Day 63 - Day of rest?

As usual, my once-weekly chance to sleep late again fell on Saturday. I had no plans and didn't intend to make any, so there was no reason to get up. After breakfast, some brief blogging, and checking my e-mail, I showered and got dressed, and headed out of Clore. My destination: work, excitingly. Since I'll be missing a day during my final week and it's getting to be crunch time, I wanted to take the chance to get as much done as possible.

I was expecting to find Noa in, but instead found Patro, again. He was working on Matlab homework exercizes as he made some samples, and I just sat and processed images. For five hours. I didn't get up, or eat, or anything except listen to Kenna and measure distances in ImageJ. How I did this I don't know, but, magically, I am again, and hopefully permanently, DONE with all the images I have and plan to use! It's truly wonderful.

Once I arrived at this landmark point, I tore myself away from the screen and left Perlman. I was hungry, and learned that a group was heading out for dinner soon, so I stashed my stuff and chilled for a bit until everyone was back from the gym and showered. David, a Weizmann student, was having a large picnic outside to celebrate having been in Israel for a whole year, so I mingled with Ivonne, Maria Magdalena, Claudia, and Yovav outside and tasted a few of the many cakes which kept appearing among the other food. The picnic was really chill; music was playing as people sprawled on blankets on the lawn in front of Clore or tossed a frisbee (and later an American football, which puzzled me as no Americans were present) around. Claudia took an amazing picture of Maria Magdalena and I both making characteristic "Becca" faces, an image which I hope makes it to facebook.

Soon, though, Maciej, Onur and I joined Tanmay, Clay and Zvonimir at Hertzl Bar. I had a huge craving for meat, so got the hamburger, which is an ambitious undertaking. Onur and Maciej did the same, while the others had puny little sandwiches at the next table. They planned on seeing the Batman movie (again, for Tanmay and Zvonimir, but for the first time for Clay), and so went back to Clore to get ready and such. The three of us lingered a bit over coffee. Maciej and Onur suggested something I'd been contemplating for a while: asking the waitress whether the place had any of the coffee cups and saucers with an image of Hertzl for sale. Unfortunately, we learned they didn't have enough to sell any. Sadness.

After finishing our beverages we headed back to the dorm. I decided not to tag along to see The Dark Knight again, mostly because it was hot out and I didn't feel like walking. Maciej and I hung around at the picnic, which was still in full swing. I got a chance to catch up with Dan about his trip to Portugal with his family, and we had a discussion as to what defines cute (in his words, a large head-to-body size ratio: i.e. an iPod plugged into a TV = cute). During this discussion we also discovered that there was a cooler of liquid nitrogen at this picnic (how dorky and scientist-like). It had to be gotten rid of, so we made frozen treats out of the remainder of the picnic desserts. The frozen chocolate truffle was particularly delicious.

Eventually it got too hot to stay outside, and I kind of needed my computer adapter, which I had lent to Jordan but couldn't get back because neither Jordan nor Joel were around or in their room. When I mentioned this to Dan, though, he reminded me that his room adjoins theirs, so he helped me break in through the bathroom and get it back. I noticed some juggling pins on his floor, and of course made him show me his mad skills. He did the whole under-leg tossing thing, and other fancy stuff, and it turns out he attended a juggling conference here earlier this summer. Very cool. I had him give me some tips for starting out, but pins have always eluded me so after a few minutes and marginal improvement I called it quits.

Newly armed with my adapter, I went back to my room to grab my computer, and hung out in the lobby for a bit, chatting and blogging. Eventually I decided it was bed time, but who else was entering Clore as I went downstairs but Stephen and Ari! I made them come talk to me in my room where the air conditioning was actually effective, and Oren, Joel and Jordan came in and out periodically as Stephen and Ari told me about their weekends in Jerusalem, which had contained a few overlapping events (like Shabbat lunch). We all got tired at around the same time, though, so I kicked them all out and went to bed.

