WTF?

I came back from Tel Aviv to New York for this?

Last Day

My last day here. Luckily I'm coming back to a heat wave or something; at least I won't be taken aback by the weather.

Bought a big bag of fresh fruits and vegetables at the shouk for gifts at home. I think fresh fruit from abroad is a perfect gift, don't you?

Nearly eaten to death

So we had an offsite on the border of Lebanon, on the coast, at a place called Rosh HaNikra, which has some lovely sea grottos that we toured. We took the world's shortest cablecar down to the caves--about a 75 foot trip. The surf was up and the waves boomed as they smacked into the cave entrance, causing our ears to pop.

Next we went to the beach in Nahariya, a little national park about 10 miles south from there and swam in a small cove surrounded by rocks. It was crowded, and the rocks made the cove as flat as a bathtub. Stood in the water chatting with my coworkers, when I started to get these little pecks on my legs. Couldn't see anything, but the pecks persisted, and became harder, like I was being pecked with pins. Kept moving my legs to frighten off whatever it was, but they became more persistent; it was like a swarm of underwater bees. Moving to shallower water, I discovered that it was a school of flat, thumb-sized fish going for the acres of peeling skin all over my legs and feet. This sounds like one of those fancy spa treatments, but these were street fish, and very aggressive. They'd hover nearby and peck and yank at any piece of loose skin they could find, and those fishy bastards even went for a scrape on my knee. I finally fled, and found out that they'd drawn blood on my calf. Little shits.

Banarama

Just picked up a complimentary copy of this month's Banana magazine in the lobby of my hotel, because yeah, that's the kind of hotel this is. The title is classic: I can't believe we don't have a magazine called Banana at home. I mean it's so obvious.
Anyway, my favorite picture is the one with the girl holding the lamb. What is that supposed to mean? I like animals? Natural fibers?

Mystery bottles

Turns out they were grape juice.

Don't rock the boat

<p>Boating class today was capsizing the boat. We flipped it only 90 degrees,&nbsp; not turtle,&nbsp; and it was pretty easy to get upright again. I was mostly afraid of jellyfish.&nbsp; <br>
I have one class left; turns out the deal was for first e classes. Last class is next week.

Last night went to an art show of final student presentations at Bezalel, a prestigious art college in Jerusalem.  Some of the most interesting entries were a design for a 2 piece minivan, where the front detaches as a tiny car, and some table china designed to look like fabric. The nastiest was the large color photos of some woman giving a guy a blowjob and another of her pulling a long necklace of crystal baubles out of her cootchie.
No host for shabbat tonight; bought some mini challas and a giant pita at the should, ad well as a funny oval canteloupe,  some pastries, some hummus, and some nice soft cheese with black sesame seeds in it. Also two tiny bottles which are either wine, grape juice, grape soda, or two bottles of camel pee with a picture of grapes on the label.

Yemeni Crickets

Last Shabbat I got a chance to go to a Yemenite shul. I stayed with a lovely Yemenite family (the mother's parents came in the early 1900s) who put me up for Shabbat. The mother was a kindergarten teacher, and the father a retired middle school teacher in a religious public school.

The sephardim really know how to live a relaxed, Jewish lifestyle. They daven 3 times a day, but they wear shorts, they watch television and movies, and integrate with modern society. Actually, the Yemeni are not sephardim, as I was told; they're their own branch, just like ashkenaz and sephardim.

During pesukei d'zimrei, the introductory blessings, the entire male congregation chants the prayers together, unlike in an ashkenaz synagogue where only the prayer leader chants. The effect is unlike anything i've experienced in any sephardic shul, though, where they also do group chanting; the chanting ranged in sound from a staccato monotone that sounded like a buddhist monastary to melodic tunes that sounded gregorian, to a philip-glass-like atonal chorus. There were 20 or 30 men there, and the effect of the combined voices was hypnotic.

The torah reading was unique as well; two readers alternate in the reading: one reads a verse from the scroll in hebrew, then the other, a teenager, reads the aramaic translation from theonkelos. The tunes were different between the hebrew and aramaic readers; the hebrew reader sang quavers and microtones in a very middle-eastern style, while the aramaic was much plainer. The entire torah reading took an incredibly long time--about an hour and a half--because of this dual reading. They swapped readers three or four times because it took so long. The last reader was extremely slow, but incredibly rich, with very elaborate chanting.

