The last 2 weeks of April. Where has this year gone already?!

Firstly, to see my photo album: click here
It has been updated.

Also, I put lots of effort into that thing, as well as into this thing here- can you people please comment! I love reading the comments. Makes me feel important, and then I know people are actually reading this....ok.

I forgot to mention in the last blog something that I found really amazing- that during Pesach here, everything was made kosher for pesach! As in, McDonalds had completely kosher for Pesach hamburgers, and shwarma was sold everywhere in a matza roll thing... It was all very bizarre.

During Pesach, there was a bomb in Tel Aviv at the old central stn. I was on the bus at the time driving right past it so I heard it go off. At first I thought it was a road accident of some sort, but then I sensed a lot of commotion on the bus with people moving over to my side of the bus to look out the window and see what was happening, and we could see some smoke coming from the markets area. The suicide bomber detonated outside a felaffel shop which was not selling kosher for pesach stuff- so it was pretty packed. Instantly people got on their mobile phones to call people. I heard the word 'pegooah' (bomb) being frantically utterred, then the next thing we know, 100's of police cars and ambulances and fire trucks were zooming past and the road was closed off and sirens were wailing and we're not moving anywhere in traffic, and the driver turned the radio up so we could listen to the news. I called my boss to say I would be late and he said he also heard it go off from our work, and he could see out the window all the traffic jams... it was nice that he was so concerned about me and told me not to worry and asked if I was ok... which I was.. but he knows that I'm new here, and most Israelis are no longer sensitised to this kind of thing, so he was just trying to look out for me and check . In fact, for example, the guy sitting next to me on the bus just continued reading his book throughout the whole ordeal. Other people decided to get off the bus and go check out what was happening....

There's a big push for blood donation here. Unfortunately (or fortunately for me?) AB positive is just not in high demand at all, so I didn't feel guilty about not giving any that day (There were mobile units you could go into everywhere).

Anyway, after Pesach, as I mentioned we would do in my last blog, Eli and I took a little vacation down to Eilat. Yay!!!
Eilat is about a 4hr bus ride south from Tel Aviv and you drive through the beautiful Negev (desert). Eli pointed out army bases and shooting ranges to me and a big de-salinating plant (where water is taken from the Red Sea and the salt taken out of it- Israel were apparently the brains behind this kind of ingenious technology- I don't understand why droughts pose such a huge problem still if there is such excellent technology which can combat this? There is so much sea water to draw from. No?) Anyway, Eli also educated me about the controversial massive fishing farm which we passed in the middle of the desert, which is owned by a big Japanese company. (Lena, so much of the fish you're eating there probably comes from Israel!) We also got to see the sun set over the desert mountains (if I didn't add in desert there you may have thought the mountains were green, but they are in fact a dry redish-orangey-brownish colour and they seem to be everywhere you turn. Like this.)

Eilat is situated on the Red Sea and the Red Sea is considered to be possibly the world's 2nd best place for snorkelling (alongside the Great Barrier Reef? Is that what you said Alex?). So Eli and I did some amazing snorekelling. Eli had never really been snorkelling before (apart from the time we went together in Sinai 2 years ago, and Eli stepped on a spiky sea urchin and was bleeding all over the place so we didn't last very long), and I had forgotten about this, however this became apparent when I detected an abnormal amount of excitment from him, especially when he would make unusual comments such as: "oh my god! I could actually see fish! Like, we were just swimming with them. Just like that. With the fish. Lots of fish. Everywhere... actually inside the water. With us!" etc etc... It was quite exciting though, I must admit, because I had never seen such a colourful coral reef like that before either- with big colourful fish and so many of them, and in such crystal clear water. Everything was just teeming with life. We even saw a couple of cea cucumbers. Eli was convinced they were poo. It was a strange experience also to be snorkelling on top of people who were scuba diving below us. Their bubbles kept tickling me as I swam over them. :-)

Basically, we lazed around the water all day. (exhibit a) under our beach umbrella (an excellent investment! Thank you Sarah) Eli read alot of Ibsen. Don't ask...

