Day 7 - A friend of a friend of a boyfriend of a friend...?

Today I slept late. It was wonderful. I checked my e-mail over cereal to discover that Ortal and Roi had e-mailed me back. Kacey's boyfriend Alec had met Ortal when she was in the army on his birthright bus and kept in contact with her, and Kacey had given me their e-mail addresses for when I got here. I am so glad!

The e-mail said that they would be at Palmahim beach today and that I should join them. I asked at the Weizmann front gate about getting a cab, and the security guard called one and also asked on the phone how much the fare should be (in Israel, cab drivers love to cheat you and usually do it to foreigners by pretending not to speak anything other than hebrew, so this was a really helpful gesture). The drive was longer than the expected 15 minutes, due to a long line of cars waiting to get into the beach gate. I got out before that point, after about 10 minutes of going very slowly, and paid the driver.

I got to the gate to discover that the beach was still about a mile down the road. I set off, and in a few minutes the air began to become cooler. As I rounded the last corner into the parking lot, the breeze and smell hit me, and I got a great view of the Mediterranean. It was gorgeous.

I found Roi and his friend at the restaurant getting some fries, then we walked back to where Ortal and the friend's girlfriend were sitting with their umbrella. I met everyone, we chatted and they ate some fries. After I got on my sunscreen, I sat for a bit then went into the sea with Roi. It was surprisingly rough! Roi said this was unusual. There was no undertow but the waves were substantial; people were surfing, and near the rocks at the end of the beach where people usually snorkel it was too choppy to do that. But the water was warm and clear, and the day was beautiful and breezy. See below for pictures.

I got out to sunbathe a bit. We just chilled a while, and I talked to Ortal about how I came to be in Israel and such. I found out about her life as well as Roi's. They're moving north to go to school again in the fall, but will be going to the U.S. for more than a month before that, so I gave a few recommendations, about D.C. as well as Disney World. It was really nice.

Roi and Ortal's friends left about a half hour before we did. Ortal's sister had left her car, so they drove me back to the institute. I thanked them profusely as they dropped me off.

Upon my return I realized that a) gum had gotten on my towel and b) I had not yet purchased another one. So I headed to the mall at around sundown. On Shabbat it opens back up around 8, so I went to the pharmacy then to a bed/linen store, where I picked up a reasonably-priced towel set, including two hand towels, one bigger hand towel, and a shower-sized towel. I wandered for a bit more before returning home.

The rest of the night was spent chilling. I watched the better part of a Michael Douglas movie entitled "The Game" on TV with some grad students. We had tea and cake towards the end of it, then I headed to bed.

Beach pictures!