One of the congregants, a 22 year old man in jeans and a white button-up shirt with a cowboy print on the back, was getting married, and was pelted with hard candy from the women in the upper section when he went up for an aliyah--a standard practice. After his aliyah the woman ululated like arabs--surprising, and a little eery.

It was hard to follow the hebrew, because the pronunciation is very different from either ashkenaz or sephardic pronunciation; for example, the gimmel has two sounds rather than one (jell and gill), and most of the vowels are different. They even pronounce the ayin, which none of the other jewish groups pronounce.

Yemeni Crickets

Last Shabbat I got a chance to go to a Yemenite shul. I stayed with a lovely Yemenite family (the mother's parents came in the early 1900s) who put me up for Shabbat. The mother was a kindergarten teacher, and the father a retired middle school teacher in a religious public school.

The sephardim really know how to live a relaxed, Jewish lifestyle. They daven 3 times a day, but they wear shorts, they watch television and movies, and integrate with modern society. Actually, the Yemeni are not sephardim, as I was told; they're their own branch, just like ashkenaz and sephardim.

During pesukei d'zimrei, the introductory blessings, the entire male congregation chants the prayers together, unlike in an ashkenaz synagogue where only the prayer leader chants. The effect is unlike anything i've experienced in any sephardic shul, though, where they also do group chanting; the chanting ranged in sound from a staccato monotone that sounded like a buddhist monastary to melodic tunes that sounded gregorian, to a philip-glass-like atonal chorus. There were 20 or 30 men there, and the effect of the combined voices was hypnotic.

The torah reading was unique as well; two readers alternate in the reading: one reads a verse from the scroll in hebrew, then the other, a teenager, reads the aramaic translation from the onkelos. The tunes were different between the hebrew and aramaic readers; the hebrew reader sang quavers and microtones in a very middle-eastern style, while the aramaic was much plainer. The entire torah reading took an incredibly long time--about an hour and a half--because of this dual reading. They swapped readers three or four times because it took so long. The last reader was extremely slow, but incredibly rich, with very elaborate chanting.

One of the congregants, a 22 year old man in jeans and a white button-up shirt with a cowboy print on the back, was getting married, and was pelted with hard candy from the women in the upper section when he went up for an aliyah--a standard practice. After his aliyah the woman ululated like arabs--surprising, and a little eery.

It was hard to follow the hebrew, because the pronunciation is very different from either ashkenaz or sephardic pronunciation; for example, the gimmel has two sounds rather than one (jell and gill), and most of the vowels are different. They even pronounce the ayin, which none of the other jewish groups pronounce.

Thursday

Went to Jerusalem; hotels not available in Tzfat on thursday night. So kept up my standard of sleeping late, then got up and took a bus to Jerusalem and visited Yad Vashem, looked at the pictures of murdered Jews, bought $30 worth of halva (coffee, coconut, and date), and took a racecar minibus back; Jerusalem to Tel Aviv is downhill.

Dispelled the single cockroach theory on my return. Also dispelled any idea of a safe zone in the house. When I got home tonight, I killed a monster in the living room, another in my bedroom, and played a Popeye Doyle game of chase with a third around the dish rack until he gave me the slip and made off beneath the stove. I'm going to sleep hanging from the ceiling tonight, if I can.

Update: killed a third one! See the picture.

Tomorrow is my third sailing class, and I'm already worrying about getting sick, or being too stoned on Travamine to steer the boat. I was told that the jellyfish are stingers.

My feet are a permanent dull red. At least after this weekend, i'll be spending more time indoors on a regular schedule. At work. Crap.

Wednesday

Turns out that Travamine is in fact Dramamine, and it works wonders, except that it gives you a nasty cold medicine buzz for about an hour after you take it. Didn't bother to tell the sailing instructor that i was buzzed when i arrived for my lesson, but luckily it wore off just as we launched. Had a much better time, and learned how to tack and jibe much more smoothly, although i still have butterfingers with the rudder, and tend to over/understeer during the switchover. Ocean is full of jellyfish: mostly head-sized white ones, with a few tan ones and some beautiful, brilliant blue ones mixed in. I was told that the mediterranean has no native jellyfish; when the suez canal was built, they migrated in from the red sea. They sting too, I'm told.

