Dead Sea

If 'slowly' was the main clue in my last blog, 'fast' is a more appropriate one for this one. Things are really speeding up, and that feels incredibly good. Started interviewing and have made some important contacts and promising appointments - still confused like a chicken lost in elephants' land, but anyhow the overall feeling is that things are moving. Forward, hopefully. (My newly acquired and good-looking recording device even decided to be my friend and work perfectly instead of being against me and work improperly. Nice of it!) I can assure you that it's much better to feel lost in a forward-moving manner than in a stucked-chicken kind of way. Ok, so far about the fieldwork stuff, updates on Very Important Findings from Silje the Researcher (or the chicken, depending on my self-confidence) may or may not follow more or less suddenly.

What I wanted to tell you is that on Sunday we went for the tourist-thing and did an amazing tour of Masada, Qumran, Jericho and the Dead Sea with three other travellers and a nice Palestinian-Israeli guide with a van. I don't think I've ever done as much in one day ever before, and I can't possibly fit it all into one single blog post so I'll divide it a bit. Those of you who know me well may recall that guided tours are on top of my list of things I strongly dislike, but even so this one was great.


The definitely coolest spot on our trip was the Dead Sea. It's just totally weird! You simply cannot sink, no matter how much you try. Walking into it you cannot even stand straight when the water reaches your belly, it pushes you upwards. People where floating around with stones on their backs. I knew this is the way the Dead Sea works, but the feeling of it was just amazing. - Except for the burning. I had some scars between my toes and it burnt like hell. And when I say hell I really mean HELL. I guess the 28% of salts and minerals in the water may have something to do with it. I couldn't stay in there for more than a few minutes because of that. Even so it was awesome.


And then there's something fascinating and intriguing with the fact that it really is a dead sea. Nothing lives there. Nothing can sink into it, except for very heavy stones.
An unsinkable sea.
Bottomless somehow, even though one has to suppose
there is a bottom.
Only dead and heavy things can stay there, things that are stronger than the water's gentle and constant upward push.