tell aviva i'm going sightseeing

Wednesday (12/28)

limi and i had planned on getting up early so we could get out and do stuff, but we just couldn't get out of bed. i hate it how twenty minutes before the alarm goes off it suddenly becomes soooo comfortable under the covers that you can't leave. fortunately, limor's dog kessem [magic] invaded the room and started slobbering over everything, so i felt compelled to leave.

for breakfast i finished the last of their pillows. mm mmm good, breakfast of champions and all that. we packed up our backpacks, and i stuffed a number of extra items we hadn't been able to bring back the previous weekend - like a really heavy bag of potatoes, among other things.

we left the apartment and went downstairs to catch a bus to tel aviv. we got off at rothschild st., because it was a really pretty day for walking, and yesterday i had seen some cool statues i wanted to check out.

like the wolves in downtown raleigh a couple years ago, or the lions i saw while in france, tel aviv had commissioned some artists to make statues of animals. limor tells me it used to be penguins or dolphins or something, but this year it was bulls, representing a prospering stock market. so limor and i wandered up and down the street, admiring and taking pictures of each of the statues. they each had some theme or another, but i only paid enough attention to limor's translation of the informative plaques to line up my camera for a photograph. i'm sure once she reads this she'll kill me, but hey baby, you know i'm kidding, right? right???

during our promenade we came across a tour bus - not just any tour bus, but a taglit (birthright) tour bus - and not just any taglit tour bus, but a kenes tlalim (israel outdoors) taglit tour bus. i thought it was really cool and coincidental that of all the possible groups i could come across, i happen to see the same trip i went on a year and a half ago. so i start taking lots of pictures of the bus to try to get a good shot, and i think i freaked out the bus driver because he left the bus and went across the street. i felt bad, so to try to reassure him i had limor explain that i had been on that same trip before and i was excited to see it again. i asked him (through limor) who the tour guide was, in hopes that it would be the same one from my trip. sadly, it was not. i was ready to say hi to the tourists as well, but they were inside a museum at the time, so i missed my chance.

since it was pretty warm, while we were walking a couple blocks over to the artists market and shenkin st. i stopped limor so we could get some ice cream bars. i really love this one company's ice creams, especially their "magnum" bars, so we go some of those. as a side note, the company has a very distinctive spiral heart logo. whenever i saw it, i'd say "hey look there's miko!", meaning the name of the company, but limor had no idea what i meant. she said the company was called "strauss". later i went online to clear up the confusion - it is indeed "strauss" in israel, but apparently they are also very popular in europe under the name "miko".

we passed through the ever-present security check to get into the artists market. usually they are only there on certain days of the week, but they must have changed their schedule since we last went. it was cool with me, because they have some really neat crafts. i think i asked just about every artist there what was "roman glass" (which my mom still bugs me to get) but not only do i still not know what it is, but neither does anyone in israel. as for the crafts, there were a lot of pretty touristy stuff, like hand-made mosaics or mezzuzot or those good-luck hand things (the name escapes me at the moment). we also saw a very fancy palace-like building under historical renovation. well, it will be fancy when they're done with it, because at the time it was so old as to be falling apart.

my bag was getting kind heavy (those damn potatoes) so we figured we should head over to the shenkin st. on the way, we stopped at the street market. if you've ever seen an arabian market on tv, that's basically what this place looks like. it's like a very narrow (and long!) alley with shops on every side, and swarthy men shouting out stuff like "fresh meat here!" or "batteries! one sheqel!" or "get your human organs here cheap!". well, maybe not the last one, but they could be saying it for all i know.

it must have gone on for nearly a mile - a mile of closely-packed, shoving pedestrians, vegetable stalls, and random crap. it was great, if a little claustrophobic. we stopped at a couple places, like the "everything for 1 sheqel" shop, and a shoe store (where i bought slippers because israeli floors aren't carpeted).

we finally escaped the market, after moving out of the way for an idiot who thought it would be a good idea to transport his wares by driving his car to his stall (even though the street was little wider than the car). we then wandered up and down shenkin st, which is a trendy place in tel aviv that all the kids go to hang out. something like that. they have a lot of fashionable clothing shops lining the avenues. limor and i had a nice debate over "old" vs. "new" memories when i started taking pictures of the places i had been to been to on my last trip. limor thought i should take pictures of new places, so i could have new memories, whereas i thought that i would enjoy the nostalgia more. what i should have said was that it just so happened that the things i took pictures of the first time were still the most interesting things to take pictures of anyway.