As promised, here are pictures of the Bahai Gardens. Enjoy!

Day 62 - ...in which we took almost every form of transportation known to man

I woke up very early this morning for a shower, and a knock on my door at around 7:30 revealed that Jordan was the sole person who had expressed interest in our day trip who hadn't backed out (I'm looking at you, Maciej). I told him we'd meet in the lobby in ten minutes, then grabbed some breakfast-type snacks, packed my bag, and headed up.

I was soon joined by Lisa, who also had some food (fruit and yogurt) and Jordan. We started off for the train station, where I got some chocolate milk as we waited for the train to arrive. All of us were very tired, but Lisa was very giggly as a consequence of her exhaustion, which was entertaining to Jordan and me. When we got on the train, Jordan opened up Ulysses, and got a good amount of reading done before eventually falling asleep. I didn't have any delusions; I closed my eyes immediately.

We had to switch trains at Binyamina, so it was necessary to wake up from our naps and cross the platform. The rest of the ride was less easy to sleep through, as it took us alongside the sea until we reached Haifa. We got out at a train station which looked like it belonged in the 70s, and oriented ourselves as we walked. Luckily it was relatively easy to find the sea, which was our first goal. We walked along the Promenade (or Pomenade, as the website Lisa had been consulting last night called it), getting a gorgeous view of the water and mountain, to the foot of the cable car, near which our first stop was supposedly located.

We wandered into a restaurant to ask about the Museum of Clandestine Immigration, but they couldn't help us. It turned out to be right across the highway, with the Maritime Museum, but also happened to be closed (despite what my book says). We therefore crossed back over the highway and found our way into the building which housed the bottom of the cable car. Although it was of course overpriced, we bought one-way tickets and got into our own round car.

The view was incredible, and grates in the car wall gave us an almost cool breeze as we ascended. A few lookout points at the top made the journey even more worth it. The entire city lay sprawled out beneath us, looking, as Jordan put it, as it you could just reach out and move the pieces. The red train wove its way along the coast and towards downtown, where tall buildings partially obscured the port area. Trees coated the mountainside, touching the edge of the developed area, and faded into a haze in the distance.

We got our fill of the view, then crossed the street and covered ourselves before entering the Stella Maris monastery. It was a beautiful building, but we were only permitted in the chapel area, so didn't spend too much time there. After we exited, we caught a cab to take us to the Tikotin Museum, which bills itself as Israel's only museum of Japanese art (as if there would be more than one...?). The exhibits included a gorgeous collection of colorful, painted kites, as well as a room full of drawings, sculptures, and other objects depicting interesting mythical animals (like the shishi, or lion-dog, and the baku, with the head of an elephant and assorted other body parts). The final rooms displayed photographs taken by a Jewish photographer during a trip to Kapan and printed from negatives discovered after his death.

We headed upstairs in hopes of finding more exhibits, but instead found a table full of apple juice and cookies. Being hungry and thirsty and having no shame, we lingered a bit and stealthily helped ourselves. We also sat to consult the tour book for the remainder of our stops and to try to coordinate meeting up with Dan, and called him as we sipped our juice. Having oriented ourselves, we grabbed a last few cookies before heading out.

Outside the museum, we walked a few blocks to our next stop: the Mane-Katz museum. While my book had said the Tikotin had a fee and the Mane-Katz museum would be free, the truth in fact turned out to be the opposite. We paid the small fee and entered what I think is the most interestingly arranged museum I've ever seen. Instead of spreading out the works, having them all at an adult's eye level, and forcing you along a path, this place was more like a collage of his paintings, Judaica collection, and photographs and news clippings detailing events in his life. Two timelines ran along the walls, one at the top (his biography) and another at the bottom (historical events during his lifetime). The place clearly used to be a house, and therefore had interconnected rooms. We wandered about with no semblance of a method to our madness, until we were satisfied and headed out.

