New Year's in Haifa and northern Israel

Over the New Year's weekend, Dawn and I went on a "Babymoon" to Haifa and northern Israel for 3 nights. We toured the National Science Museum in Haifa, where Josh also saw the Body Worlds exhibition. We also toured the impressive Bahai Gardens, terraced gardens in the middle of Haifa spreading up the western slope of Mt. Carmel. I think the gardens are more impressive as a whole than when you are walking in them, but maybe if you didn't have to go down 700 steps just to go from the top level to the middle level, more attention could be paid to the garden itself. We were with a large group as well. Nonetheless, the gardens are beautiful. We also visited Stella Maris Monastery, near Elijah's Cave, and returned to sea level via the cable car at sunset. Beautiful. On our last day, we took the train to Akko (Acre) and toured the underground Crusader city and a mosque built by "the Butcher," the cruel Ottoman ruler in Akko of the late 1700s. Akko was the Crusaders most important port during the Crusades, and the city was successfully defended (with British assistance at sea) from Napoleon's attempted invasion in 1799.

From Akko, we took the bus to Nahariya, and a taxi from there to the grottoes at Rosh Hanikra, on the Mediterranean coast and the border with Lebanon. During the British Mandate period, a train line went from Europe through Palestine to Egypt. During Israel's War of Independence, the tunnel was sealed by Jewish resistance fighters of the Hagana Brigade. The grottoes themselves were narrow with low ceilings and there is definitely the potential to get wet, especially if the winds pick up. One of the rock formations looks like an elephant trunk.

We stayed at St. Charles Guest House, also known as the German Guest House, run by an order of Catholic nuns, who are amazing. The guest house has a large garden with benches and numerous orange trees. We even had fresh squeezed orange juice!

It's a Boy!!!

Dawn found out at her comprehensive ultrasound this week that we will have a boy! We are happy to know what we are having, though we both agree that what we most want is a healthy baby. We also toured the local hospital, Soroka Regional Medical Center, the major medical center for all of southern Israel. More babys are born at Soroka than at any other hospital in Israel. We were pleasantly surprised. Depending on when the baby comes, they may or may not have their new maternity ward open. It is slated to open in late March or early April, and will feature all private rooms. Our new arrival will land on or around April 4, 2010 (Easter Sunday).

Getting Her Kicks

Dawn felt the baby kick, or punch, or something similar, yesterday for the first time! She said it felt like being elbowed from the inside. We're still waiting to find out if it will be a boy or a girl. An ultrasound is scheduled in about a week. Thanksgiving party planning is underway. It will be a joint party with our new American-Israeli neighbors. They have a two year old named Zowie. I had a productive day yesterday writing on my thesis (over 5 pages) and hope to have another one today.

Another Country Heard From...literally

During late September and October, Dawn and I had the chance to return home to visit our families and attend the wedding of Dawn's sister Ruth and her fiance (now husband!) Hector. It was a beautiful wedding, and we were honored to both be part of the bridal party, Dawn as Matron of Honor, and me as a groomsman. There was even a rainbow after a brief rain shower on the way from the wedding to the reception!

We also enjoyed spending time with friends in and around Eugene, Oregon, and I had the chance to visit some good friends in Austin, Texas for a day or two, including my best friend during my elementary school years, Mark.

Dawn and I also embarked upon our "Grandmothers Tour 2009" and enjoyed spending time with each of our grandmas and our extended family. At the end of our 9 day "tour", we had been from Michigan to Chicago to Alabama and back again, with over 1500 miles driven! We also enjoyed a fun afternoon and late lunch with my aunt, uncle, and cousins, who all converged on the Lansing area for a great get together. Thanks to all the aunts and uncles who hosted us overnight on our trip, and to our friends in Eugene and Austin for providing a place to stay during our visits!!

Finally, we began planning in earnest for our new arrival, with shopping for baby items and strategizing on what we would need and wouldn't need over in Israel. Many thanks to our parents, especially Dawn's mother, for her tireless efforts on our behalf to help prepare us for our new adventure! Besides the USA, another country will be heard from along about April 2010 when our new bundle of joy arrives!

If you would like to hear more about our adventures in the U.S., please e-mail me.

October 2009

No travels to report in Israel over the last couple months. Check back in another month for more!

Israel 08/19/09, by Joshua Archey

I'd like to share my York photos with you. Once you have checked out my photos you can order prints and upload your own photos to share.

MA Thesis is Drafted!

After my parents returned to the U.S., and I had recovered enough from our adventures to continue working, I set to work on finishing the draft of my MA thesis, which will become the first chapter of my dissertation on the Thesis make-up track. (I did the non thesis option at the University of Oregon, hence the need for an MA thesis). By August 2nd, I was up to page 37, from page 17 when my parents arrived for their 2 week visit. By Sunday, August 9th,I had reached the end: page 51! Now, the draft has been sent to my advisor for review. Next up is a 10 page paper for my advisor's seminar, Contemporary Topics in Literature. After that, it's back to the dissertation.

Meanwhile, the med school student led Bible Study is slowly getting going again. Nadine, a good friend from Germany I worked with in the German Studies Center is back in town for the 6 week Deutsche Sommer Universitaet. Our Austrian friend Sonja, meanwhile, is preparing to leave us to return to Austria, after spending the last two years in Be'er Sheva at the university teaching German. Last night, we enjoyed a farewell dinner in her honor at Pitput, a nice but overpriced restaurant in the BIG shopping complex. Unfortunately, I forgot to bring our camera along!