At night we slept in our tent right by the water. It was beautiful. Only thing was, we couldn't sleep past 8am because it got hot, DAMN hot. About 36 degrees. So we swam some more...

On the way back, whilst driving in the bus along a deserted lonely road, we passed by 2 bedouins on camels who were riding along the side of the road. They had big Israeli flags. They waved to us in the bus and I wondered to myself, where they could possibly be heading to?

Speaking of Israeli flags, it's Yom Ha'atsmaut this week (Independence Day) and one would have to be blind if they weren't aware of it. In fact, blind wouldn't be enough- you'd have to be deaf too. Israeli flags are literally everywhere; hanging off balconies (and Tel Aviv is the city of balconies, everyone seems to have one- except us), they're hanging off every telegraph pole, criss-crossing streets, hanging down the sides of buildings, and off car aerials... It's patriotism overkill, but still kinda nice at the same time. There's a stand selling flags right next to my place, and all day they have Israeli folk music blaring from loud speakers. I don't understand why I keep seeing so many American flags around as well? That lone Turkey flag in the centre of that pic is a bit of a mystery too. I think it's just there to be politically correct. But it is an interesting photo isn't it?

Oh yeah! Of course! I forgot to put in a funny story about Eli (most of my funny stories seem to revolve around Eli, funny that..) So this one takes place at the Tel Aviv central bus station on the day that we were leaving to go to Eilat. Eli had the backpack with all our clothes and everything inside it, and he got to the entrance where security guards have to check everyone's bags. Usually Eli is exempt from this because he flashes some army card, but this time, because of the aforementioned bomb that week, there was heightened security and they had all the big tough guys out. So Eli told the guard he'll open the bag but he asked for him to please not touch any of the clothes inside because they're all clean, so he will pick them up and move them for him to see... So when Eli opens the bag, what does the guard do? He automatically puts his hand inside to see what's inside. So Eli snaps and says he doesn't want him touching the clothes and underpants and other private things because his hands "are dirty". Well, the guard was Ethiopian, and this didn't go down too well. So Eli tries to fix up what he says, and explains that it's not because he's black or anything like that, he just doesnt like people touching his clean clothes. So the guard yells for his big boss to come out and says Eli is a problem and he won't let the guard look thru his bag, and also that Eli had called him black and said he was dirty. The guard says Ok Righto (or the Hebrew equivalent)-and tells Eli to turn around and leave. So Eli then tries to sort things out the Eli way and says "Listen, I love black people" and the boss can't believe what Eli has just said, so Eli says that he doesn't mind having his bag checked by anyone, but he wouldn't like anyone to touch his or his girlfriend's clean underpants with dirty hands. The boss asks the guard "Did you check his bag or not? What happened?" And the guard said "He took a few things out, but I don't know about him, I think he's suspicious." So the boss let Eli in after giving him a caution. And that was that.

Other than that- right now in Israel there's a bit of a heat wave. It's 8:30pm and I am boiling. Summer is coming and things are happening here. Went to a Motorola music festival yesterday in Dizengoff. Streets were closed- there were different stages, like Russian and Israeli hip hop; break dancing areas, street theatre, South American Capoera, battle of the bands... Eli knew one of the boys in one of the high school battle of the bands, so we watched that competition and it was quite impressive. Funny to hear kids singing broken English lyrics with thick Israeli accents. Although i really shouldn't find that funny, you'd think I'd be used to that by now since I hear it all day. (Oh, by the way, I'm going to teach 2 VIP students soon who are actually big celebrities- and I'll be going to their place! Oooooooh!) Anyway, here I am wearing the sticker supporting that kid's band.
It was a fun day.
And tonight I'm going out with Shir. Yay! Go Go go
Love to all,
I'm signing off now
xxxx