Monday

Today I used the morning to actually open my data set for the first time since I’ve arrived. Boy, I have a lot of work to do before I’d like to show it to my supervising professor. :-P I’ll need to get on that. But not today. I had time set aside for it, but like always, something came up. This something was visiting my friend in the hospital. She’s been there since last Friday, but thankfully while I was there, the doctor said they were going to discharge her today. I haven’t heard from her, but we’ll talk on the phone again tomorrow.

It was a fun mini-adventure to go to the hospital on my own. She didn’t know where it was, but found out the name (since I could see on the map at least five different hospitals in Haifa), and I was able to locate it on the map. It wasn’t too far from a bus stop I have frequented, so I told her I would bus to that place and then take a taxi from there. But then as I hung up, I realized that I thought the scale of the map may indicate that I could easily walk over from the stop. But then again, I am famous in my family for very poor distance-estimating skills. But then again again, I am trying to keep to a good budget, and I was wearing good walking shoes. I decided to try my estimating. I figured how far it was on the map from the stop to the hospital, and then looked back along the bus route the same distance and found a cross street. By watching for that cross street while I road on the bus, I was able to see how far I’d have to walk once I got off the bus. And voila! No sweat. Well. A little sweat, but due to the climate, not any anxiety or huffing too far from the bus. :-)

I haven’t been in many hospitals in my life. Thank you. But this one seemed pretty much like those I’ve been in in the states. I avoided talking to anyone since she had told me her room number, and thankfully no one stopped me, other than the guard at the front door—which is the same as the guards at all the big building front doors (but in preparation, I was recalling how to say “My friend is here in room such-and-such” in my best Hebrew ;-)). I found her floor, and the room number consecutive to hers, but apparently not adjacent to her room. Thankfully she was able to use her cell phone in her room, so I was able to call her and her safta (grandma) and I found each other wandering the halls. My friend was looking much better. :-) Well, better in color and alertness, a little worse since she had developed a rash all over her body. But she said her sore throat, headache, and swollen glands were gone. She’s still just a little tired. The only odd thing for me with the hospital was the number of people in each room. Apparently they’re overrun right now. We speculated it’s because of the heat. There were five patients in her four-patient room, and she said the room she’d been in before was lined with patients, and they had even eventually filled the aisles up with beds, too. It reminded me of the war movies I’ve seen. I spent about an hour with her, and then had to leave to catch a bus back up to the university.

Thankfully the bus came soon after I arrived at the stop, and I was able to get to my dorm, change clothes, pop a lil food down my gullet, and get back to the dorm bus stop in time for my bus down to the beach, where another friend was waiting for me.

The beach was loooovely! This is the one with the “BIG” waves! Um. As I had suspected, I was misinformed. But the water is wonderfully warm and clear (in this heat, one could wish it was even a bit more cool, but no complaints!). The waves did actually appear to be waves—with crashing noises and some white capping when they folded over on themselves, but it was an optical (and aural?) illusion. Even the highest of crests had no power behind them. It was really odd to see one that looked large enough to body surf at least maybe a few meters, but nope, there was not really a wave, it just looked like it. Ha! Tricked you! Nevertheless, playing with the sand underfoot, and going out, out, out, out! to where we finally could not reach the sand and then bobbing around, swimming up and down the shoreline, etc. was lots of fun. I had to come in to shore before my friend because, get this, I was getting sea sick! She stayed and played a bit more (Slovakia doesn’t have many beaches), and I caught up on my book. She came back in and we both read for a bit before I head back out in defiance of my dizziness. I found that goal-oriented swimming seemed to stay-off the motion-sickness, so I spent my time swimming between that white sign up there and that yellow van back there, until she joined me again and we had a lesson in how to dive into waves. It was not an ideal setting to learn to dive into waves, but she learned to dive from her feet to her head, anyway, and got over her fear of getting water in her nose. And didn’t look half-bad after half a dozen tries. :-) Of course I’ve invited her to come visit me in California next time I’m there, to introduce her to waves…and cold water! Phew

We walked along the promenade until sunset and then scurried over to the bus stop to catch the final bus of the night. (Can that be right? She must have meant final bus to her location…there must be more up to the university. Anyway.)

At the bus stop we met some of the students I met last night that are on the study tour here for the next month. So I got to ride back up the mountain with them, and got to know one I hadn’t met, from Maryland. (“Hey, I just got my masters in DC, where in Maryland?”)

Now I’m using my new pot again (yay) and making a concoction that I don’t see as very promising, but edible, I hope. I basically threw in a bunch of random ingredients as you do when you have lots of randomness. I think it would have been good if I’d planned a bit more, but with the order I ended up using, my “couscous” which is really small pasta, even though the bag says “couscous”, is going to be mushy mushy mushiness. But the ginger, garlic, and sauce should make it okay. I’m just thinking it’s a bit more like mashed potatoes rather than pasta or couscous. It’s all about the mindset, right? I have veggies now, but holding off on using them for yummy yummy stir fry until I get some broccoli (and perhaps a few others). That was on the list today, too, but hopefully will get done tomorrow.

And now my GoogleVoice is working, so I can text and receive voice mails! I got 11 messages from one of my favorite people yesterday. I listened to three before I had to catch the bus to the hospital, and can hardly wait for the rest (but don’t have internet in my room…tomorrow :-)).

Lyla tov.