Pictures of vacation with Josh's parents

See the slideshow here (the first half dozen pictures are from our friend Bryanna's birthday party):

July 2009 Update, Josh's parents visit

Apologies for the long lapse in communication. My Hebrew class ended June 28th, followed immediately by the arrival of my parents for a 2 week visit. They left late Monday night and arrived back in Kalamazoo last night. I worked very hard in the weeks leading up to their arrival on my dissertation, and after a 2 week "vacation", I need to get back to work. The Graduate School is moving offices this week, to where I don't know, and my advisor and I are once again confused by what I do and do not need to do as far as a make-up MA thesis on the road to the dissertation. I also have a 10 page seminar paper I need to write within the next month, in addition to the end of August deadline set by the Grad School for submitting what I need to submit. We have also had to say goodbye to several friends in the Medical School here who headed back to the U.S. after completing their 3rd year of med school. They'll be back in January, and in the meantime, we wish them well on their rotations around the U.S. The 4th years celebrated graduation in May, and are now also gone from Be'er Sheva. Friends of ours, David, a 3rd year med school student, and his wife Daria gave birth to 6.8 pound Lily Danielle, and will also be heading back to the U.S. in the near future. Our other friends are also in a period of transition, as Andreas, a post-doc in chemistry from South Africa, whose parents emigrated there from Austria, is spending 6 weeks this summer at Stonybrook in New York. Sonja will br returning home to Vienna in August. Nadine will come back to Israel from Germany for a 6 week Ulpan (language course in Hebrew) in August and September.

The following is a brief overview of my parents 2 week visit:

5 nights in Tel Aviv, during which time they recovered from jetlag, toured Old Jaffa, and visited Jerusalem. In Jerusalem, we explored the Mt. of Olives, Garden of Gethsemane, Church of Mary Magdalene, Church of the Holy Sepulhere, and the Western Wall. Dad did not enjoy driving or parking in Jerusalem...next time, the bus!

2 nights in Tiberias on the Sea of Galilee: Visited Mt. of Beatitudes, Capernaum, Galilee Boat, Jordan River Baptismal site, and the ruins of Jewish Korazim, chastised by Jesus in the Bible.

3 nights in Be'er Sheva. Toured the Old City, showed them around the university, did laundry, took Dad to the Israeli Air Force Museum.

3 nights in the Sinai peninsula of Egypt. Stopped at the Dead Sea on the way down to Eilat. It was very hot. The wind felt like a heater blowing on high. We took a day tour to St. Catherine's monastery and Mt. Sinai. Enjoyed the pools at the hotel, and on the last morning, Dawn took me out to the coral reefs. (The hotel had a beach on the Red Sea.) Saw a spectacular sea green fish, almost fluoresent, a purple and yellow fish, and a school of little white fishes. I also finished my 900 page Tom Clancy novel during these 2 weeks, Rainbow Six.

1 last night in Be'er Sheva. Stopped in Mitzpe Ramon Crater on the way back. Parents packed, napped, and showered ahead of their 24 hour journey back to Michigan. 2 airlines, 3 changes of planes (because they stopped to visit friends in Germany on the way to Israel, they had to return through Germany).

I will post the link to the vacation photos on Picassa when available.

May 2009 Update

Well, life continues here pretty much at a steady, predictable pace. I finished the last (for now) of the stack of books I had collected (about twice as many as I started out with in April), around 10 for those who are keeping track, and was able to create an outline for my dissertation today AND write two and a half pages, all in one day (the book was finished yesterday)! Hooray!! There was a nice potluck and Bible Study last night at Vina's. Bryanna read from a book that was titled something along the lines of "The Final Conflict", which deals with a battle between God's Army and the forces of Satan. It reminded me of what I have read of Revelations, yet have yet to finish. Then we played a name game where evenly divided teams were handed out little pieces of paper with our name on them in random order and the goal was to get one team off the couch and your team on the couch by remembering who had what name. (Every time you called a name, you switched cards with the person who held the name you called on their card). The group met on Wednesday night because of the Shavuot holiday that started today. Shavuot marks 7*7, or 49 days, since the end of Passover, and is evidently the last holiday for quite some time (Maybe even September?). I'll have to check. The weather has cooled off to a more comfortable range this week after being in the mid-90s most of last week. One more month of Hebrew class left to go. As much as I struggle (and a good part of the blame must fall on me for putting my dissertation ahead of spending more hours learning Hebrew/doing homework), I have come a long way since November.

Dawn is currently presenting at 2 conferences in Canada and the U.S., COSY (Canadian Operators Symposium) in Regina, Saskatchewan, and GPOTS (Great Plains Operator Theorists Symposium) in Boulder, CO. I hope her talks go well. Recently, she found out that one of her papers was accepted for publication in the Rocky Mountain Journal of Mathematics. Hopefully, she will receive similarly good news with the second paper she submitted, though the approval process usually takes several months.

Finally, I have been enjoying the NBA playoffs online at NBA.com. (I paid for a subscription, I was in such basketball withdrawal). Unfortunately, the two teams I have little to no interest in, the LA Lakers and the Orlando Magic, look poised to head to the NBA Finals. Oh well, whatever happens, it should make for exciting games. The first four games of the conference finals (2 Western, 2 Eastern were separated by a combined 7 points!!! (Two one point games (Cleveland-Orlando), a two point game, and a three point game (LA-Denver). Hopefully Denver can come back and win their series, but in reality, I expect an LA-Orlando NBA Finals. Cleveland has almost no chance at this point.