The next part of ourday was the sketchiest in terms of planning. We wanted to make our way straight down the mountain to meet Dan in the Arab area known as Wadi Nisnas, but of course the steepness of the terrain meant no roads went straight down. Luckily, instead of following the sidewinding sidewalks available, we stumbled upon a set of stairs with signs that indicated they led straight to the area we wanted to go, and followed them. Aside from a few blocks where they ceased to exist, they took us all the way to the City Hall (in other words, most of the way down). At this point we tried to find a good intersection to meet Dan, and headed there ourselves.

When we found it, Jordan went to scope out lunch possibilities while I conversed with Dan in an effort to lead him to where we were. Soon he found us, and we sat down at the most crowded hummus place I have ever seen. This turned out to be the positive endorsement we had hoped. They brought us rice and falafel and pita, and we ordered one hummus with mushrooms and another with meat. Everything was delicious, and we all drank lots of water. Before leaving, we asked for directions to the Carmelit, Israel's only subway. We were right to think it was nearby; two blocks down the road we found the entrance.

We each paid our 5 shekels for a ticket, inserted it in the machine for validation, and entered the station. A few minutes later, the car arrived. Now, this subway basically goes up and down a mountain, so the tracks are constantly sloped. Therefore the car is built to accomodate this slope. The catch is, though, that the angle of the tracks changes slightly from station to station, so for the first part of our ride, the car's tilt was more than that of the tracks, so we felt very...lopsided. This evened out by the last station or two, but then the steps next to the tracks were not sloped enough when we got out of the car, so the entire journey was, in sum, rather off-putting (but also hilarious and enjoyable).

At the top, we were about 4 blocks from the entrance to the Bahai Gardens. We found a restroom and freshened up, and Lisa and I put on long sleeves (because the gardens are a holy place) before approaching the entrance. We claimed our reservation and went inside, and sat with a couple dozen people to wait for the tour guide. He arrived and began speaking - in Hebrew. I had been warned, but Lisa hadn't. She was able to understand a lot of what he said, though, which made her happy and kept me informed. We learned a bit about the Bahai faith as we descended the mountain, surrounded by perfectly manicured grass, babbling fountains, and beds of flowers separated by sweeping stone stairways. The Shrine of the Bab loomed at the bottom, with its bronze-colored dome, and beyond it, modern Haifa stretched to the port, backed by the turquoise sea. It was an amazing sight.

The tour took about an hour, so as soon as it was over we hailed a cab to the bus station and boarded the second-to-last bus to Tel Aviv. Jordan fell asleep, but Dan, Lisa and I talked about all sorts of topics during the ride. An hour and a half later we found ourselves at the central bus station in Tel Aviv, and headed outside where we found and boarded a sherut which left promptly. Lisa accidentally paid part of her fare to someone sitting in front of her who happened to be begging, instead of to the driver, but she got some chocolate out of it so it was ok.

We were dropped off near Clore house, and I took a shower before sinking into bed for a delicious nap. I awoke an hour or so later and joined Maciej, Zvonimir and Tanmay at Hertzl Bar for coffee. The conversation topic was police forces (present were representatives from India, Poland, and Croatia to provide evidence and opinions), and everyone was swapping stories about traffic stops and other encounters with crooked cops. I had little to contribute but listened with amusement. Eventually we headed back, and I blogged and caught up on things before heading to bed.

Since I took so many pictures today and don't want to overwhelm you all like last Friday (and, since I live in the future, I know tomorrow won't yield many exciting photographic opportunitites), I will post everything but Bahai Gardens pictures today, and the rest tomorrow.

The retro train station

Interesting translation...

Along the P(r)omenade

Old and new

I had to be stealthy to get this one

Too bad it was closed!

