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 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 27 - Wasting time in virtual spaces

I woke up this morning to the lovely sound of Ari knocking on my door at 12:15.  He wanted to get lunch, and kindly granted me 15 minutes in which to get ready.  I showered, got dressed, and grabbed my stuff in only 12.  It was apparently very impressive.

We ran into Clay in the lobby, so waited 2 minutes for him to put away his stuff so he could come with us.  Ari wanted to try the dining places on campus, but all the subsidized ones (Jubilee, San Martin, and Charlie's Place) were closed.  The restaurant at the Visitor's Center was open, however, so we decided to eat there.  We ran into Zvonimir having some coffee, so he ordered another one and hung out with us.  After a bit Ari left a bit early to catch his train to Haifa for the weekend.

When we got back to Clore, I chatted with Carina (!) for the third time in four days, or something ridiculous like that.  It was great!  Carina, if you are reading this, I am waiting for that report...it's due on my desk by MONDAY.

Anyways, Anya came down to the kitchen to find me.  It was time for our shopping date!  We walked along Hertzl Street, stopping in any shop that held the possibility for cute summer dresses, the objects of our quest.  The first place we entered turned out to be the most promising, but since it was fist, we tried on oodles of stuff and then moved on.  We found ourselves empty-handed, until we found some cute and cheap socks at one of the places along Hertzl.  As neither of us had brought enough, we both got three pairs.  We worked our way down all the way to the mall, but by the time we reached it, most things were closing.  The pharmacy was still open, though, so I bought an ace bandage.

We were both glad, after the walk back, to reach air conditioning.  As we parted, the protocol to exchange some sort of contact information was fulfilled in that Anya told me she was now on facebook, and went up to her room and friended me.  Oh the joys of facebook.  

I went down to grab my computer, and ended up joining Zvonimir in the lobby.  Asaf had called me when we were out, asking about my ankle and wanting to exchange some music.  So I called him back and told him we were chilling in the lobby.  I put a bunch of stuff on his thumb drive, and we sampled some Dane Cook, because he had mentioned a love for Mitch Hedberg.  Of course this launched a YouTube visit, because Dane Cook is better when you can see him.  And this one video precipitated an entire afternoon spend watching YouTube videos.  It was amazing.  We were joined on and off by Dan and Jordan, and later permanently by Joel, but our core group of three spent some embarrassing number of hours showing each other clips from comedians, imitators, Christopher Walken reading The Three Little Pigs, and other amazing stuff.

Asaf had a hankering for a hamburger, and since we had seen Nina, Dave, and a bunch of others heading to Hertzl Bar, we decided to go change and join them.  We sat, Asaf and Zvonimir ordering hamburgers, and were joined by Asaf's friend Amir.  I got edamame (steamed soybeans in the pod) for the table, which were a hit!  Somewhere in the middle of the meal Asaf decided we needed to call Nitzan and Yaron, but only had Yaron's number.  I, therefore, called Nitzan, breaking our no-call streak and ruining both our hopes for Beijing.  He said he could come in about an hour, so we finished up our meal and went back to Clore.  Joel broke out some tasty beverages and we chilled for a bit.  Eventually Nitzan showed up, as well as Yaron and Rotem, his fiance.  Iris also hung out with us, which was great because she will be a sophomore at Penn this year, so we have lots we can talk about.

We left Clore, at which point Yaron and Rotem headed home.  Our intention was to head to the Irish pub near Hertzl Bar, but our hopes were dashed when they didn't have a table large enough for the group.  Another place had a 35 shekel minimum per person, not appealing to those of us (*raises hand*) who would not be consuming two beers.  So we returned to the old standby, Hertzl Bar, where we got a large enough table and weren't forced to order a preset amount.  We got more edamame, too.  It was a banner day for soybeans.  

After sitting and chatting for a couple of hours, we all went back to Clore and from there some went their separate ways.  All in all, a good day.

For those of you with picture cravings, 

enjoy one of Anya and I shopping...