We let XiaoMeng choose which pool, so she chose the outdoor one. We walked down the hill to the poolside, put on some sunscreen, and got ready to get in. The lifeguard gave me a hard time about the fact that I had no swim cap, but there was nothing I could do about it so he let me swim "just this one time" without one. Our arrival drove the really slow old ladies into the deep end (no, really), and we began with some breast stroke. Asaf eventually moved to freestyle and I began alternating, and after a little while I demonstrated some butterfly. We swam laps for about an hour, and then went to another part of the pool and practiced flip turns for a bit.
Asaf and XiaoMeng went to the locker rooms to shower and change, but my lack of underwear motivated me to walk home for a shower. Upon returning to my room, I unpacked my bag and discovered that I HAD brought underwear. Of course.
I made it in to work around 9:40, and did some number crunching until 11 am, when I joined Noa and XiaoMeng for a talk on bionanointeraction. Our joke is that the three buzz words which get any grant are nano, bio, and cancer, so 2 out of 3 were in play. I think it was interesting, but I forgot to take my Provigil so I missed most of it. We got back to the office around 12:45, after the normal summer student lunch assembly time. Instead I accompanied Noa to a hummus place across Hertzl Street from the gate, where her roommate Tali and her friend met us. It was very yummy, and I had so much left over (I got hummus with lamb) that I stopped by Clore House to stash it in the fridge before returning to work for the afternoon. I decided to go to the library instead, so I wouldn't monopolize an office computer for my data processing. But I was so sleepy that around 5 I went home for a brief nap.
When I woke up, I found Ari in the kitchen and we tried to share my hummus leftovers, but after a few bites realized that the few hours since its preparation had made it disgusting. He then left for his soccer game. I did some catching up on my blog and such and hung out in the kitchen. Jordan wanted some dinner and I wanted ice cream, so we went out and both got some. When we got back, Ari had returned after a second consecutive week without a soccer game and convinced me to do some laundry. We put in a load and joined Jonathan, Jordan, and Zvonimir in an alcohol run. The liquor store was closed, but we found a convenience store, and got some drinks and snacks.
When we got back, it was time for the party! There were people in the piano room chilling, chatting, and, later, passing around Jonathan's guitar and showing off their skills. After an hour or two I snuck up to the roof to join Dave, Nina, her two friends from Germany, and a few others others in the christening of Dave's new hookah. There were tea candles everywhere, casting a small amount of light on the gathering, and bats flying in and out of the trees. It was really surreal, sitting, inhaling apple-flavored smoke, listening to Dave and Nina talk (quietly because the group was small) about their weekend trip to the West Bank, Jericho, and Bethlehem as we passed the hose around.
I eventually rejoined the downstairs group for some more guitar-playing. Odelia, the girl we had met on the train back from Tel Aviv when we went bouldering last week, had come to the gathering, so it was nice to chat with her a bit more. Tanmay and Zvonimir were looking up guitar tabs on his iPod touch and playing new songs, and as the party wore down and things got quieter, it was nice to actually hear people sing as they played.
We cleaned up briefly then went back downstairs. Ari and I had a great chat, which Jonathan eventually joined, before we all got tired at around the same time and decided to call it a night.
Pictures today: Asaf in front of the pool at the rec center
No steaming hamburgers allowed!
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