Going back up and over the highway

Lisa and Jordan in our cable car View from en route
A marigold at the top
A garden outside the monastery
A kite in the Tikotin museum
Kabbalah and shopping, in one stop
Jordan in the Mane-Katz museum
An amazing garden, visible from the stairs down the mountain
Jordan, unhappy with the architecture of the building in the background
The subway station at the bottom!
A photo of the subway being built
The subway car

Lisa and Dan (and Jordan's reflection)...note the car not being level despite being built to compensate ?
The station at the top
Exiting the subway
View of downtown and the port from the top
Near the Bahai gardens

Day 61 - Perpetual hunger?

Alissa and I happened to find each other at Cafe Madaa this morning, and had a rare chance to chat, over cappuchino. I had brought my Israel travel guide, to read about possibilities for tomorrow's trip to Haifa. Alissa suggested that she and some others might want to join us, and since we hung out until just after nine, during out breakfast I made my first (and ultimately first failed) call to the Bahai Gardens in order to make a reservation for a tour.

Just after this, we both realized we should probably head to work, so we went up to the counter to get our check. I had had a muffin, which was interesting due to its shape, and which turned out to be much more expensive than I had intended. I actually thought the waiter was joking; he seems to find me really amusing, and of course knows me well due to my being a regular, so it would have made sense. Anyways, we paid and headed out.

At work, I sat down and really devoted myself to image processing. I need to move on to my final presentation, but still have data to gather, so it's beginning to become crunch time. My morning was rather productive; not only did I finish a chunk of images, but I also managed to make a reservation for a Bahai Gardens tour. Around lunch time I called Dan. He suggested heading off campus and called Ari, and when we met outside Perlman I found out our destination was supposedly Hummus Weizmann. This was completely unacceptable, as their hummus is awful, so I lobbied for us to go to a smaller place that is actually closer to the main gate of campus (which was hard for Ari and Dan to believe at first because Hummus Weizmann is literally one block from the main gate), where Noa had taken me once in the past.

This turned out to be an amazing decision. The employees spoke only Hebrew, so Ari and Dan got to practice a bit. We debated about how much food to order, but eventually decided upon two skewers of hen, one of lamb, and some hummus with beans. They brought pickles, pita, and falafel to go with it, so we were mostly full before all the food was gone. It was so good. I don't know what it is, but I am so hungry lately, all the time, and all the food here tastes so delicious, so this is why I write about it in such detail.

After lunch I was able to maintain productivity at work until around 4:30 pm, but from there couldn't bring myself to continue. I was supposed to go climbing relatively early, so I left just after 5 pm and grabbed a snack before changing and grabbing my stuff. This was to be a historic climbing evening; not only was it possibly going to be my last time climbing with Nitzan and Yaron, but it was also my fist time climbing with all my own stuff: shoes, a harness, and my newly arrived chalk bag!

The two of them called me about 5 minutes before 6, when we were supposed to meet, to ask where I was. I rushed the rest of my readying, filled a water bottle, and dashed out of Clore. Yaron was driving this time, and had his fiance Rotem's car. As soon as I got in, I told Yaron how cute it was, which is apparently not really the best thing to tell a dude about his ride. Whatever, though: look how cute! (Click all three; this was the color his was!) Of course this kicked off the discussion as to how American and ridiculous I am, as always. It was a fun ride.

When we got to Kiryat Ono, the gym was relatively empty. Since I wasn't borrowing any equipment, my admission was cheaper than it's ever been, which was nice. We all started off by leading a warm-up route which happens to be my favorite (the orange one). Then we branched out into some stuff that was completely new for all of us (different ones for them and for me, of course). Nitzan warned me, and was right, that now I am going to have to get strong, because the routes which require technique only are too easy for me, and I've finished everything I'm strong enough to do, so the routes at the next level are negative and technique can only go so far. I started a blue route which I got pretty far on, but wasn't able to do the last move of, and got three clips into another orange route, near the yellow one which is my nemesis. It's ok that there's not much more I can do, because I don't want to get too attached to working on stuff this close to leaving, but it was a good workout. We bouldered a bit before leaving at 9, because Yaron and Rotem had a place to be at 10.

