Structure

Settling into the apartment and project here. There is good food, kind people, hot sun and hard work, good roommates, a nice apartment in a good location, and a whole country to explore.

 The Calatrava Bridge was the first clearly designer structure we saw when arriving to the city.

Visually (so far), the city outside of the Old City is an interesting mix of shiny, new buildings, 1960s buildings, and stone-fronted, 3-story apartment buildings. I know there is a great cache of Bauhaus architecture to be found, but have not yet had a real chance to explore beyond a limited circle. As well, East Jerusalem hasn't even been on the many lists of things to do and see, so I expect more visual interest there.

Apartment building a couple of blocks down the road from us.

We are housed in a few apartments very near the Old City—Jaffa Gate,—parks, restaurants, etc. It takes about 20 minutes to walk to the Museum, mostly through a park, and on the return trip we've discovered what we've dubbed the "Middle of the Road Bar" situated on a wide median in a tree-lined neighborhood. It's a nice place to stop for socializing before heading home. The sting of the price of drinks in Israel certainly keeps this place from taking up whole evenings.

Most of the crew at the Middle of the Road Bar

The structure has come along nicely and we are still moving along at a good clip; it feels good to grow the piece in the Starn Brothers vision. While the area below is cordoned off, there are still visitors coming as close as they are able, and an intrepid few even venture to speak to us; one group of children even drew pictures of one of our members. He was delighted, naturally. Today I ended up working on what is soon to be the dance/party platform(!).

Day One of the building: morning

Day One of the building: 10 hours later

On the upper deck at the end of Day Five

So the building days continue, the banter, laughs, getting to know the local crew, and learn their languages will keep us entertained as we tie our knots and place the poles—as will Jerusalem.