Thanatopsis

Woke up this morning and my bedroom smelled like old man, and I said: What the hell? -- Oh, yeah.

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.