old blog

Man this thing is old.
I haven't written on this thing since andy was vibrant middle aged pup and tommy was just a twinkle in his breeder's eye...

old photos

sooo, I finally found the cord to hook my camera up to my 'puter, so now I can post pics again! Now I just have to take some... I wanted to the other night, but the BRAND NEW batteries I put in my camera were DOA. Don't buy Walgreens batteries!

SO, I am going to post with some old photos.

August 5, 2005 (according to my camera's date), I went skydiving. Lauren was visiting at that point; she really wanted to go. I had done it before in 2000 w/ my old roommate Heather, in Colorado. But I can't really remember, isn't that weird? I think its because my eyes were closed the whole way down.

Anyway, Lauren and I left Tel Aviv that morning with the intention of going to Haifa. But right as the Haifa bus pulled out of the bus station, we decided to call the sky diving place to see if we could come in that afternoon. (The place, HaBonim, was in the general direction of Haifa) Turns out, they had two cancellations at 4 pm that day, so that time slot was all ours. We got off the bus in some town north of Tel Aviv and hopped on another bus. We both fell asleep during the trip, and I remember opening my eyes from my two hour nap just to see us fly by a sign for HaBonim. So we yelled at the driver to let us out, and he dropped us off at the side of the highway. We really had no idea how far away the place was; we just started walking.


It was REALLY HOT. A nice lady picked us up and drove us most of the way, which ended up being about 5 miles.

We walked the last mile or so, and finally arrived at the place. We were about an hour or so early, so we decided to walk down to the beach to kill some time. The beach was about a quarter of a mile away, but we got lost and took the mile scenic route (which wasn't very scenic.) The beach, however, was:

We stayed there for a little bit and then headed back to the skydiving place. All of the instructors there are ex-paratroopers and have done thousands of jumps. Here is Lauren getting fitted by her instructor:

See how casually dressed he is? All of the instructors were decked out in oversize t-shirts and canvas shoes or sandles. No high tech gear for these guys!


That's the end of the sky-diving adventure; I made sure to keep my eyes open! That afternoon, we caught a ride out to the highway w/ a crazy driver (driving w/ him was scarier than the plane jump). We were worried that we might have missed the last bus up to haifa because shabbat was nearing, but we were good, and after only a few minutes of waiting a bus picked us up and we were on our way to Haifa.

Besides a tasty sushi meal and a really nice walk along the scenic tayellet in the upper part of the city, the Haifa trip was a BUST! We didn't want to spend the $$ to stay in a hotel in the Carmel area (the upper part of the city), so we were relegated to the lower parts, near the docks. MAN, it took us SO LONG to find a hotel or hostel, I forgot about this. We were using a Let's Go tourbook, and every number in it had been disconnected. We taxied around to a few of the locations, but none of them existed anymore. The whole city was dead too, at least in the area we were in. We walked past a couple prossies and druggies and up the staircase to a random hotel we walked by, and were so skeeved out by the owner and the decor of naked lady posters and some family member cookin up a meal in his boxers in the kitchen, we walked right out. He was so desparate for some guests, he chased us down, lowering the price. hellllll no, you couldn't have PAID me to stay there.

FInally, we ended up at a hostel, the Jaffa hostel I think it was called. The room was packed and smelly and hot (no a.c.), but clean and porn-free.

Ok, that story is over. I have one more pic I want to put up. A few weeks ago, I was headed into Wild Oats to study (and procrastinate) like I always do, and was suprised to see none other than ABE LINCOLN parkin his bike out front!

Abe knows, abortion kills children! That's the point, buddy!

halloweeen

On Friday night I went to a Halloween party at school, which is a lot more fun than it sounds. Here is a picture of me and my friend Matt, whose costume looked very similar to mine.


I was a red crayon.

new

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArtUnd.jhtml?itemNo=619533&contrassID=2&subContrassID=1&sbSubContrassID=0&listSrc=Y

Part III

I can't sleep, so I will update again. I think the couch I am sitting on is infected with fleas or something, because I have all these little bites on me.

Let me think about where I left off... Oh yeah, coming back from Sinai. On our return, we rented a car in Eilat (after spending the afternoon snorkeling in Eilat), and then drove up that night to the base of Masada, by the Dead Sea.

The three of us, (Lauren, Zach, and me), planned on waking up at 4:30 am to hike to the top of Masada to watch the sunrise (it's the thing to do...), but as you can see from the picture, someone decided to sleep in instead.

I still had my cold, which I am going to blame for my slowness in getting up the mountain. Lauren sped right up, though. Luckily I was not as sick as the American we saw at the top, puking in the ruins...

