Another Tuesday, Another Day of Fun

Tuesday, time to explore and walk around and maybe some errands. I needed to get my Rav Kav as I've been putting off getting one for way too long and just decided to finally do it in the morning. The Rav Kav is essentially a metro card for the buses. You can get unlimited ones, or ones with discounts for certain groups like senior citizens and students. As a student my Rav Kav gives me 30% off on the buses I normally take. Lots of different bus companies, lots of different rav kavs. You can also add money onto the card when you get on the bus so it's very convenient, to use. To get it you need to go to one the major bus stations. One of which is very sketchy and you don't want to go to at night at all. I went to the other one. I had all my paperwork and they took my picture. Serious face. I decided to walk from there down to the Shuk and hope to find some cool places and food on the way there. One of the first places I saw was called

Cake Art, it had my curiosity and attention immediately. Initially however I knew I had to get falafel from the shuk and kept walking but then I thought about how hungry I was at the moment and decided to at least cross the street and check it out. From the outside it looked like a restaurant but was really just a glorified bakery with so many options to choose from. I found a "single" serving eggplant quiche and ate the whole thing. I considered it a "single" serving because I ate it all on my walk without putting it down. It was so good. I need to go back.

I walk over to Ibn Gabirol St and just follow the path of the bus I would otherwise normally take. This gives me a chance to really take in my surroundings as opposed to trying to soak in all the details on a bus going 50kph. I also am given the chance to go into any store or park I please, something which I take advantage of. I find this little park with a really awesome swing. Instead of the boring strip of plastic

 it's basically a concave disc (think satellite dish) and made out of rope. I swing on that for a good ten minutes. Nothing wrong with a 21 year old American tourist on a children's swing in the middle of the day. Nothing. I continue on my walk and come across two more pretty awesome places. A really cool but way too expensive clothing store, with tons of awesome/weird stuff, and an awesome coffee/book shop. Both of these stores were super easy to just walk past without notice, luckily I walked past and took notice. I have a feeling I'll be coming back to the book/coffee shop for when I need to actually start studying for finals/do work.

 

Eventually I make my way to the Shuk, with supermarket prices in mind to see what's cheaper and where. I just get a few things, and can barely fit them all in my backpack, luckily I came with some extra plastic bags. I get a kilo of this, half a kilo of that. Then  two beers. Because I met someone last week I feel like this is a good place to meet strangers and have good conversation. Oh, and drink beer too. I met some Americans working in Tel Aviv, one of whom graduated Brandeis in 2010 but we weren't about to start playing Jewish geography. I had a pomegranate cider that was amazing, as alcoholic as a very dry cider but without the dryness, and a Belgian Tripel(9.2%), both brewed in Israel, as is every drink at Beer Bazar. As soon as I know it I gotta run back to campus for class. I will admit, I was a bit past tipsy when I finished. I also got the drunk munchies and although I couldn't find the fabled falafel place I found another highly recommended place that I couldn't find last time. Fresh made laffa stuffed with hummus, salad and charif (hot sauce). Picture break...

I stumble back to the bus stop, okay that might have been an exxageration, and wait for what seems like forever for it to come. I finally get to use my newly obtained Rav Kav and fill that up with some money. After a few stops the woman sitting next to me gets off and an American girl sits next to me and starts talking to her friend all about her relationship woes. At first I'm debating on whether or not I should interject and then I'm just wondering at what moment do I chime in. My opportunity arrives and I grab it with a buzzed glee. We talk for the rest of the ride, turns out they are graduate students at TAU, one from France, one from America., both studying conflict resolution. I get back with about half an hour before class. By the time class starts I still feel a bit buzzed but it ends up being the best class so far. I'm killing it. Answering every question, I feel completely in the zone. Everyone else in the class seems pretty much dead. After class I talk to the teacher about Israel and agriculture and I find out a bunch of stuff, companies and kibbutzes that are very into the whole sustainable thing. So I have my research and contacting to do now. I see exciting experiences in my future!!!! 

The Fun Never Stops

One of the residents

Friday morning I woke up early like usual (okay, its only the 2nd time) to go volunteer at the youth village. I learned that most of the other people there are less volunteers and more court-mandated-community-service-workers. Hahaha... They're not murderers or anything, I was talking to one of them and he just got in a drunken brawl with some guy so now he's there a few days a week. He also really wants to learn English and I want to learn Hebrew so that's a plus. Main point, I'm there to volunteer and work hard, they are there not by their own free will so they don't want to work at all. Also, Friday mornings they typically have birthday parties for kids. They bring food and eat, feed the animals, make pita, go on tractor rides, perfect for the budding kibutznik. I have to leave early because I'm going on a trip to Eilat for a day and a half, I get back and have just enough time to do laundry, the dryer even already has 20 minutes on it, just enough time.

