Day 67 - A Musical and Philosophical Evening

I woke up slightly early this morning to go to the front gate and meet Eli, my family's guide. I got in his van just as he was getting through the gate; evidently he didn't need my help with that. We drove to San Martin, where I helped my family get their luggage down to the van and such for a few minutes before I had to head to work.

After dropping my stuff off in the lab and grabbing my samples, I headed to the TEM for our last session with Talmon. Patro and I had gotten a taste of working on the microscope last session with alignment procedures, but this time, with supervision, Patro basically did the entire procedure. He took some images, then turned the machine over to me to do the same. Talmon told me just after this that I was ready to operate the TEM without supervision!!!

Just before lunchtime I found myself grabbing my final forms and heading to the library for a signature (the department secretary's I had gotten first, and I had miraculously happened to run into Nissim after hours for his, so the librarian's was the last I needed). I then went straight to Cafe Madaa to meet Tamara and Dan for sandwiches. Tamara and I split a piece of cake that was chocolate and spiky and wonderful.

During the afternoon I managed to finish a draft of my abstract, as well as work on my presentation and write-up of my summer. I worked straight until 6, when I left and headed to Clore for an event arranged by Greta. We sat around and watched as she spread out some snacks and food, then at 6:30 went into the music room for a musical evening put on by the Russian summer students, Anya, Marina, and Andre. They made programs listing the songs we'd be hearing, and played the piano and violin (Anya on violin, the others on piano) for almost an hour! All of them were amazing, and the music room was packed, with summer students and Weizmann students from Clore.

Marina and Andrew each played an encore before we all headed back out to the lobby for snacks, fruit, and ice cream homemade by Greta, which was delicious. I couldn't hold back, and ate a few helpings of it. Then Daniela, Rachel and I headed out for dinner to the science park. Once there, we looked at menus at a few restaurants before finally settling on Papardella, an Italian (and Kosher) restaurant. Both Daniela and I ordered gnocci, with different sauces, and Rachel, who had had a craving for corn, had brought her own can of it, so semi-secretly ate it when our meals arrived. The restaurant was nice, although it didn't have its own bathroom on the premises (there was one labeled with the restaurant's name around the corner). Also, as is shown below, the cute ambiance of the terrace was overshadowed by a towering sign for the neighboring gas station.

After eating, we just sat and talked for a couple of hours, about religion, which always seems to come up when Rachel is present. The interesting thing is that Judaism was only a part this time. Daniela shared some really interesting experiences from her year in Africa, and as it turns out, she's rather spiritual. We also talked about reincarnation, and how it's mentioned in Judaism not just in arcane texts but in the daily prayer to be said before bed. The weather was actually rather cool, so it was a pleasant evening to just sit and chat.

After the walk back, we said goodbye to Daniela outside Clore and headed in. Rachel and I ate a bit of ice cream and chatted with physics Dan in the kitchen. I retired once my eyes wouldn't stay open.

Here are a few pictures from this evening:

The program:

Marina playing

Anya on violin, Andre on piano

The Entertainer (piano, four hands)

What a crowd!

Me, Daniela, and Rachel under the Sonol sign

Day 35 - Swimming, Spices, Pork and Puzzles

First, administrative news: you can now comment even if you don't have an account. This is to make it easier, but I'd still kind of like to know who says what, so please sign your comments if that's not too much trouble.

Anyways, moving on. Despite getting to bed a bit late after a chat with my parents last night, I awoke early to head to the pool with Asaf for some laps. We left at 9, but unfortunately when we got there and I tried my best to be sneaky, I was unable to enter the pool area without being noticed, and had to pay to get in for the day. Sadness. I had brought the goggles and swim cap Asaf had lent me which are his sister's spares, but the goggles were sadly broken, a fact I only discovered as we were about to get into the indoor pool. Luckily Asaf had other spares with him, and located some in the bottom of his bag which had holograms of piranas on them. They were definitely hardcore.

We swam for a bit, but the lap pool filled up to the point where we couldn't go the pace we wanted. So we grabbed our stuff and headed for the outdoor pool. As we were putting on our sunscreen, though, they removed the lane ropes, opening up the whole pool for free swim. This was problematic for laps, so we decided to work a bit on Asaf's butterfly and flip turns, then swam a few obstacle-filled laps before having a breath-holding contest which Asaf definitely won.

Once we'd dried off and showered, I got some falafel and we both got malawah, a doughy pastry-like thing. It was pretty good but very flaky and messy, and I couldn't finish mine so I brought it home. Since I had woken up so early, after the walk back to Clore I took a nice afternoon nap, then woke up again and went up to the lobby to hang out. I blogged about the last two days and went through all my photos, and chatted with Zvonimir and others. The circle got larger as the day went on, and eventually the evening arrived. Stephen suggested havdalah, so we went down to get his cup, candle and very fancy McCormack container of whole cloves (a "spice box"), and recruited Rachel, her friend who was visiting, Maxime, and Oren to join in. Once we lit the candle we began to worry about the smoke detector, so we headed outside and stood in a circle to do the prayers, using tunes and swaying in a way very reminiscent of Camp Ramah. It was nice.