After a leisurely Israeli breakfast back out our hotel/hostel (which was really nice, btw), we headed over to the Dead Sea. The temperature must have been over 100 degrees, and the Dead Sea is really warm, too.

Don't worry, our faces are not burnt to a crisp, we have the dead sea mud on.

We took off from the Dead Sea and headed back to Tel Aviv. We stopped at Cesaria, and then had dinner in Netanya, which was very nice. The town was overrun with Frenchies! The menus there are offered in Hebrew and French (which was nice for Lauren).

THe next part of Lauren's stay was centered more around Tel Aviv, because I had to work that week. It was also Nicole's last days in Israel. We had a going away dinner at Nanunchka, a cool Georgian restaurant.
(PIC TO COME)

What should I have to drink? To find out, go here
(PIC TO COME_)
Goodbye, Nicole.

Near the trendy port area of Tel Aviv, there is this thing called the slingshot. It's a ball attached to bungee cords - you get in the ball and get flung in the air.

Lauren and I did it.

Fun, but tame compared to what we did that next weekend. At first we were going to go to the Sea of Galilee. On the bus there, I called a sky-diving place near Haifa to see what the deal was, and they told us they had availibilty that afternoon. So, we got on the bus and hopped on another one, toward Haifa. The sky-diving place was near this beach called Habonim, some of the nicest beaches in Israel.

(PICK TO COME)

My internet access is sketchy right now, so I will finish this up and upload the photos later. Goodnight.

Part II

After our delayed stopover in Eilat, we hopped in a cab to Taba, the border down. We payed our exit taxes and entered into Sinai.


I was relieved to realize that what I had thought were allergies was actually a cold. (A relief because I knew I wouldn't be feeling that bad for the whole season.) But, it is no fun having a fever in 105 degree weather. I did not enjoy the four hour ride from Taba to Dahab in an non-airconditioned bus, sitting on a temporary pop-up seat, listening to staticky Arabic radio.

Our driver made sure to slow down for the camels.

But he didn't make sure to turn off the engine and extinguish his cigarette when we stopped for gas.


We arrived in Dahab at nightfall, and after some asking around, found our "hotel," little cement huts with cots. About 5 bucks a night. You know, it was my second time in Sinai sleeping in huts, and I don't even think twice about it, but you couldn't pay me to sleep in accomodations like that in the states. Of course, I took the Halzel precautions as much as possible: I folded a clean shirt over the pillowcase and slept on my back, straight as a board the whole night.

We took one of the huts with A/C, there is no way with my cold in that heat I was going to deal with anythign less. Plus, there is nothing worse then sweating on disgusting mattresses.

Before we went to sleep, we went out to dinner.

We were tired, ok?

All I wanted to do was pass out and sleep through my cold, so I decided to stop by the pharmacy to pick up a little sleeping aid, some tylenol PM or something. So, I walk in and ask the pharmacist for something to help me sleep, and he says. "Ok, would you like valium or Zanax?" I was shocked! I didn't realize that you didn't need a prescription for drugs in Egypt. And they were cheap, too. So, I bought some tablets of both.

I think they were expired or insignificant doses, because they didnt really give me the effect I was looking for. Or maybe I was just expecting too much.

So this Egpytian pharmacist had long pinky nails, like cokeheads. Not as long as this guy's, http://i1.trekearth.com/photos/16503/pinky1.jpg, but still pretty long. He didn't look like a illegal substance type though, so I figured it was for playing the guitar or something. (I didn't really think about it that much, just in the back of my head.) THen, when Lauren and I went back to the pharmacy the next day, she noticed it and pointed out that that is probably how he cut the drugs at the pharmacy! Instead of sterilized scales and and spoons and knives (or whatever it is you use, mom), he just does it all with his nasty pinky nail.

In the morning when we woke up, we got a better view of our surroundings.


The beaches in Dahab are pretty to look at, but are rocky and small. We heard that the Hilton had nice beaches, so we decided to check those out.

Not only were their beaches beautiful, they also had this pool that went on forever:





But it was all a tease! There was a big sign next to it that said "no swimming," and it was only about 6 inches deep. Their real pool was just your standard sized one, a major disappointment!

There were only two families, British, around the pool (this was a week after the Sharm bombings), and I played water polo with their kids until we got kicked out.

So basically, our time in Dahab consisted of eating and spending time in the sun.

Stay tuned for Part III of Lauren and Rachel's adventures!

Part I

I just spent two weeks (plus an extra day, haha) hanging out with Lauren S., a friend since elementary school.

Her bags were a couple days late in arriving, so we hung out in Tel Aviv until they did. One of her friends is really into sport bikes, so we took some photos with some just for fun:








Her bags arrived at 11 pm on Tuesday, with a little note from El Al attached that said, "All's well that ends well." Isn't that obnoxious? What if she had all her meds in that lost bag and she died while waiting for them?