So I know next to nothing about what this trip will entail (Bedouin tent and camel ride is all I know) and ask one of my friends what she is bringing. I cram some warm clothes for the night and another shirt in my yellow backpack and some food, of course. I go to the central bus station with my other friend. This place is huge, in a sketchy part of tel aviv and very confusing to navigate. We finally find the right gate and get our tickets. We're still waiting on the two other girls. The other two girls arrive and we get on the bus. I then learn its going to be a 5 hour bus ride. No problem, I am the master of long bus rides, Amherst to NY was almost always 5 hours.  Besides, I have my music, food and water, I'm ready for the worst. Which is what precisely happens in the form of a mother and her two very young, very loud, very upset children. She ends up displacing my two friends who were sitting across from me. Hip hip hooray... Throughout the ride they cry, scream, hide under the seat, fight each other, get hit by their mother and cry about needing to go to the bathroom. To which the mother makes the bus driver stop, right by a police station on the highway mind you. She grabs the kid by the arms brings him to the side of the bus, in everyone's view and just pulls his pants down and away he goes. He also apparently started to poop because I hear her scream something about poop in hebrew. Luckily we also had a few breaks. One of which involved a McDonalds in the middle of the desert, complete with golden arches. Even in the desert of Israel you can't escape the clown. As we're getting closer and the sun is setting there is the most beautiful sunset over the desert horizon, wonderful color gradient. 5 hours later we arrive to the bus station. I was under the impression, a wrongful one at that, that a taxi would be waiting for us to take us to Yusef's Beduoin Tent!!!!!! There was not. However there were still taxis, they just had no idea what we were talking about... After many minutes and talking to numerous drivers we finally find one who knows where to go. Unfortunately there are five of us and only four seats. He refuses to take all of us so we split up into two taxis and just follow the first guy. We finally get to our destination.

There it is...

Courtesy of google maps, also
the image seems broken, oh well

Quite literally, Yusef's Bedouin Tent. Just one. A single tent. As humor is my go to coping mechanism I just laugh and take in the whole situation. I should clarify a bit. We were expecting the usual Bedouin tourist destination. In the middle of the desert, with many huge tents, for sleeping, eating and dancing. What we got was a roadside restaurant attraction... We were all severely disappointed, especially those of us who have never been to the real thing. We even went through the 5 stages of grief, denial, anger, bargaining, sadness and acceptance. This can't be the place, this fucking sucks, can't we find another place, this is not what I was expecting (sad face) and alright lets just see how this works out. So we walk the 15 feet from the side of the road to the tent with our bags and are greeted by who else but YUSEF!!! There are couches outside with sheets over them, almost every surface is covered in either a tapestry or rug. The ceiling is adorned by decorative lanterns and poorly wired light bulbs. We sit down, still in shock just focusing on getting some food in our stomachs. He asks us what we want to eat and we explain that there are people in the group that dont eat meat. Hummus and pita it is. Every time he talks to us it sounds like he is being sarcastic even though he is being sincere, it confuses some of us. He starts us off with olives, pita, hummus, labneh and some surprisingly good salted cucumbers and tomatoes. We all start chowing down and a bit later he brings out the authentic stuff, grilled meats and french fries. Two heaping plates of french fries. Hummus and french fry tacos for dinner it is. One of the girls asks about sleeping over and he replies with what seems like sarcasm but is really just confusing sincerity. He tells us of course we can stay and tells us where each of his family members sleep. They all live in this tent... 

A lot of other groups are also coming through for dinner and hookah. One of whom leaves a very memorable impression. A Polish grandmother with a very high pitched voice who ends up getting quite shitfaced off of beer and befriending just about all the other adults there. Her face was just glowing with drunken glee and I really wanted to be her friend. Some of us are getting very tired and just fall asleep pretty early. I stay up pretty late as I'm still a little sketched out and paranoid. Eventually, I fall asleep and wake up 5 hours later to the sun rising over the mountains in Jordan. It's pretty dam cold and I'm not gonna get any warmer by laying in bed. So, I struggle to put on a pair of jeans over my pajama pants, get my shoes on and go across the street for a better view and some exercise to warm up. The First Days of Spring by Noah and the Whales was my soundtrack for my morning outside the tent. I still can't get over how good Love of an Orchestra is. I walked down the street to see what else was around because we weren't exactly offered breakfast. "I give you tea or coffee in the morning and then you leave" -Yusef

