Friday, July 13, 2007

Normal Life...

Thursday night, I had a girls' night out with Paige to Emek Refaim to Yo-Ja's for some delicious sushi and salmon teriyaki. My teriyaki came with a salad- normally, I don't bother with side salads but ohmigosh, the dressing was SOOOOO amazing that Paige and I actually finished the plate! Then we walked all the way back up to Ben-Yehuda for some coffee and dessert which weren't great at the place that she picked.

Friday, since the Bachs asked me every time I talked to them if I had gone to the bazaar yet in their neighorhood, I decided to take the opportunity. So I took a cab down (after quite a number of unsuccessful bargainings with the drivers who all wanted 30-35 sheklim and I wanted to stick to my 25) and saw the "fair." It was really interesting- lots of amazing gifts!!! I think I'll have to go on my last Friday if my trip to Masada is this week. Really beautiful jewelry... a guy even gave me a taste of cappacino liqueur that was really, really, really good... that it might be worth going back to give myself a celebrating drink before I leave Israel. (When will the airport security lift that annoying ban on liquid?!?!). Afterwards, I picked up the night's challah, a roll, and some yummy cheese buerekas for late morning breakfast.

Then I stopped to pick up a paper... and hopped on a shereut to Tel Aviv for some beach. When I was only 10 minutes away from Tel Aviv, I saw an article stating that Tel Aviv beaches were closed due to illegal waste dumping, I panicked and called one of my classmates who had invited me to join her in Tel Aviv the night before. She said it was fine...

Sort of. The beach was pretty quiet, unusual for 1 PM... eventually I saw lots of families and children. I guess the university students are studying for the finals or doing their reserve duty so I didn't get hit on except by a 16 year old who asked if we could talk back on the beach.... he looked really innocent. But I declined...

I only stayed for 3 hours and caught the shereut back... Strangely, the driver took us on a very different route back to Jerusalem. I think remember at one point when I looked up from the paper that there was a huge traffic jam ahead... so we drove through the Jerusalem forest. It's SOOOOOO green and it reminded me of being back in Maine. It's amazing. Then once we actually got to Jerusalem, I asked the driver to drop me off near the shuk.

WOW- the shuk was an incredible mess. Any other American would have flipped out and fainted at the scene. Apparently, the day had been incredibly busy and the merchants were in a rush to get home. Garbarge and waste was everywhere. I managed to swipe a chocolate crossiant and a couple of chocolate rugalech from Marizpan. Yes, I'm a real chocolate addict when it comes to Israeli chocolates- they're really for real.

I made myself some cucumber soup- pretty good and sooo refreshing!!!!

I watched Sweet Mud, a movie about the kibbutz movement of the 1970's, that's being played all over the world in Jewish and Israeli film festivals. It was a very deep movie like Million Dollar Baby with complex, equality issues.

Shabbat shalom!

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