I ordered a salad that sounded good, and when it arrived, I was surprised to see tofu atop it! I hadn’t realized tofu was included and wondered what word had signified it. Then I took a bite, and it didn’t taste quite like tofu. I wondered what it had been marinated in. Then I wondered if it was meat. Finally I realized, it was cheese. Haha. My friend asked what kind and I shrugged and termed it “white”, perhaps mozzarella. After a quick taste she identified it as goat cheese. “Oh yes! I remember reading that.” A similar thing happened yesterday when I could not remember what I’d ordered. It looks good on the menu, but once I’ve passed the information along it doesn’t seem to feel the need to remain in my head.
By the way, look at this cool traffic light they have here. It gives the pedestrian the right-of-way, but signals to drivers that they may proceed if no pedestrian's presence dictates they heed.
Our lunch had been a late one, so by the time we finished, walked to a bus stop and got back to campus, it was just about time to turn around and head back out to the Horev center where we were going to meet up with some other friends. I’ve become very adept at quick showers, so I was able to cool off a bit and smell a little more pleasant, I’m sure, for the evening.
“Dinner” or whatever meal it was was very fun. There were five of us. I am fluent in ASL, and have a little ISL and Hebrew. The girl to my right is fluent in English and Hebrew. The girl across from her is fluent in Japanese and Hebrew, and has a little English. Across from me sat a girl fluent in Japanese with a little Hebrew, and in the middle sat a girl fluent in English, Japanese, Hebrew, and three other languages. Can you imagine our dinner conversations? It was super fun. Halfway through eating a deaf man came by and I conversed with him in ISL. When I didn’t know a sign, he tried to speak it to one of the girls fluent in Hebrew, but to no avail. I was able to pick it out based on context, though, so all was well.
We head home at a decent hour since Friday morning I was getting up a little early to…hike to the beach! Yay! I’d been wanting to do this hike since I heard about it the first week, but no one seemed to know the way. The group heading out Friday morning also sounded iffy on the directions, so before heading to bed, I Google-mapped it, and was able to see the trail on the satellite picture well enough to satisfy myself. After all, if we got lost, it was mostly a matter of heading downhill. :-)
From what I could see on Googlemaps, we were headed for that little community near the beach that you can see in the distance as a bunch of white buildings. (See above to see how far it was, and below to see it zoomed in.) :)
It was a beautiful hike! With the sun rising on the other side of the mountain, we were mostly in the shade, and we only had to double back once when we felt our trail was heading too far south.
We saw some beautiful flowers on the side of the path, and met a heard of cows about three-quarters of the way down.
I get a little nervous around cows despite the fact that my friend and her family repeatedly tell me they’re just like big dogs, and I was joking around about my fear when I realized two of the four of us were genuinely concerned for our safety. Well then, in that case I bucked up and led the way. We made it past the cows (who looked at our scrawny limbs and dull teeth with little concern), and down to the city.
Looking back toward the risen sun we could see the tallest tower of our university on the mountain in the distance. (On the left in the photo:)
Then about three miles north on the highway and Viola! we were at our beach.
We had a lovely lunch (where I forgot what I ordered) and a nice swim and lazing about on the beach (we met some other students who had bussed down, so we could all take turns sitting with the backpacks and playing in the waves—there were actual waves!), and then head back up the hill by bus before Shabbat arrived.
Now I am packing up and getting ready to head back down to the beach, but not to visit the sand and waves, but the bus station, to meet my friend and board the bus for Eilat, in the south of Israel. We’ll arrive early tomorrow where we’ll head to the Egypt Embassy to buy our visas, and then board another bus over the border. She has some vague plans, and just invited me on Wednesday, so I’m basically tagging along. I read some advice and such online, and am remembering the advice my uncle gave me last summer about facing the dessert when appreciating the pyramids, and looking forward to whatever will be.
Shavua tov, and lehitraot. (I am leaving my laptop here for fear of losing it, but I suppose we’ll pop into internet cafes along the way, so feel free to email, etc. I will add pictures to this post when I return. :-))
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