That's fine, we had to make it to the camel place by 8:45. Luckily I found an aroma close by andwent on a breakfast run and got back with minutes to spare. We load into I guess his son's taxi and go just down to the road to the camel place. The whole of last night he wouldn't give us a straight answer to how far away it was. It was only a few minutes away, so we say our goodbyes and go. We arrive to the camel ranch and are debating between the 1.5 or 4 hour ride. I've done camel rides before and would not want to be on one for 4 hours. Thankfully that's not the case, there are parts that the camels are linked together, parts we ride on our own (aka not chained together) and parts where we just chill with the camels and make food. We get two guides and they bring us out to the camels. They are all female camels with distinct personalities and we get matched by the guides. I got the ginger camel, Offi (well as ginger as a camel can be which is not very.)

view from one of our breaks

Lots of great conversation with the guides, it felt less like a tour and more like just hanging out on/with some camels. They call a taxi for us so we can get back to the bus station. Same thing happens as before, the driver won't take us all but we ask him to call another cab. I don't think he ever did because me and the other guy were waiting there for a while. We find the guide again and ask him to call another cab. Finally one comes and we make our way to the station. The girls already bought us tickets but for the bus 3 hours from now. This would mean getting back to the sketchy bus station at 11pm. Not something we really want to do. Also, one of the girls 'needs' to get back in time for her birthday clubbing celebration. So we end up getting on the bus with the agreement that we give up our seats to anyone coming onto the bus. Well that wasn't an issue as there were no seats for us to begin with. Besides the seats on the floor and in the stairwell in the back. I ended up sitting next to a woman's smelly feet. That was only the first two hours. We finally had our first rest stop and it was utter chaos as there were a few other buses stopping as well. Well it was chaos for the women. The line for the bathroom was going out the door and some women resorted to just finding a semi-secluded place to just pop a squat. The men's bathroom had no issue, no line, just in and out. I stand up for the next hour of the ride. No problem, it's just like the subway. Finally a bunch of people get off the bus and seats open up. I'm losing my writing steam and can't remember anything super funny or interesting happening after this point. So we finally get back and take a taxi to the dorms.

Trip Up North and an Israeli Wino Part 3

Oooohhh Agriculture

The next day we had a nice and early breakfast, as a means to make sure nobody would drink too much. I would say it was successful for most people, but for those it wasn't, you could tell. Made for a fun game at breakfast. I love Israeli breakfasts because there is always such a wide range of options to choose from. I even tried cottage cheese for the first time. I didn't feel as if I was missing out my whole life. As good as the breakfast was, the view of the sunrise over the Kineret was even better. No pictures, so you'll just have to trust me. We start our day with a nice hike by the El Al stream, "so clean you could drink it". But none of us do. We have 2 liters of water each, more than enough to get us through the day. Oh, and a hat. Two liters of water and a hat. Can't travel without them, but apparently we don't need a towel... We get back on the bus and then go to Bantal Mountain, very high up, luckily I had all my clothes in my backpack so I wasn't freezing. There was a vendor selling fruit and honey between the parking lot and the summit. There is also a ton of scrap metal artwork, including this giant dinosaur. However, I have to admit I took this picture about 5 years ago when I was on Seminar. The above picture was taken this year though.

Aaah 5 year old dinosaur picture

There was also a cafe at the top that felt a lot like a ski lodge, cold weather outside, wooden walls and warmth inside. It was just another reminder that Fall is happening back home and that I'm going to completely miss it and go straight to winter when I leave to travel in December. To compensate, I got a bottle of hard cider and a potato bureka. Perfect. We got back to the hotel where there was a shuttle van waiting for those who needed to get back Saturday night in time for Sunday class. Only one problem. There weren't enough seats. Some people decided they wanted to leave early and some forgot to register for the shuttle. The van is full and I'm waiting with one other person for another taxi because we don't want to sit on the tiny floor of this van for 3 hours. The taxi driver then says there is room for one more and he nudges me on. I get on, he closes the door and just starts driving. There are still two people standing putting their luggage and two seats, they tell me to sit. I do but it turns out there was no other seat, so one of the guys ends up sitting on the floor. I am so pissed at the taxi driver but he's not gonna turn around. We agree to take shifts sitting on the floor but we all actually end up falling asleep. I feel like I got off too easy this time, totally not foreshadowing right now... All in all it was a good trip. Now for the wino.

Trip Up North and an Israeli Wino Part 2

Postponing posts is not a great idea, lots of steam and details are lost when I do. :/ So we finished hiking down Arbel and were soaked. Tried to dry up during lunch, tried. We finish lunch and get back onto the bus one by one. The bus driver puts a towel for us to wipe our feet, after the first 5 people it wasn't exactly helping anymore, but hey, its the thought that counts. We had a short drive to the Kinneret Cemetery during which I spent the whole time trying to dry my feet and socks. Luckily I had all my clothing in my bagpack and was able to switch to a pair of dry socks. Probably a mistake because my shoes were still soaked. Oops. Our guide showed us a few gravestones and told us about the stories behind their respective owners. I've been there the other two times I was in Israel and in general, cemeteries are not at the top of my sight-seeing list; but I get it, it's one of the mandatory tourist destinations.