while walking along the street, i noticed graffiti in several alleys. i wasn't sure if they were intentional (i.e. advertisements for shops, or trendy artwork) but the graffiti was cool nonetheless. we also saw a very intriguing poster strung up on a building facade. it was a speciment jar labelled "peace" containing a preserved dove, with the title "israel/palestine" and some hebrew. at the time we were too tired to speculate on its symbolism, and right now i'm too lazy.

also while walking, we stopped at one of the many lottery booths. at these kiosks you can purchase tickets for different games of chance. limor's favorite are the scratch-and-win variety, particularly the kind that cost 5 nis per ticket and feature different zodiac symbols. limor picked mine (scorpio), and we won 20 nis! feeling lucky, we picked another, but it didn't work. still, up 10 sheqels!

as our last sight to see in tel aviv for the day, we stopped at a small park, where i saw a very cool graffitti on the ground - it was a can with the label "enlightenment" (in hebrew). i saw it again on a wall nearby. it just struck me as clever (englightenment in a can - get it?).

on the bus ride back we sat in front of an israeli soldier whom i'm sure was deaf, because we could clearly hear his music - and he was listening to an ipod! do you know how loud those speakers are? for us to have heard it that clearly, the volume must have been all the way up, and for him to survive he must have had deviated ear canals filled with wax and sound-proofing foam. after a while we asked him through a series of hand-signals if he could turn it down, which he did to a dull roar. i read my book for the rest of the ride home.

at home in the apartment, we found the apartment to be a minor mess - food and poop everywhere. okay, the poop wasn't everywhere, but it might as well have been. since aviad had stayed at his girlfriend's to work on homework the last couple days, blame fell squarely on the other roommate. since she doesn't clean out her cat's litter box, and so smells like cat shit all the time, we didn't find the scenerio too far-fetched.

we only had time to drop off our bags and complain for a couple minutes before walking to hadas' apartment to see her new puppy. it was very cute, and limor made many exclamations over it. apparently the puppy is "shared" by the whole floor, and everybody takes turns taking care of it, presumably because it is so cute. i finished a giant pretzel i had bought in the market while i sat down to watch "xena: the warrior princess" on tv. of all the things to be on tv, that was probably the last thing i expected.

so we hopped in hadas' car and drove off to the mall to watch the fourth harry potter movie. i resisted hadas' repeated efforts to pry some plot spoilers from me, insisting i would let her form her own opinions of the film. i didn't want to ruin it for her with my negativisms. possibly in revenge, hadas parked her car right next to a pillar, so i couldn't open the door.

in the mall, we met limor's perach "kid" (she's actually 18) and her little sister, and we went in to watch the movie. like the other films, i enjoy them more the second time around, but i still think they should have followed the book more closely. the theater was more cozy than small, like the theatre i went to on the champs d'elysees than the raleigh grande. i had forgotten about the european practice of intermissions, and i'm still not sure if i like it or not (bathroom break vs. continuity break). unfortunately, we had to deal with some whispering idiots during the movie, and if hadn't been sure of the language barrier i might have told them to shut the **** up instead of just shushing them. and they were kids.

after the movie, we had a little difficulty with the exits - they opened up to some confusing corridors somewhere outside of space and time, where we wandered around for a couple minutes before finding the way out. we were walking up some stairs in what we thought was the correct direction when i noticed some people walking back to where we came from, and then we found out it was because the exits were locked. so we turned around, only to confront another group of people about to make the same mistake we did. fortunately i remembered the directions to an israeli card game, and so could say the word in hebrew for "closed" [petuach], because they ignored my hand-signals to "go the hell back".

finally back in the mall proper, we parted ways and went home.

hanukah with the family, food

Tuesday (12/27)

limor and i woke up and went to class. it would have been the same as most other days, except we both had brought our overnight bags so we could leave directly for rishon l'tzion, where we were meeting limor's extended family for the third night of hanukah.