The red leather that is the tops of my feet is somewhat less sensitive today, though it still hurts like a bruise when I touch them.

Looked into a trip to Tzfat for a day, which would mean Wed and thurs nights in a hotel, but thursday seems pretty busy, so instead, tomorrow I'll go to jerusalem and visit Yad Vashem, and then maybe afterwards just lie down for a while.

There are so many inked up people here now; the women as much as the men. It's weird, and kind of sad. Now the Chosen People can have their tramp stamps just like all the other nations.

The Night Stalker

Tuesday night:
Tonight the cockroach, or another one like it, decided to wake me up in person by crawling up my arm. I managed to stay in bed another half hour to prove i wasn't a girl, before moving to the couch.

Monday Night Surprise

Turned on the light in my room, and surprised a cockroach the size of a tablespoon waving his feelers about the room. I looked at him, he looked at me, and he sauntered beneath the cabinet before I had the presence of mind to look for a shoe. I heard him walking on the wood floor, and squeeze behind a piece of posterboard.

Israel Vacation, Day 1: I discover something new about myself

My big vacation pans, in case you haven't heard, have been to take a week of sailing classes at the tel aviv marina. At the end of the day, i learned some new things about myself:
1) I get seasick on a sailboat
2) Never eat a big, big breakfast right before you take sailing lessons. This goes double if you get seasick.
3) I burn like dry paper in the sun.

Had to end the lesson because I was so queasy, and was debating whether I wanted another week of this, but on the way home I picked up a box of dramamine (the package says travamine, but the pharmacist assured me it was for vomiting, so it's not a rash medicine or something).

Of course I had visions in my head of cutting the waves, martini in one hand, parrot on my shoulder by the end of the week. Something else I learned--sailing is really hard. You steer with one hand, you pull on a rope (called a "sheet", or a "shit" if you are a hebrew speaker) with the other hand to control the tension of the mainsail, and you have to work those babies. There's a strap on the floor for your feet so you can lean backward over the side to counterbalance the boat when it heels over so far that it feels like you're about to flip it into the ocean and make an enormous ass of yourself. It's not an optional strap either, like a suicide knob on a car; it's pretty much required. You have to really lean back to get any speed on a boat. That's what i learned between turning green and hitting myself in the head with the boom when I inadvertently tacket once or twice. Gal, my teacher, was very kind, though, and told me I got a lot further than most other people do during their first day. And this was after only half a class too! (cut short as it was by seasickness.)

On the positive side, all israeli women wear bikinis at the beach. On the negative side of the positive side, so do their mothers, and their grandmothers.


The apartment is on the second floor, right about the level of the canopy of a large x tree. This tree has waxy, oval leaves, like a rhododendron, and long tendrils of plant matter hang from the branches like spanish moss. When the leaves fall, you can hear them hit the ground.
I sat on the balcony at 3 am, listening to janice joplin blaring from an apartment across the street, watching the last drunk partygoers leave the building, and out of the corner of my eye caught sight of a few birds darting among the trees that line the street. But they were soundless, except for the occasional patter of heavy leaves that they dislodged, hitting the car hoods or sidewalk below. It took me several minutes to realize that they were bats, hunting the street.
The more I watched, the more I saw; they were incredibly acrobatic; dropping down from a branch, rocketing up through a neighboring tree, and pulling a hard turn across the face of the building and off down the street. Occasionally one would make a slow turn and skim across the iron grillwork covering the balcony, and i could see the streetlights glowing through the stretched skin of their wings. They worked the street for as long as I sat there, through janice, through some jazzy pop. Despite the fact that all the windows in the apt were open, there were no bugs or mosquitos, most likely due to the hunting colony passing unnoticed over the partygoers on the sidewalk just one floor below.

Xray vision

So maybe I'm an old man, but the woman in front of me--the don't need to use the full body xray to check out what she's got underneath her clothing. But they do need to xray her baby stroller.