After that we go back to the hotel to nap and dry off before dinner. The layout of the hotel was more like a hedge maze, we needed to take two elevators and go through a few winding hallways before actually finding our rooms. We got into random groups of 3 per room. I got my lucky number, 117.  I have to say, it felt very weird to be in a hotel as a guest after a whole summer of cleaning rooms. I couldn't even bring myself to mess up the neatly made sheets. Also, I knew that for Israeli taxis you don't tip, wasn't sure if it was the same for hotels and it seemed like nobody else was sure. There was no doubt in my mind that none of the other students would tip so I felt even more obligated and left 20 nis ($~6) tucked into a little note. I hope the housekeepers can read english...  I eventually got over my housekeeper conditioning and crashed right to bed and slept for a couple hours. I wake up, look at the little hotel pamphlet to see if there is anything to do within the next couple hours before dinner. I notice they have a "fitness center" so I go but apparently I only have 10 minutes left to try every piece of antique fitness equipment. As I'm leaving the attendant is just sitting outside the "fitness center" smoking a cigarette, indoors by the way. At this point, it doesn't surprise me anymore. I continue walking around and find the "Breeze Terrace", one of the few places in the hotel without a misleading name. The view of the Kineret is great, as you can see yourself, albeit secondhand. I continue wandering around the hotel and find a different terrace from which to watch the sun set. An older Israeli woman came out while I was leaning over the terrace's railing and made some quip about me falling off. I told her I was just out there to watch the sky (this whole exchange was in hebrew by the way.) When I entered back into the building a little later, there she was struggling with her husband to lock the door, they asked for my help and we realized you can't use the key to lock the door, only to unlock it and that you have to lock it from the inside by pressing the little button, like bathroom doors in the states.

Breeze Terrace View #1

Breeze Terrace View #2

Dinner time comes around, everyone is showered and entering the dining room. I end up sitting next to a group of Polish exchange students and talk to the guy next to me about the usual stuff. It turns out he is a graduate student doing his thesis on the portrayal of war in Israeli cinema. This turns out to be perfect as I recently saw The Shining for the first time and couldn't stop talking about how good it was. Amazing. The dinner was great, lots of different entrees and tons of side dishes, three tables worth of side dishes to be exact. After dinner we loaded up on our buses for a twenty minute drive to a "Pub". Quotations are very useful when it comes to names of things in Israel as they (the names) must always be taken with a large grain of salt. A staggeringly large grain of salt. That's not to say this "pub" was a huge letdown, but other things which I will mention later are. I had a pretty good time, finally got my hands on some good whiskey, albeit at NYC prices, still worth it. I was kinda surprised at the amount of people outside smoking. It was a good time nonetheless, got to meet a lot of people.
This is getting lengthy. A three parter it is.

A Different Terrace View #1

If you meet a stranger, make a friend

Today was a great day. Tuesdays are usually good days because they are my days to explore downtown and go to the Shuk (HaKarmel) but today was a great day. My class was canceled this week because the teacher was in another country so instead of having class at 4, I had no class (the first good thing.) On the bus ride I saw a few places that I would have to visit, including this really cool study cafe, Chadar Avodah (work room) and a gourmet shop, called Gourmet Shop, I saw lots of cheeses in the window just calling out to me. Walking from the bus stop to the Shuk I see a sign that must have been crafted by the heavens, "Falafel 6.90 nis". I haven't had falafel yet and I've been here for three weeks now, needless to say I pounce on the opportunity and devour that delicious and cheap falafel. So satisfying.
I got to the Shuk and started my New York stroll (totally patented) aka weaving in and out of the crowd and 'gently' bumping into anyone standing still in the middle of the walkway. My inner aggressive New Yorker really gets to come out when I'm in Tel Aviv, it's dangerous. I'm dangerous... (feel free to laugh at that) Any who, I do my shopping, carrots, peppers, pita and peanuts. As I'm walking back to the entrance out of the corner of my eye on one of the side streets I see a sign, "Beer Bazzar" and I take a closer look, Israeli craft beer and a few seats at the kiosk/bar. The bartender was super friendly and helpful, even told me about another pub with 50 beers on tap, Porter&Sons. Another thing to add to my list of places to visit. I had two beers, not amazing but pretty dam good, especially compared to goldstar. There were two others at the bar when I came and we had a good conversation going. One of the people there was an American from West Virginia doing graduate work in Finland, it's free there!!!! She was visiting (Israel) for a few days with a Finnish friend who was at a conference for desalinization technology.  I ended up hanging out with her for the rest of the day.