Yaron dropped Nitzan and I off by campus, and I headed back to Clore for the evening. Onur and Maciej were chilling in the lobby, so I stashed my stuff, grabbed hummus and pita and my Israel tour book, and came back. Soon Lisa joined us, and I snacked as the two of us planned the next day. We went through various stops we wanted to make and tried to plan a route, which was complicated by the fact that the city of Haifa is located on a large mountain. After we came up with a rough itinerary and looked up train and bus routes and stuff, I was so tired I could barely move. I managed to transport myself downstairs and set an alarm for tomorrow before crashing completely.

Mutant muffin!

Yaron climbing

Belaying responsibly

Action shot courtesy of Yaron

A very negative route

Nitzan climbing

Day 60 - Math and TV

Our second TEM session was scheduled for this morning. After coffee, I headed to the lab to grab my samples, then went to meet Talmon. Patro had a doctor's appointment from 9 to 10 am, so we spent this hour looking at a sample of COOH-functionalized nanotubes for Noa. She asked me to gather images and measure the average outer diameter of the tubes, because the diameter she ordered from the company didn't match the diameter which corresponds to the lot number on the bottle. We captured a dozen or so images before Patro arrived, when we picked up where we left off in the lesson.

In the next three hours, we covered almost everything about the computer built in to the TEM, including every button in every sub-menu. This time we went almost to 1 pm before calling it quits. After Patro and I got back to Perlman, I called Dan and discovered that he and Ari had just sat down to lunch at Cafe Madaa. I grabbed my wallet and joined them for a meal which was a pleasant change from San Martin. There was a good deal of math talk, but other topics managed to dilute it a bit. Ari had to leave just after eating; his professor is leaving for the rest of the summer this week, so he has to finish up most of his work and stuff. Dan and I lingered a bit longer before heading back to Perlman.

I worked relatively efficiently after lunch, processing more images and compiling a spreadsheet with an average tube diameter and histogram for Noa. I stayed rather late, until I was too hungry to continue. It was rather dark when I left the lab, and I didn't find many people around Clore, so I ate leftovers, hummus, pita and fruit for dinner. Once full, I chilled and worked/blogged in the basement.

At one point Ari discovered me in the TV room (he had come in to see Olmert's statement, which ended up being about his resignation plans but was impossible to watch due to the TV's nonfunctionality) and we talked and watched a few episodes of The Office. Ben called somewhere around this point, and we had a great conversation which included a phone introduction to Ari! I had Ari tell Ben about Terry Tao's blog, which today basically discussed Ari's work here (having to do with Tate's proof). It was good to talk with him, especially before his family trip to California for a few days.

The rest of the evening was spent chilling similarly, and I went to bed pretty early, which was a welcome change.

Day 59 - Rachel's Chavayah

Especially compared to yesterday, today at work was not too exiciting. The one exception to this statement was that it was Noa's birthday (Happy Birthday!!!), so her mom made amazingly delicious brownies for everyone. It was hard, but I managed to eat only one before lunch. I worked pretty diligently all morning, then found myself back at San Martin for lunch, and sat with Dan, Alissa, Ari, and, very notably, Stephen! He basically never joins us for lunch, especially at San Martin (he has been spotted at Charlie's from time to time), so he was a welcomed addition to our party.

After lunch, I ate one more brownie and managed to be as productive as I had been in the morning, which is a major feat. A visit from Asaf also broke up the afternoon. We watched a few YouTube videos of climbers doing ridiculous things, before they got too dangerous and I had to close the window.

After staying as late as I could, I knocked on Rachel's door back at Clore to let her know we had some time before we had to leave for Tel Aviv, and that I was going to have a snack. She said she'd join me, and offered me the contents of what can only be described as the world's largest fruit basket, which her mother had sent her. I tried sabre, dragon fruit, and fig, interspersed with yellow watermelon, pineapple, nectarine, and white melon. We took some pictures with her camera to show her mom of us enjoying the fruit. It was all delicious!

