Here at last/first days digging

Hello or Shalom everyone. I am here in Israel after my wonderful 2 day flight. It actually wasn't too bad, spent my 15 hour layover in London with my old flatmates. We sat around a park, ate food and had fun talking and catching up. Even enjoyed a beer before going back to the airport. Landing in Israel was so exciting...i was ready to not be sitting in an airplane seat. Caught a taxi to Neve Shalom where I am staying. It is right between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. Spent my Sunday sleeping, showering, eating and then sleeping again!!
I have now spent two days digging in the dirt at Tel Gezer (funny...Gezer means carrot in modern hebrew). The weather is hot (high 80's low 90's) and the sun is brutal by afternoon. We get on the bus to take us to the site at 5 am. Once on the site we work in the cool of the morning, then eat our breakfast at 8:30. After that we go back up and work some more. Our fruit break is at 11 and we finish at 12:30. Water is so important here, it is amazing how much one needs to drink while on the site to not get dehydrated (i drink about 4 liters on the site). We are opening up 10 new squares (will post pics soon) so we have been cleaning up the site, which means weeding as well as marking everything out in 5 meter sections. Today (Tuesday June 6th) I was on the Shade Crew (meant I was popular). We are setting up tarps over the squares for shade from the sun. Hope to tell you more soon!