We walked to the beach, about a half hour, through a really nice, tourist free neighborhood. Plenty of cool but prohibitively expensive stores. We talked about everything from agriculture to whats wrong with America to Rick Perry giving a talk at a conference about clean water/desalinization technologies which I will get back to a little later. We spent a lot of time just soaking in the beach and talking, it was really refreshing and there were so many cute dogs everywhere, unfortunately they all had their own agenda, not involving me... We also walked around Jaffa, doing a nice loop although we just missed the 'flea market'. We took a taxi back to the apartment she was staying at right by the Dizengoff mall, waiting for her friend to get back from the conference for dinner. It was what I guess you would call a roomy studio apartment and owned by an actor/writer guy, so lots of odd artwork but he did have two great coffee table books, All My Friends Are Dead and All My Friends Are Still Dead, so bonus points for that. He gave us a few recommendations for where to go for dinner and we settled on North Abraxass. We walked over along Rothschild and saw sooo many dogs and cyclists and a few cyclists with dogs. I had to ask about Rick Perry and what he could have possibly talked about in regards to clean water technology. I was not surprised, absolutely nothing. He was just pushing his own agenda and talking about how a free market economy can fix everything. I am still in shock that he was even invited to speak at this conference. Whatever. Our directions were not very clear so I am very glad I can read hebrew and know a decent amount of words because we would have walked right past it otherwise. It seemed like the kind of place that you dress up a bit and need to make reservations for, we were given less than an hour to eat our meal because there was only one open table with a reservation for 9:30...

The tables were covered in two strips of butcher paper, making a cross and the appetizers came just in a bowl of parchment paper. There was a huge emphasis on just sharing everything, to hell with a clean table. Our first appetizers arrived, a delicious head of roasted cauliflower and Jericho beans with olive oil, garlic and lemon and then the waitress, seemingly out of nowhere just threw a huge pinch of salt on the table. Both super simple and both amazing. I got the sardine fillets at the advice of the waitress, it was great advice. Some of the best fish at a restaurant I've ever had. Unfortunately I was in a bit of a rush, trying to catch the bus at 9 instead of 10, luckily we finished dinner rather quickly, I put in what was deemed a fair share of the bill, said bye and booked it out of there, running to the bus stop. I'm glad I did, I made it with about 30 seconds to spare. I got back to the dorms with just enough time to finish the homework for my online class. Such a great day. Have some more pictures. PS. this is why I left the North trip post unfinished, I decided to just stop writing and start my day which turned into this. The part 2 for that post will come soon.

Such a majestic creature

Trip Up North and an Israeli Wino

This weekend we had a nice touristy trip up north, witty dry tour guide and everything. It felt a lot like Seminar for the 2 days I was there. The trip was Friday morning-Sunday night but I had to leave Saturday night along with a bunch of other students in the BA program because of our Sunday classes. We left Friday morning, kinda early for students (7:30 am). We got on the bus, hoping to go back to sleep, it would be a long drive to our first stop, however sleep was not on the itinerary. Only lots of loud wakening music, including one of my favorites, and some not so pleasing, so much so, that I cant remember what they were. I love my brain's defense mechanisms, repress! repress! repress!... We had a little stop in a mall on the way, for bathrooms and breakfast (aka, aroma). I got very jealous when I saw their bread oven full of loaves at different stages of baking. It took all my self control not to buy a giant loaf of bread for myself. I got a chocolate croissant instead. I found a bookstore with a very limited english book section, full of mostly classics like Wizard of Oz, Jane Austen, Huckleberry Fin and 50 Shades of Grey...

We got to the Arbel Mountain soon after, the bus took us straight to the top and then it started raining. Foreshadowing? Perhaps. Our bus (two buses, two groups) sat in a circle, the older you get the harder it is to do, and did a quick ice breaker, your name and the story behind a scar. I had a hard time choosing which scar to use, the giant color changing one on my knee? the various oven burns from bread baking? oil burns from chicken frying? forehead scar from falling into the edge of my mom's falling cabinet when I was 5? None of those, they were old and overused, I wanted something a bit fresher, the scar on my eyelid from my bike crash, solid scar, fun story. Dodododo transition... We started hiking a bit around the tip, soaking in the view of the Kineret and the little towns nearby while simultaneously trying not to slip on the wet rocks beneath us. But its okay, we were totally safe as long as we had our hats and two liters of water. We started hiking down, now also watching out not to step in cow pies or goat crumbs (poop). It was a beautiful winding path, lots of rock scrambling and fun maneuvers and an even better constantly changing view. To add to the atmosphere, the Muslim town below us starts one of their daily prayers, blasted all over the tiny town via loudspeakers, even reaching us near the top of the mountain. As we get a quarter of the way down out of almost nowhere it essentially starts hailing. The rain is coming down hard and fast soaking everyone and everything while the winds are picking up and blowing peoples hats all over the place, always fun to race after your hat on a hike. This continues for at least half the hike downwards, maybe 5 minutes. It felt like one of those I can't believe this is happening so I'm just gonna smile moments. Most people were getting miserable but I found it exhilarating and I honestly didn't want it to stop. Unfortunately for me it did as we reached the bottom, just in time for a nice drenched lunch. Plenty of sandwiches, all labeled with stickers, I opted for the cheese and vegetable sandwich, what I got, both times, was just cheese and cucumber. The odds were not in my favor.
Will finish with another post when I get back later.