Around 6:30 I went to change and grab my stuff, then Rachel and I walked out the main gate towards the train station. Before we had gotten very far, though, I got a text from Anna (who is back in Israel, and was going to meet us at Performance Rock) saying her boyfriend Peri was driving from Rehovot to Tel Aviv to meet her and would be leaving soon, and could probably give us a ride. After calling him and arranging to meet him right outside the gate at the bus stop in 10 minutes, Rachel and I sat and chilled and discussed that in Israel, things which would elsewhere be risky or dangerous or gross or, well, anything can be considered an "experience," or "chavayah." This came up especially in the context of hitchhiking, in light of a recent, unexpectedly ridiculous ride which she had had from the North back to Jerusalem this past weekend.

Soon Peri called and told me he was close by, so we went back outside the gate to wait. Someone who looked sort of like Peri pulled up, rolled down the window, and sat there in front of us for a few minutes. Rachel and I quietly discussed how embarrasing it would be if this were actually him, but luckily the real Peri pulled up soon and stopped right in front of him. We got in and were off. On the way to Tel Aviv we discussed Anna and climbing, before the conversation shifted to other things, like Peri's army service and current status (student, in mechanical engineering). Then Peri asked us what we though of Israel. Rachel had spent a year here before, but this was my first extended period of time here, so the focus was on me. It felt sort of like the third degree; when I said I liked it, he wanted to really get at the reasons why. Rachel wasn't surprised by this, though, and said Israelis always want reasons as to whether or not people like it here.

We reached Tel Aviv rather quickly; there was little traffic. Parking wasn't hard to come by, and we entered Performance Rock, which turned out to be very crowded. Rachel, who is pretty religious (and therefore not really used to shirtless guys falling off of walls in every direction), took one look through the door into the bouldering area and said, "Oh yeah, this is going to be a chavayah." We paid and entered, and I rummaged a bit to find matching shoes of the correct size for her. I then started her on the Vos, which she had absolutely no problem with, and a few V1s. Peri had never been here before, so he was off exploring the routes, and soon Anna arrived. I showed her what I'd been working on lately, because all of the routes had changed since she had last been.

After a bit, Tamara and Mena also arrived. The crowd was gradually thinning, so we were able to climb everything we wanted. Anna finished everything I showed her, and Rachel finished all the V0s and all but one of the V1s. The trouble this one route gave her I attribute to fatigue combined with her first time climbing, because if she goes there again, she'll definitely get it. Tamara and I worked on a problem partially in the cave, and found a new way to work through the middle of it, but still have a ways to go. She also made a bit of progress on the last move of another problem, but still can't quite get it. I finally completed a V2, the last move of which had been giving me issues. It felt good to finally check it off the list.

As 10 pm approached, the manager, who had fitted me for my harness and whom I had told when I came in that something was causing it to be uncomfortable, asked me to try it on again for him. He saw what I was talking about, that the leg loops were sort of digging in to me, and showed me how to adjust the straps connecting them to the back of the waist part to make them more even and aligned with my thighs. Hopefully this will make the harness more comfortable! After this, Tamara, Rachel and I decided to head out. We said goodbye to Anna, and thanked Peri again for the ride, then walked to the bus station where we caught a sherut back to Rehovot. I hung out for a bit, then went to bed.

Day 58 - Meeting my fans!

Today was fantastic.

I got in to work around 8:20, made sure my slides opened on one of the work computers, then had Erica get me the laptop our group uses for presentations. I set it up in the conference room, turned on the projector, and had everything ready to go by 8:40. No one else was there yet, though, so I decided to take a proactive question-preventing step, and drew a key diagram on the whiteboard next to the screen so people would have a reference up for the entire presentation.