Anyway, baggage in hand, we decided to get out of Tel Aviv. Wednesday we spent the whole day walking around Jerusalem. We decided to go to the Tower of David museum, because we figured museum meant an air-conditioned room. Nope, this museum entailed walking the walls of the old city in the scorching sun:



After walking around the whole day, we went to a street festival on Ben Yehuda street, where we met Zach who was also staying at our hostel:


Late that night we were hanging out at the hostel talking about what we were going to do during her trip. Originally, Lauren and I had discussed going to Sinai, but the bombing in Sharm el Sheik that happened the day before she came out put a damper on those plans.

At 2 am in the morning, nothing seems like a bad idea, though, and we made the decision to go to Dahab, in Sinai, for a couple of days starting that next morning. Unwisely, I had told Lauren to leave her passport in my apt. in Tel Aviv (about an hour away), and to have enough time in Sinai we really needed to leave early that morning.

So, I left for Tel Aviv at 5 am (we didn't go to sleep that night) where I picked up her passport and then caught the next bus back to Jerusalem. From there it was a four and a half hour trip to Eilat, right on the border with Sinai.

I wanted to rest my head on the window to sleep, but some Israeli's hairy feet were in my way.


At Eilat we had a little action in the bus station. There was an abandoned suitcase. The station was evacuated and we all had to go stand outside while they blew it up. That was an hour delay. Here is the crowd all standing around near the suitcase. That crowd is about 200 ft away from the suitcase, we stood further back.

For the record, it was really *(&8&*( hot in Eilat.

Next up, Egypt!

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArtUnd.jhtml?itemNo=%20603983&contrassID=2&subContrassID=1&sbSubContrassID=0&listSrc=Y

back

I am in the coffee shop right now, checking email. I will update soon with pics, but until then, here is a brief recap of the past few days:

Lauren arrives Sunday night.
Lauren's baggage arrives Tuesday night.
Tues in Jerusalem, Wednesday and Thursdayin Sinai (Dahab) with our new friend, Friday in Eilat, Saturday (today) climbing Masada (at 4 30 am) and hanging out at the Dead Sea. NOw back in Tel Aviv.

More to come, including:

- My Egyptian experience with (prescription) drugs.
- A really bad sunburn on my stomach.
- A bomb scare (with a blown up suitcase)
- A forgotten passport.
- An Egyptian cab driver who likes to fill his old bus with gas while its running.
- An Egyptian pharmacist who measures drugs with his pinky nail.
- A disgraceful banishment from the Dahab Hilton.

and much more...

a little late

So, a couple of weeks ago Nicole (another intern) and I ended up renting a car and driving up to the Sea of Galilee, about a 2.5 hr drive.

Here is the car we rented, a cute little something. Maybe a hundai? Nicole's brother is a race car driver, one level below Formula One, and she had done this race car driving school, so I was thinking her driving would be excellent.

But she was a slow driver in the fast lane!!! I was shocked! Israelis were honking and giving dirty looks left and right. (It is against the law to not treat the left lane as a passing lane in israel)

As soon as we arrived in Tiberious, we get out of the car and start walking around. Right away, Nicole randomly runs into a friend from school, a kid named Ben, who we end up hanging out with for the whole weekend.

We dropped our stuff off at the hostel, for under 10 bucks a night, and hit the town. 'Town' is really just a boardwalk with a row of similar restaurants. The place was dead, unfortunate for a town that depends so much on tourism. I think the restaurant we ate was trying to cut costs by getting rid of some staff - the place was pretty dirty.

That night we drove out to a reggae party at a kibbutz that we had read about in lonely planet.
The place was full of kibbutzniks from all over the world.

I met someone from South Korea who did not know a word of English. It is so rare to meet someone with whom I share not even a single word of a common language. Actually he did no a couple words; he made the motion like he was at bat and then said "LA Dodgers" and nodded and smiled.

Here is a picture of Ben and some Colombian who was working at a kibbutz. I dont know why I am posing like that. I guess it's better than the Colombian's pose, though:



That next day we woke up early to go for a hike in the Golan. Here we are at the entrance to the hike. I really should have been wearing a hat:

By this time, I think it was already around 11 am and really, really hot.