Pancakes, a Proverbial Candy Store and lots of Detergent

Since I don't have class till about 4pm on Tuesdays, and Nachalat Benyamin is open that day Tuesday has become my go explore Tel Aviv in the morning day. This week I went to Benedict, a 24/7 modest breakfast restaurant. It's at the intersection of two main streets in the downtown area, Allenby and Rothschild Blvd, and right across the street from the little Japanika 'restaurant' (its the size of a newsstand). I wanted something sweet and light so I got the chocolate pancakes and a cold coffee which is just milk, ice and then a splash of coffee, I'm not sure there was any caffeine in it. The pancakes were a bit bigger than the silver dollar variety but about 2-3 times the height. It was an unsettling although tasty experience. I sat at the bar so I had a perfect view of the window into the kitchen and took my time eating, just watching the kitchen work and craving to be back working in one. Although a lot of the time I didn't love my job frying chicken, sometimes it was a lot of fun to work in a fast moving kitchen. I still can't believe they let someone who never tasted the chicken cook all of it...

After breakfast I did some wandering for an hour or two. Really had to go to the bathroom after walking for a while, ended up back by the shuk and got a perfect chance to use my smartphone to google for bathrooms in tel aviv. Luckily there was one just down a flight of stairs at the entrance of the market. But, I found something even better than a bathroom a little later. A really cool store on Allenby, Leopard Fun Shop, full of nifty kitchen gadgets. I felt like I found my proverbial personal candy store. I've been looking for a little pan or baking sheet for the little toaster oven but I haven't found anything small enough yet. They had some small springform pans, so I may cave in and buy one or two next time. I also made sure on the bus ride back to keep an eye open for any cool looking stores or places to eat and found a few, will have to revisit them!

Also, because my life wouldn't be complete without a visit from Murphy (and his oh so delightful law, not a theory, a law.) I was doing laundry on Tuesday and I heard you could just buy detergent there, I thought there was just a little machine that would give you a packet of detergent. So I put my clothes in the washing machine, put 2 shekel into the this metal wall-mounted box expecting a little packet of detergent to come out. Nothing happens immediately so I look at the base of the machine and notice a little plastic tube with some pink liquid around it. Then I realized in a split second that it's about to start squirting out detergent and I have nothing to catch it with. Two seconds later it starts flowing and I am helpless, there is nothing I can do to stop it and nothing to catch it with. So, for the 8 seconds the detergent is flowing all over the table I, along with two other people doing their laundry are just staring as all this pink liquid is just pouring all over. A few awkward still seconds later I realize it's just soap and I soak it up with some socks, throw them back in the machine and problem solved.

Cat Fact #5am

Smug Bastard

This is "Yosi" or the cat that just about everybody "fucking hates." I say just about everybody because one of my suit-mates likes him. He also will feed him and put out a bowl of water in our kitchen for him and if anyone had a childhood they probably are familiar with how this behavior works out. This cat is one of many that lives in the dorm area but the only one that has been taken to a vet to get neutered/spayed, I didn't check and I probably won't, and get its shots. So at least it's not a feral cat. My first week here this cat just came into my room and onto the balcony and then disappeared, probably went to explore the adjoining balconies and be a dick elsewhere. Can't you tell that I love this cat? Here comes the fun part. Around 5am on Wednesday I wake up from a super vivid dream to react to something jumping on my legs in bed, no idea what as my eyes are still closed (It felt like I woke up a second before he actually jumped but I'm not entirely sure if that's true.) My adrenaline starts pumping and I start kicking. I quickly wake up and realize it was this ass. Now he's just sitting on the edge of my bed not giving a single dam, just being a cat. I try shooing it away, I just get a glance. So I just start pushing it with my feet until it jumps off but not because I was pushing it, just because it wanted to leave... Cats... But it doesn't end there because he is just now sitting all smug on the floor beside my bed. I don't trust this [name above and to the right] and don't want him in my room so I open the door and try to shoo him out the door. It failed the first time, why would it work the second time? So I take the end of my sleeping bag and just start pushing it outside. I close the door and make sure it can't just be pushed open, curse the cat a few times and then attempt to fall back asleep (which failed by the way.) I can not make this stuff up, just as I finished that last sentence this song comes up on Pandora. My life is a joke.

