can’t remember) flight to Cyprus, 9:00 flight to Tel Aviv, Israel, two hour taxi drive to ???? where I am now. We arrived at about 2:30 am. In spite of the long day and the many types of transport we did not lose our luggage and everything went as planned, so it was a miracle. But it is no surprise that I am tired today.
I woke up at 10:30 am in a strange place. The professor was gone. The poor guy had to go to meetings all day today starting at 7:30 am! I still don’t really know where I am. It is a kibbutz and I did take a walk and find a small grocery store where I could buy some food to eat. My main problem is that I cannot read the signs.
I did find one with a spoon and fork and it led me to the grocery store. I also finished reading my book. I have read two books and listened to another already on this trip. I read “On Beauty” by Zadie Smith last week because it was in the hotel library. I had to read it before I left Turkey, so I read a lot. I have also been reading “Three Cups of Tea, One Man’s Mission to Promote P
eace One School At a Time” which is an amazing true story of Greg Mortinson and the beginning of the Central Asia Institute. His stories make my trip sound extremely easy. I listened to “Tribes” by Seth Godin, I need to listen to that one again. It is thought provoking and I am not sure I agree with all of the things he says.I just got done Skyping with Bob Dunn who is one of the Followers of the Odyssey. I am going to Skype with him and his class tomorrow! They are in Vermont, USA.
View Larger MapI am preparing right now for a 5 week long trip to the Mediterranean this summer. I have an opportunity to travel with my husband to archaeological sites in Turkey, Israel, Italy and Greece. I hope to see many other things and meet people in all of these places. Below you will see a map showing the itinerary for the trip. I hope you will join and put your comments and questions onto the blog. The map is interactive. Zoom in and out and slide it to see the parts you are interested in.
of those hills. Twice we had to get out and the professor and Zoughbi pushed the car. 
