--- On Thu, 11/19/09, לינדה וויטיקר linda whittaker <linda.whittaker@npa.org.il> wrote:
From: לינדה וויטיקר linda whittaker <linda.whittaker@npa.org.il>
Subject: shabbat shalom 19.11.09
To: "'olsvig2000@yahoo.com'" <olsvig2000@yahoo.com>
Date: Thursday, November 19, 2009, 3:41 PM
| Hi everyone,
It's good to be home, although Thessaloniki was beautiful. I wrote about it last week but didn't have my photos. Here is one of downtown:
That's the Triumphal Arch of Galerius, who put it up after fighting the Sassanid Persians. He was the emperor prior to Constantine, and still pagan, so the Arch is full of classical themes including a thanksgiving sacrifice, etc. I never saw a triumphal arch close up before, and it is still awesome even as a ruin. This is only half the arch; it was a crossroads between the Via Egnatia and the processional way between the palace of Galerius and the Rotunda, which was supposed to be his mausoleum. The latter is still standing, intact, a huge brick building. The arch itself had four entries for passing in all directions, and was more like a fancy tower.
The city was full of things like that, antiquities right in the middle of a busy modern town, which led to all kinds of paradoxes, like the apartment building on stilts so it could stand right over an excavation started underneath it.
By the way, that's my boss in grey by the left column of the arch. Eliezer was a perfect traveling companion on this working trip, easy-going and considerate. I've worked with him for 15 years and we never had a serious quarrel, not that I didn't try! He works under me in the project which brought us to Greece , and the professional friendship is so easy that we never really pay much attention who is boss on what. Quite unusual in government, quite useful on a project.
The work we have done here in Israel is highly appreciated by our European partners, to the point that we will be getting additional money to do parts of the work not originally planned for us. I notice that is giving my team a self confidence they didn't have at the beginning, and now they are really buckling down. We have a lull for a couple months, and then in late January we are back at full tilt again for the spring field season.
My Dutch student will be back for that. I just put him on the bus an hour ago for his long trip home. He plans to return in January as a project assistant, this time linked to our Dutch partners at Alterra, to do three months of field work in the Negev Desert for us. It may be his last adventure; he's planning on getting married in June, and will no doubt settle into the comfortable, conservative life of the Dutch burghers. I'm sure that's okay with him, but he does want one last chance to smell the roses. I'm happy for him in a way; he's not the wild roving type that I was at his age, and has the mind of a technician rather than a scientist. (Lacks that bad case of curiosity with makes all the difference.) Still, as an assistant he's been wonderful and helped us a lot in the last year, in addition to being endlessly patient and amiable......very popular with the Israelis too.
It's good to be home. My cats were healthy but hungry; I guess they don't eat when I'm gone. As soon as I get home they stop shedding and start eating. It took a couple days to settle back but I've managed to dig out from under the pile on my desk, and got the piles of laundry done (cats shed over every piece of fabric in the house), got my house in order and have something like a schedule of normal life. Travel is fun but a lot more tiring than it used to be. I don't see budging until next April, when I have to go to Bucharest . Unless that Sicilian grant actually comes through, of course.
Guess that's about it. Good to go, good to come home. Got a lot done, ate well, saw a lot of sights, and nothing horrible happened at home while I was gone. Can't ask for more. Now it is time to buckle down for the winter rains, and a few months of quiet routine work.
shabbat shalom
Linda |
Linda.Whittaker@npa.org.il
Or send mail to my alternate address: olsvig2000@yahoo.com
Dr. Linda Olsvig-Whittaker Science and Conservation Division Israel Nature and Parks Authority 3 Am Ve Olamo Street, Givat Shaul Jerusalem 95463, Israel Telephone: +972-2-5005444; Fax +972-2-6529232; mobile phone +972-526-693-794
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