I was in the negev for two days with my department. The weather was perfect because it wasn't too cold or too hot (and the desert tends to be either one or the other). It was also cool that we were there for one of the few rainy days of the year (but it was a light rain, so it didn't really bother us).

The first day was a lot more active than the second one, therefore it was also a lot more fun.


Ilil being a cat on the bus.


This place was our first stop. But we only stopped there to use the bathroom...









One of the caves that were built by the Byzantine monks.


The girl was showing us how geysers work.


Our first stairs on the mountain...


Emilia and Neta taking a little break.







This picture was taken from the top of the mountain...

In the evening a few people from the department put on a little show with all kinds of games, questions, and funny stories about the people from the department. I didn't enjoy it much because, as usual, my part of the department isn't really treated as part of the department at all when it comes to social occasions. Kinda ridiculous because, on daily basis, we're in a lot of ways the center of the department and we actually organize all kinds of social stuff like department lunches, birthday board, all kinds of silly signs and etc... I don't know whether to call it snobbery, unthoughtfulness or just stupidity - either way it's not cool, and I can't help but be disappointed AGAIN.
The second day was pretty boring. We spent most of the day on the bus and when we finally got off the bus and checked out an area, we did it so quick that we could hardly enjoy it. To give you a clue of how it worked I'll tell you about our visit to the Bedouin museum, it was like this:
We watched a quick movie that was really bad quality and gave us this huge piece of information: "Bedouins live in the desert". Oh and also "modernization is a huge problem for the Bedouin". After the movie we got on the roof of one of the buildings and checked out the view (uncultivated trees and a few old ugly storage areas). Then we went to the actual museum building and stood in one place for about 20 minutes listening to the guide, who was a weirdo with a huge hair (he did not look like a typical museum guide). I felt more like looking at the stuff around me than listening to him, but seeing how slow he was explaining just the things around that one spot he stopped by, I didn't want to rush and check out the whole place because I wouldn't have anything new to see later. When he was finally done talking about whatever it was, I assumed he would approach some other exhibit but he approached the exit instead. Turned out that was it -- that was our visit at the Bedouin Museum. I gotta say I learned a lot! -- never trust weird guides with huge hair!!
They had a Bedouin tent outside but we didn't go there (how surprising). Some of us managed to buy some Bedouin pita in the little free time we had until we had to get back on the bus.
Later we were at two random farms in the middle of the desert (!חוות בודדים), each visit was very short of course and quite boring as well.

*Here is an article that was posted on November 24th on Yediot Aharonot (I think) -- it's the first solitary farm we saw (obviously this line wasn't originally part of the post)




This is a part of a whole monument that is there for the honor of... I honestly don't remember, but this hole is really not as boring as it looks. There's an option to go from underneath and come out of it. If you just hang out in the area and don't expect it it's really odd and random to see someone coming out of it.
Here's a video that documents this happening.


Omer doing his thing