we left class around 3 o'clock and rushed over to the central station so we could catch an egged to rishon. the route was about the same, but slightly longer. i still hadn't recovered from the other bus rides, so reading books didn't last long before i started feeling sick again. i think i napped at some point, and there was a very blazingly red sunset.

in rishon our stop was at a mall, where we waited about fifteen minutes for itzik to come pick us up (he forgot to leave earlier and was going to the car when we called). during that time, limor and i wandered around the outside of the mall, because getting inside would have involved a bag search, and mine was too fully packed for me to want to open it up. i was kinda surprised to see a large blockbuster among the stores - i guess i just didn't expect it to have the same kind of international clout as say, mcdonalds, in that it would be able to replace or out-compete local video stores.

speaking of video rentals, they had a dvd-vending machine outside. i think those are the coolest idea - i've seen them before a lot in england and france, and i think this was the first time i've seen it in israel. maybe the first time i noticed it or something. but as i was browsing titles i noticed they had a porn section on the far left. there was no attempt to hide or disguise the selection - titles like "hot horny teen spanking action" and the ever-classy "dripping wet cunts IV" were just as brightly lit up as disney kids movies on the other side. my favorite though was "pubic policy", with a stripper only vaguely resembling some sort of lawyer on the cover. at first i thought the name was strangely out-of-place, until i noticed there was no "L".

after limor's dad picked us up, we drove over to his cousin's (uncle's?) apartment nearby, where over the next several hours i met about twenty more extended family members on limor's dad's side, and like all large family gatherings i had no idea who half of them were and i forgot the names of the other half about thirty seconds after hearing them.

food was great, as i've come to expect from limor's family. there were homemade souvganiot, avocado-spread sandwiches, veggie pizza, cakes, etc. i enjoyed finally seeing limor's brother snir again - he's been away from home with the navy. he wasn't as comfortable with english as last time, so limor translated for us.

every nuclear family brought a menorah, so five or six sets of candles were sung over by about thirty people orchestrated by two grandfathers - candle lighting was quite an experience.

after the blessings we were ready to go, so limor and i wandered around the apartment while her parents finished up their conversations. it was kinda cool to see a smaller (and redder) version of my sun and moon tapestry hanging in one of the kids rooms. we walked outside to the porch, which would have looked over a nice mall if the trees hadn't blocked the way.

on the walk back i really wanted to climb some lightpoles, because they were perfect for it, but i had on a thirty pound backpack at the time so i thought "maybe later..."

back at limor's parent's apartment, snir presented me with his naval hat. we had discussed smuggling out various tzahel gear, but decided against it. the hat was his though, so it was cool. it's a dark blue baseball cap with the emblem of a battleship flanked by two sharks and his division number 916. it's actually one of the few hats i've found that actually look decent on me (i'm not a hat person).

because limor's parents have cable, i had to sit down in front of the tube for a while. i didn't used to watch tv so much while i lived in the dorms (we didn't sign up for tv) but in the last year and a half in an apartment it's regrown on me, and now i feel more comfortable with it on. i came across the history channel, which was airing "the biography of foods". it was a very cool program which detailed the histories of some pretty unassuming but important foods. i missed most of chocolate, but i did catch several others. some of the most important facts:

- snackfoods involving sugar directly caused the slave trade (sugar is very work-intensive)
- chef boyardee was a real person who is single-handedly responsible for the fact that we have italian restaurants in every city. his name was actually spelled "boiardi", but he was so proud of it he wanted to make sure people pronounced it correctly, so he spelled it out like it sounds.
- barbeque is the only real american food (hamburgers are from germany), and it was the celebration of choice for such important historical events as the revolutionary war and the civil war. george washington himself threw a victory barbeque in washington dc after winning the war of independence.
- a trapper and taxidermist named "bird's eye" came up with the idea for flash-frozen foods, which revolutionized the way we store, prepare, and eat foods. before he thought of his idea while seal-hunting in alaska, practically no-one could afford or had a use for a refridgerator, and the only way you could enjoy "fresh" foods was if you lived on a farm.
- mexican restaurants don't actually serve real mexican food (no surprise), but rather an americanized version of what entrepreneurs thought americans would expect mexican food to taste like. "chimichangas" were created when a waitress accidentally tripped and dropped a burrito in a deep-fryer, and nachos were invented when wives of several prominent businessmen came into a closed mexican restaurant (owned by a guy nicknamed "nacho") and asked for "something quick and cheap" (they now outsell popcorn and peanuts at baseball games).