Shabbat Shalom

The week is finally over, kind of. Weekends are different here, Sunday here is more like Monday but everything is closed on Saturday for shabbat, but after shabbat at night most things open up, just in case you're dying to get a boureka or something. So there's not really a lazy Sunday here where you can just shop and do what you want, that gets condensed into just a few hours Saturday night. 

I've finally had all my classes and they are quite unique. My environment class is really small and the teacher has been living in Israel for at least the past decade but is actually from Missouri I believe. There is apparently an awesome weekend Jeep trek he does in the class, probably gonna go do that when it happens. I also realized my psych class is focused almost completely on outdated views of developmental psychology, cough...freud...cough so its not what I expected but I will have to bare with it and endure. I finally had my acting workshop class, the teacher is quite eccentric and almost too passionate about the class. The first day consisted of everyone taking turns sitting in front of the class (15ish people) for about a minute. At first we were instructed to try not to think and then to focus on something and just let it naturally affect our faces. It was also pretty hard not to laugh when you are seeing every other face in the room cracking up. So I think this is gonna be quite the interesting class.

Tuesday I met a friend from Ramah and went to Nachalat Benyamin. Two days a week it takes over a section of the street, full of vendors on each side in front of all the shops that are still open. It's all handcrafted arts and crafts type items, jewelry, leather wallets, tiny glasses that you just put on your nose (but really, they are not for correcting vision, they are just small glasses that simply sit on your nose) and even a collection of artisinal soaps. Lots of cool/weird/funky/hipster/artisinal stuff. Running perpendicular to it is Shuk Hakarmel, a long stretch of street, same layout but they sell mostly food and household goods. So many vendors, but my stomach was not feeling ready to tackle all the great smelling street foods. I just got a giant basket of cherry tomatoes and half a kilo of peanuts. But there are some things they just don't have and I'm learning to cope with that, surely but slowly. Also, as someone who does not exactly blend in with the crowd of dark and tan Israelis, when other tourists who are lost see me, they immediately ask me to help them. Sure I speak english fluently but I barely know this place, so I can't always be a great help... Sorry english guy. 

I was also wandering around campus and happened upon this neglected garden. Lots of handwritten signs, rosemary and lavender bushes, a baby orange tree, and some dying tomato and pepper plants. I was also looking for the 'greenhouse' on campus which it turns out is not a real greenhouse but rather a food court-ish building. Need to do some more research on the "Urban Garden."
Last thing, I was at the OSP office asking about internships or volunteer opportunities, and now I'm volunteering every Friday morning at HaKfar HaYarok. Looks like I'm gonna start by just taking care of the animals and doing other assorted chores. They have so many animals, chickens, cows, goats, donkeys, sheep, pigeons, ducks, geese, other birds and animals and a very angry emu. Orange eyes, a bald head and giant claws. I also learned that there is one egg company in Israel that everyone sells their eggs to and that there are organic eggs and produce but they are very limited and super expensive. I really need to start taking pictures...
Shabbat Shalom!