We headed back inside and sat chatting a bit more, and I continued blogging until I ran out of power. When I went down to my room to get my adapter, I happened to look at  my phone and noticed a few missed calls. The first was Nitzan, who told me when I returned his call that he had meant to invite me to dinner with some friends at Yaron and Rotem's apartment. The invitation was still open, so I changed and started the walk, during which I returned the other call (my parents, about shipping me my chalk bag (yay!)).

I called Nitzan when I was close by to let me up, and he came down and walked me in. Yaron and Rotem live only a 5-minute walk from campus, which is nice because they both are students here. Their apartment was lovely and spacious, and, having the impecable timing I do, I arrived just before we all sat down to eat. Yaron is the cook of the couple, and a very capable one at that. We had rice, dumplings, pork (!) in a sweet sauce, and a chicken and vegetable dish.

After clearing the dishes we decided to turn on the air conditioning and sat in the living room talking. Dessert eventually happened, and consisted of a cheesecake (which apparently improves with age) and chocolate cake (which apparently is a hit because it's standard kindergarten fare here and then disappears for the rest of your life). Both were great, and afterwards we sat some more. Eventually Rotem broke out a few three-dimensional puzzles (wooden blocks and such, and a terra-cotta face thing which I really can't describe). We all took turns trying them except our hosts. Surprisingly, I finished all of them relatively quickly. The others completed some of them as well, but Nitzan unfortunately resorted to making his own "creative sculptures" with the pieces.

Eventually it got late, and some people had early lectures the next morning, so we all said our thank-yous and departed. Back at Clore, most people had gone to bed, but I caught Ari (who had recently returned from a weekend with his family). We chatted a bit before I went to sleep.

To continue pictures from last Thursday...

...behold, the Dead Sea!

A picture of me.  Imagine that.  Thanks, Ari!

Salt crystals on a rock by the shore

Oren and some other random dudes floating

Day 34 - Independence Day

After 11 hours of sleep, I woke up to meet Ari for breakfast before he went to Jerusalem to meet friends and then his family. We both went back to Clore, he left, and I grabbed my stuff and went to work for a bit. I stayed, processing images a bit to catch up for yesterday, until a bit after noon. On my way back to Clore I called Asaf, and we met in the lobby so I could give him a CD i had made him. Then I changed and went to go meet the guys to go climbing (Nitzan, Yaron, and Ran) at 1 pm.

We went to the top roping/leading place, which was nice because it was relatively un-crowded and they had finally gotten new leading ropes. I tried the yellow route twice but got really stressed, so I took a long rest. Ran and I belayed each other on some top-roping routes, then I led one I had done before and one new problem. I was overly tired considering what I had done, though, so further lead-belaying lessons from Nitzan will have to wait until next time. We then bouldered for a while, and the guys each had a beer and we sat and chilled until leaving.

I returned to Clore at around 6, and showered in time to be clean and ready for the Shabbaton Stephen, Tamara, and Rachel had planned. Stephen had printed a Friday night service, in Hebrew and transliterated into English, for everyone, and he led the service and gave a brief interactive sermon about the portion. It was a great dialogue and a fun service, and there were about 12 people (but only 9 Jews, so no minyan). Afterwards, we acquired many more people as we headed down to the basement for Shabbat dinner.

Rachel had been the driving force behind the cooking, and Tamara and Stephen had done the grocery shopping. They had pushed all of the dinner tables together and set it with tablecloths and plasticware, but there weren't enough chairs, so we all grabbed some from our rooms before sitting down and filling our wine glasses. We said Kaddish and hamotzi, and began the meal with challah, pita, hummus and other spreads. Then there were two salads, rice, couscous, and chicken. We had juices and soda to drink, and cakes for dessert. Everything was delicious! We lingered for a while, talking and laughing, then cleaned up a bit before going our separate ways.

Stephen, Oren, Dan, Ari (who had gotten back in the middle of the meal), and I sat around a bit longer, having a hilarious conversation. Pretty soon, Ari, Ivonne, Dan, Joel, and I headed out to Hertzl Bar, where we met Ran, Nitzan, and a friend of Nitzan's from the army. The outing was ostensibly in honor of the United States' independence day, which was made amusing by the fact that Ari was wearing a tee shirt with a huge union jack on it (which he hadn't realized would be ironic when he put it on). We got a rather small table, but squished further around it to allow Zvonimir, Tess and Jonathan to join us. Everyone got various exciting drinks; I got a mango, pineapple, and banana smoothie which was delicious. We talked about a bunch of mostly unconnected things, occasionally jokes which are hilarious in Hebrew but just don't really translate, until a bit too late, then finally all headed home.

Pictures today are a continuation from yesterday. Behold: Ein Gedi! And Ari's outfit.

So typical of an oasis...

A hyrax

The caves in the cliffs

The first pool (Jonathan took this one)

A series of waterfalls

The second pool

The third pool

Jonathan holding a tadpole (with legs!)

A dragonfly

And finally, Ari's ironic tee shirt

(notice Dan is wearing a red, white and blue shirt like a good American)