A little bit before 9 (I was supposed to begin at 8:45), Professor Wagner entered. He introduced me briefly, and I began. I think it went pretty well! I talked for about an hour, and people asked me questions as I went along. By the time I was finsihed and got to my "Questions" slide, people seemed satisfied. Overall, I think the presentation was a success. It forced me to justify my decisions, and people's questions and suggestions gave me a lot more to do. I was glad I had finished this in the morning, because I still had most of the day ahead of me. As soon as I had put away the laptop and everything, I sat down to write notes about all the feedback I'd gotten and plan my next steps. Between Sari having come in today to see me present, and a visit from Asaf at one point, it was a fun and conversation-filled morning in the office.

Sari and Noa asked me to join them for lunch at Stone, which turned out to be an amazing decision for a reason I will share in a moment. First, though, Noa's boyfriend Danny met us there, which was really cool. He works in security on campus now, which makes Noa happy because she can see him all the time and he can give her a ride home on his scooter. So he found us in line for food. I got a sweet potato quiche, which was just as delicious as it sounds. But back to the awesomeness. I was the first in the line, so I was first to choose a table and set my tray down. As I do so, I look up to see Nissim (the Clore house manager) standing by the cafeteria door, holding a box. He looks at me and beckons me. When I'm in conversation range, he goes, "Can you read English? I can't quite tell who this package is for." He has a strange sense of humor; he really appreciated it once when I bought two laundry coins (for 7 shekels each) all with half-shekel coins.

The bottom line: my chalk bag and bathing suits arrived! YAY!

Lunch was pleasant and delicious, and my good mood carried me entirely through the afternoon. Besides working, which included making some TEM samples of nanotubes Noa would like me to examine for her, things of note included a conversation about cakes, during which Sari discussed a cinammon cake at a Hungarian place in Tel Aviv which is supposedly the best thing she's ever tasted. It's also unique because they cook it around a rod, so it's basically tubular. Sari of course compared it to a nanotube and began describing it with the corrresponding vocabulary. I love scienists.

Before leaving Perlman, I decided to go upone floor to visit Nitzan and show him my chalk bag, because I have been talking about it for a while. He seemed only sort of impressed, but whatever. After some banter, I said something that was either too fast or too ridiculous for him to catch completely, so he says to his office mate, "Sometimes it's hard to understand her, because she doesn't speak English; she speaks American." And the resulting dialogue must be recounted in its entirety (with as much accuracy as I can muster):

Him: "Oh, it's ok, I went to high school in America for a year, so I can understand American."
Me: "Oh, whereabouts?"
Him: "Maryland."
Me: "Oh, where???"
Him: "Rockville. No, Bethesda."

Ok, there's only one Montgomery County high school which one would think of as possibly being in Rockville when it's really in Bethesda.

Me: "Which one?!"
Him: "Walter Johnson."

At this point I am in disbelief. I thought this was some sort of elaborate hoax until we started discussing Mr. Whipple, whom he credits partially for his choice of science as a career path, and Mr. Kearns (he plays the oboe). He was at WJ before I was, somewhere in the neighborhood of 1999, but still...how ridiculously amazing is this? I showed him the WJ website and some of the current construction, and we reminisced about lunchtime and the WJ math department and other such topics. I think Nitzan watched with amusement, but I wasn't really paying attention so I am not sure.

After 40 minutes I was able to tear myself away from the conversation, but it was difficult. I went to the grocery store and grabbed some necessities, then headed back to Clore. Zvonimir, Clay, and Tanmay were on their way out to Cafe Madaa, and I told them I'd join them soon after putting my food in the fridge. Downstairs, I ran into Rachel and invited her to come as well. First, though, I called and chatted briefly with Ben, until I had to go eat and he had to go open the door for the cable guy. Then Rachel and I headed to Madaa, where we found Clay and Tanmay only drinking coffee, and Zvonimir almost finished. We ordered, and by the time our food came we were alone at the table. This was not a problem: we could discuss Penn things (like the Chemistry department, or graduation) without excluding others! It was a good meal.