Update #2: Bowels returning to normal function

The first week has been a mixed bag, the first few days jet lag was kicking my butt, I was not doing a good job being social. I live with a bunch of kids from the tristate area (frat brothers). One of my suitmates actually cooks (meals for other people) and does a decent job cleaning up after himself, but everything is very meat-centric. He seems like a cool kid. They love country music... They are actually talking about their muscles right now and how they dont understand why their biceps arent exploding and why they dont have abs yet. I cant make this stuff up... So yeah, first few days was just shopping here and there, went to the ramat aviv mall (2 floors but super long) and grocery stores. My sleep schedule was stuck in both time zones, like 11pm-2am and then again from 9am-1pm (both my time). It was not pleasant, I would just walk around in the early morning. Talk up the person at the 24/7 Mart (cigs, food and drinks). Also met this lovely Israeli at 3am. She was biking past me, I smile and say boker tov, she does the same. Then she stops and is on the phone. I walk by her and then she gets going again and stops next to me and we just start talking for like an hour. It was really nice but she is 18 and Israeli so I did not ask for her number. She offered to beat up Nofar for me (awww.) Tofu was very hard to find, kale just does not exist. The only beans I can find are chickpeas, and Egyptian Fava beans (lentils too). Cheese is not the same. Brassica family vegetables are poor quality. /foodierant Saturday night I hung out with a friend from camp and at one point this group of about 15 year old Israelis wanted us to take a picture of them with their asses hanging out in front of the harbor... Some things will always be the same, independent of the country you're in. I got back to the dorms around 1am. Wanted to talk to my all knowing uncle, we texted and it seemed that our schedules would not work out together. I go upstairs, slowly open my door and low and behold, my roommate jerking it to the glow of his macbook. I quietly close the door and just nope the fuck out of there. I turn on the hot water heater for the shower, it takes a few minutes so no more spontaneous showers (like that was a thing...) and then my phone starts vibrating, its my uncle, so I gladly go downstairs and talk to him for a while. We finish talking and I go back upstairs and cross paths with my roommate. I don't think he knows I walked in on him or he's just pretending it didnt happen. He says he's getting something from downstairs, presumably a post-masturbation celebratory snack. I have to find a way to bring this up later on. Suggestions? I had a beer in the shower before bed (1. I've always wanted to do that 2. I couldnt find any sleepy time tea) and it was not as great as everyone claims it to be. Also, I couldnt find any sleep aids at the pharmacy (Super Pharm). Just expensive sunblock that smells like baby powder and barely rubs in. #whatcanticomplainabout #selfawareness This allowed me to sleep until 3!!!!! But I woke up and couldnt remember how to sleep and I felt like I was a potato that just wanted to be baked in the oven. Weird. Sunday I had my first class, intro to developmental psychology, made friends with 2 freshman on my way to class. We went around the room, where we're from, and our year in school, just about 90% of the class said first year... I feel like a grandpa. Can't tell how that class is gonna be yet but there is one girl who has been studying psychology at her school for a while and you could tell how pleased the teacher was (sarcasm.) I had my economics class today, same thing, grandpa status. Went around with introductions, nobody studies anything even close to agriculture in that class. The teacher is a dry Israeli brit and is already glancing at me whenever he says something farm related. Some people not from the tri-state area in my classes. There was a girl from Paris in my econ class and I started talking to her after class to see if she could help me with my french (not a euphemism) and give me some travel advice over a drink, I gave her my number and I'll let you in on the secrets of Paris once I find them out. Also, a girl approached me after the same class and was really interested in my major, so I might have another new friend. That essentially sums up stuff. Don't feel like writing postcards until more stuff happens. Also, somethings I've noticed. I wanted to buy some drugs at the 24/7 Mart and asked if they sold medicine, I got a weird look and was told that its not a pharmacy. I guess Israelis are better at dealing with shit than Americans. You can get 2 pills of Tylenol whenever you want in NY but not in Israel. We're just spoiled I guess. Also, I brought a 3 hole punch binder with the notion I could just buy more paper in Israel. Funny difference, in Israel they use paper with only 2 holes that would be in between our 3 holes. So I had to get Israeli school supplies. Also, people don't jaywalk here and the lights go from red to yellow to green to yellow to red. So you dont slam on the gas when it turns green like in the US, supposedly to accommodate the older manual cars.

Cat Fact 1948

Cats are everywhere and angry for the most part. I'm starting to go through squirrel withdrawal. Post coming soon.

Slow Start

I have to say, jet lag has got me beat. I thought I would have been up and running earlier but my body had other plans. I went out with some people Tuesday night to the cheap student restaurant across the street, King George, 10% for students and a big portion for only 30 shekel (less than $10). I went to the Ramat Aviv mall on Wednesday and was blown away. It's beautiful and although its only 2 floors, I could be mistaken, jet lag..., it seems to stretch on forever. I just needed some sheets a pillow and toiletries and after wandering around for a while I got them. I dropped off my things in my room, the pillow basically took up all the space in my 60L backpack, took a little nap and went out again for groceries. This is pretty much all I've been able to do so far, besides sleeping every 6 hours, feels like I'm sleeping in 2 different time zones. I should be up and running in a few more days. Cat facts will resume momentarily.

Now or Never

I choose now (in terms of writing the first post). I somewhat recently arrived at my dorm in Tel Aviv University, and I have to say, they are very good at taking pictures and making the dorms look bigger than they actually are. My flight and airport experience were what I would consider normal. I breezed through security and customs on both ends, must be my innocent looking face. The gate was full of elderly Asian women and chasidim. I got a salad before going on the plane and of course I shared it.

Nothing out of the ordinary really happened on the plane ride, it was full of chasidim like pretty much every plane to and from Israel, and the occasional screaming baby/child. I selected the ovo-lactovegetarian meal and luckily because of that I was one of the first people to receive their meal, not sure if that works on every airline but I was quite pleased. I don't think I slept. I'm unsure because there were definitely some lapses in consciousness but I don't remember having the sensation of waking up. I got my luggage from the carousel in what must be record time, got a taxi, the driver barely spoke English and seemed to dislike Americans who go to Israel for school. Whenever she said something I couldn't understand she would just say lo chashuv (not important) in such a charming and kind manner (sarcasm). So now I'm just resting and digesting in my dorm, fighting off jet lag and hoping to be able to start my long to do list tomorrow. 

The one time penguins can fly