Click your heels, Dorothy

So, I'm really feeling the homesickness thing. I miss my family and friends back home a lot. I miss having that group of people who know everything about you and you just fit right in with. It took me YEARS to cultivate that kind of group ... and now I've left them all behind. I needed to break out and make my own way, but I had gotten so comfortable at home that I forgot how hard it is to forge a new path. I've met several girls on the dig who are the same age as me and who feel the same way, but they always say "only X more days until I go home" and I'm still counting in months. There is nothing worse than working your butt off all morning in the hot Israeli sun with people when you are all sick and cranky with each other, and then have to go home with them all. We are together all the time.

University will be completely different but it's like starting college all over again. Room-mates I don't know ... and no where to go if we don't get along. A new place, new food, new routine. I'm really looking forward to learning the language because knowing Hebrew will make things so much easier here ... at least there I SHOULD have my own bedroom where I can shut the door have some space of my own. I can do my own laundry instead of sending it out with everyone else on the dig (which means that when it comes back everyone rifles through all the underwear, socks, etc), or wash it in a bucket in the sink and hang everything out to dry outside in the courtyard. Now, I'm a social person, but I need some space on my own! I can't talk on Skype without being in earshot of SOMEONE.

Most of all, I miss being able to sit down with mom, dad, Ginna, Ellie and Justin and talk or even just sit. 68 more days. Still longer than I've every been away before. I have plenty of contacts here in Israel thanks to Dad ... but I don't actually know any of them yet. And they are willing to be my "Israeli Family" which is AMAZING and SO sweet and kind ... but they aren't my FAMILY ... and that's who I miss.