Dig, people, dig!

One of the amazingly cool things about living in Israel is construction. Yes, construction. Or rather, they byproducts of construction. When someone tears down the house right next door to you to build a new one in, say, Vancouver, and you spend day after day listening to the aural equivalent of a landslide and feeling your own house vibrate as if you were in the middle of one, the only thing they're likely to dig up is - well, nothing. Chances are this is the 4th or 5th house built on this location, and if there were anything to find, it's long gone by now. And it's more likely there wasn't anything to find in the first place.

In Israel, when construction starts on apartment buildings, it's almost always on land that hasn't been touched. At least, not touched for hundreds of years. And many times, in the course of construction, they find something. And that something is protected by the government, and must be reported and explored.

Which means, if you live in a construction zone, you can wind up with an archeological dig right across the street. Cool! Wonder if they'll take volunteers?

View from our balcony