Back at Clore, I ran into Jonathan about to leave with Doron to see an outdoor screening of The Big Lebowski at the Hebrew University campus down the street. I was deciding whether or not to join them when who appeared in the hallway but Joel and his whole family! Stephen and Jordan also turned up. I don't know if this is emphasized enough, but I love it when people read my blog, and Joel's mom is a big fan of this publication. She said, after shaking my hand, "It's great to meet the face behind the words," to which I replied, "And it's always great to meet the fans!" We all hung out in the hall talking for a while, until we had to leave for the movie and others had to make other engagements (like the train to Tel Aviv).

Jonathan, Doron and I walked down the street and entered the Hebrew U campus through the side gate, from which we could see the big screen. Jonathan was worried about missing the first half hour of the movie, but I told him all he had missed was that they peed on his rug, and that rug really tied the room together. Once we sat down, it became apparent that he had also missed that someone had been kidnapped. But that was basically it, and, as Jonathan confirmed after it was over, it's not like having any more information would have helped the movie make more sense.

We had been joined mid-movie by both Lisa and Joel, and the five of us headed into the Kukula (the campus bar) after the movie was over to grab some drinks. I was pretty tired, though, so I only stayed there for about another half hour. Joel, Lisa, and Doron decided to head back to Clore with me. We found the usual suspects at the usual Monday night activities (sipping beer and playing the guitar) in the music room in the Clore lobby when we returned. Doron's arrival was celebrated; he is a great musician who can play almost anything he hears on the piano, so he instantly became the party hit. An hour of sing-alongs ensued, after which most people decided to take the party to Hertzl Bar for the remainder of the evening. Personally, I thought the evening was over, as my eyelids were drooping, so I headed to bed.

Day 57 - Back to school, sort of

The beginning of my third-to-last work week began like many previously: with coffee at Cafe Madaa. I had to leave before Zvonimir, Tanmay and Clay did, to get to the lab and drop off my stuff before heading to Wolfson with Patro.

< .science >

We then had our first TEM class with Talmon! The purpose of this first session was for him to give us a very in-depth introduction to the microscope, including details about each lens, aperture, valve, pressure gauge, and vacuum pump. I always knew it was a very complex piece of equipment, and Talmon has been telling me about it little by little during our sessions, but only in response to my questions, and I don't know everything to ask. It was also helpful for him to be able to make all sorts of adjustments to demonstrate things as we went along; most of this was stuff you can't do with a sample in there, so it was mostly new to me.

< / science >

Anyways, I took about 8 pages of notes, including annotated diagrams. It was very jam-packed, but hopefully if I review it all it will sink in. Patro and I headed back to Perlman afterwards, luckily early enough for me to head straight to San Martin, where I sat with Anna and Onur. Back at the lab, I continued work on my presentation, and ended staying at work until very late (around 8:30 pm). When I was happy--or as happy as I was going to be--with the powerpoint, I decided to call it a night, and headed back to Clore.

When I got back, Dan, Ari, Stephen and I headed out for dinner. This was a banner evening: Stephen's FIRST TIME AT HERTZL BAR! I got shakshouka, which was delicious but since I was so hungry, I didn't wait for it to cool fully and really burned the roof of my mouth. Stephen ordered a mixed drink consisting of coffee and Kahluah, and it was delicious. Dan got an Irish coffee (coffee and Bailey's), which turned out to not be delicious at all. In general, though, the service was slightly faster than usual, and everything was yummy.

Back at Clore, the "party" was in Ari's room. I grabbed my computer to catch up on some blogging, while chatting with Ari, Dan, Zvonimir, and Oren. I don't know how it started, but I got into a sort of shouting match with Zvonimir on the subject of Macs versus PCs, which was very silly but somehow made a lot of sense at the time. At some point Joel came in. His family is visiting this week, so he was with his little sister Barbara. While I would have liked to hang out with them more, I was tired and sort of cranky by this point, so I lingered only a few minutes more, enough to promise Barbara her first tag (and here it is!), before going to bed.