There are about 3 natural pools during the hike, two places where you are required to swim if you want to go any further. At the first pool, Nicole decided to jump off one of the cliffs, but she forgot to keep her legs straight. Check out the bruise:



We had to descend this ladder on the side of the cliff, and then swim across this pool with all of our stuff. Strong people were able to hold there backpack across their heads as they swam across to prevent stuff from getting wet. As you can see, I couldn't do that:



After the hike, the three of us snuck into some hot springs back in Tiberius. Well-deserved relaxation. Here is a pic of the view of the Sea of Galilee:



That evening we ate at a good restaurant called Decks, right on the water. (Remember Mom, we went there?) Since it was Saturday and the place is kosher, we had to wait until sundown for the place to open. We amused ourselves by taking pictures. Here is a nice one that Nicole took:



And here we are petting the dead fish:



THe next morning Nicole wakes up with Pink Eye, from the hot springs we think, (that's what you get for sneaking in!). We went to the pharmacy to try to get some eyedrops, while Ben waited at the hostel. We felt bad for making him wait, so here I am picking him up some treats:



After a quick stop at a nearby kibbutz to see a boring tank, we drove home and back to work!

no $$ no internet

I am at work right now.

I haven't posted for awhile, mainly because I don't have internet access at home. And now that I have no money (since I lost my wallet), I am not spending so much time at the cafe with wireless access. I think I am going to get my security deposit back from the girl I am renting from, so I can have some cash. Right now I only have 20 agarot to my name - 5 cents, that is.

Lauren S. is coming on Sunday, for two weeks. I am going to take a week off from work and we will We are go to Sinai for a few days, Jerusalem for a couple days, and lots of day trips. I am very excited!

OK, I have to update the sports page. Bye for now!

amber alert

remember when I lost my wallet w. my $$, credit card, and atm card?

Pulitzer?

check it out, im a correspondent:
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=600304&contrassID=15

It is going to be in the print edition, too. Go see for yourself!

im famous in israel

Check it out, my picture is on the newspaper site (along w/ an article nicole wrote about the hike):

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArtUnd.jhtml?itemNo=599655&contrassID=2&subContrassID=1&sbSubContrassID=0&listSrc=Y

Tonight I am going to cover the field hockey game for the maccabiah games.

Thank God!

I finished my papers that were due in February and May! The summer can finally begin!

hi gramma!

Hi Gramma, I see that you just IMd me, but I was away from the computer, and then you were signed off.

Anyway, I am going to tell about my night last night. Anat had tickets to a Latin Festival in northern Tel Aviv. I had to work late, so I met her there. Here she is waiting with her two roommates, Eyal and Ma'ayan.

Don't they look thrilled to see me?


The fiesta was pretty fun. There were a few stages with bands from all over.



Nicole came to the festival, too (she is from colombia).

owen wilson was also there. Just kidding, it is nicolas!

I thought crocs were only popular in highlands ranch...

but Israelis love them!

And that's it for now!

hello

I worked the night shift at work tonight. When I left at around 8:30, I walked over to the coffee bean (about an hour walk). I took pictures of my walk and I was going to post them, but I left my USB cord at work, oh well.

When I work the night shift, I spend much of the time monitoring the Talkback section. This is a feature of the online paper where people (ANYONE, no registration required), can respond to articles. Its basically the same 5 idiots posting over and over. They never have anything insightful to say; its a lot of misinformation and personal attacks on the other posters.

One of these regular posters, a frenchie named Claude, gets into verbal spats with another regular, Yitzach from NY. Claude always accuses Yitchak of acting morally superior than everyone else. He has a nickname for Yitzach - "Monsieur le high priest." Lately these person attacks have spiralled out of control, so we have been a little more strict in the monitoring. This evening, I started censoring out the "M. le high priest" nickname. Claude apparantly didn't like this, so he sent message with like 15 "M. le high priest" references in it, to make it more annoying for me to censor.

HIs final comment on this message was "Monsieur le HIgh Priest, why don't you retreat back into your ivory tower in New York and have a great summer!" So, just for laughs, I edited this message to read "Monsieur, have a great summer!"

Claude didn't like this either; look what he submitted in return:

Why you protect so much the " High Priest"?? Why youalways change my text? The last one finihs like:" Enjoy the Summer!"I do not want this bastard to enjoy the Summer. This bastard is sohipocritical and so biased... I want him to burn his asshole and todrop dead...."

Needless to say, I did not let this one go through.

no internet

Someone in my building has unsecured wireless network, and I have a wireless card, therefore I have been poaching off of their network since I moved in a few weeks ago. THen, a couple of nights ago, their network didn't show up on my computer. And I haven't seen it since. I think they moved away!

So, my internet access has been limited to work, and to The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf cafe, where I am now. And some customer at this cafe just fooled with the AC, you can't do that! He just came in from outside, so I am sure he adjusted the temperature to make it an icebox in here. That is so Israeli, to do whatever you want without consideration of others.

I am still waiting to get my photos from Nicole, here is a photo to hold you over. This is a picture of my friend's little cousin. It was her birthday:



Just kidding, it's a creepy mannequin!