the show went on for a couple hours, so those are just some of the highlights i remember a week later. maybe because it was so late, or maybe because i haven't seen much english television in a while, but i was fascinated. finally around midnight i left barak watching in the living room and crawled into bed. i slept very poorly, probably a combination of too much food (both ingested and watched) and a rock-hard mattress.

meetings and meetings

Monday (12/26)

like every other day, i could have gotten up early with limor, but i chose to sleep in. this time, i only stayed under for an extra hour. i got up, ate breakfast, read some book (i need to pace myself better, i'm already two-hundred pages in), and finally got caught up with my journal / blog / whatever. i also managed to upload all the pictures i've taken so far - unfortunately i'm not as attentive as i used to be, so there are gaps here and there.

i did take a break to make myself a sandwich - again, using everything in the fridge. mmmm mmm...so tasty. i was cold today, so in addition to getting fully dressed, i wore an el al airline blanket wrapped around my waist like a kilt, and i wore my fleece airline blanket wrapped around my head and tucked into my jacket like a scarve. my feet were cold too, so i wore limor's pink slippers. all together i probably looked like a little old lady - which is what limor's roommate saw when she walked by the kitchen while i was making my sandwich.

eventually, limor came back from fieldwork, and we watched some of the neighborhood kids playing around on the first-story roof of some abandoned buildings behind her apartment. even though it was freezing cold, the little kids (who probably ranged in age from four to ten) were skipping barefoot through puddles on the roof. limor surmised they could be bedhouin children, and so were used to being outside. i wondered how they were going to accomplish the feat when their mother (or some random woman) called for them to get down. i was soon to see, however, for the clever children had brought their own ladder, and had pulled it up to the roof with them.

having had our entertainment for the afternoon, it was time to eat. limor felt like soup, and so soup it was - tomato with rice. i skinned the tomato (which i didn't realize was possible), which limor combined with tomato paste, hotdogs, rice, spices, oil and water. i added some creamy "white cheese" and extra za'atar to round it out. oh, so satisfying.

next we went to bgu (ben gurion university) around 7pm so limor could attend her biweekly perach business meeting, where all the participants/recipients in the work-study program could get together to discuss their progress or whatever. i brought my computer, and so didn't really pay attention. however, i did notice in the very beginning of class another quirk of israeli society. there weren't enough chairs to go around, so latecomers had to bring in extras. instead of taking them into the room and finding a place to sit, or asking people to slide over, they just put their chairs in the gap right in front of the door. then, when the next people came in, they did the same thing. i would think rational people would try get out of the way, but nobody made a move, and people just kept piling up in the doorway like a circus. this probably would have continued if i hadn't nudged the person next to me and suggested they tell everybody down the line to move over. it was very strange that i was the only person to consider this obvious solution.

anyway, so after the business meeting concluded, limor and i met hadas and adi outside of school, and hadas drove us a little outside of be'ersheva to a town called omer, where we searched for one of their friends from school. we found her house (well, her parents house), and like all israeli houses i've visited it was very nicely decorated. i like the layout of the house as well - it was basically a large ring with an outdoor atrium of sorts in the center with multiple accesses from all around the house.

we sat around with maybe twenty people and chatted, and ate various foods (i stayed away from the souvganiot), and waited for the pizza to arrive. unfortunately, most israelis seem to like the green olives better than the black, but i didn't mind too much. we sang the blessings over the candles, and hung out some more. the girl's very affectionate (and large) dog jumped on me several times, and i continued to be the center of attention for a while when lots of people came over to speak to me in english.

latest set of pics

go to:
here for more pictures

i'm still working on the last week - i finally got caught up, and then i just didn't feel like continuing, so i jotted down some notes which i will finalize later. instead, i logged a couple more hours on the webpage i'm supposed to be writing, and i'm pretty much finished. i just need to wait til i get home so i can implement security, and i should be $300 richer for the effort. i'll let you know what the site is when it's up.

anyway, enjoy the pictures - sorry they're not named, but you can kinda guess what i'm doing in them, right? sometimes they match up to the blog posts too, if that helps...