Blogs from Ra'anana, Center District, Israel, Middle East

We had a brief wait in London Heathrow airport before boarding our final BA flight to Israel. We looked at each other, shook our heads and said how much simpler everything could have been if we had originally flown El Al from Tel Aviv to Newark with code-share on AA to Chicago and back, rather than using British Airways. At least last night's flight from Newark would have taken us directly home instead of this stopover in London. Our last flight from London was on time and we made it back home - just two days later and one serious diversion from our original plan. Glad to be back, but at least we finally saw all Don's family even if it took two location stops. .... read more

It is important to note, for my American readers, that Israel has an odd sense of "weekend". The weekend lasts from the middle of Friday until sundown on Saturday. So Sunday, in Israel, is really the same thing as Monday in the states. So that's why everything is open on Sundays here. Sunday, I amazed my grandmother my declining her offer to take me to the mall. Instead, I requested that we go to the Diaspora Museum located on Tel Aviv University's campus. The Diaspora Museum is one of the largest museums in the world related to the Jewish people and their history around the world in various communities in Europe, Asia, and Africa. Unfortunately, I was not allowed to take pictures while I was in there (a security guard admonished me loudly), but I ... read more

Dictionaries are a wonderful thing. If anything, when you're highly bored or slightly out of your mind from the pain in your mouth....you take a look and see what's really in that magical book. A quick glance in the "B" section gives me "biological warfare" (לחמה ביולוגית) or "to build air raid shelters" (למקלת) which in reality that last ת should be a ת sofit, but I can't figure out how to do that on my keyboard at the moment. Then comes the distinction of "to get someone pregnant" which is not equal to "to make pregnant" however it all looks the same in Hebrew; להכניס להיריון. Which come to think of it....who the hell says "I come to make you pregnant now." It sounds like some creepy command that a guy makes and the ... read more

Ok....so I wrote this blog on the 23rd and it's now.....the 29th. But who's counting? :) Oh come on now. Cell phones are killing bees? Bees???. Give me a break. Upon picking up the International Herald Tribune, I came across this ridiculous article. First, people think that talking too much on cell phones are frying their brain cells and it leads to brain cancer. They even made these ridiculous band-aid looking things to attach to your cell phone so that it "blocks" the harmful death rays your cell phone apparently emits. Now that that crazy fad has passed, the newest harmful thing is that we're actually killing nature's bees. They even quoted Albert Einstein (a great Jewish man by the way) when he said that "If bees were to disappear, the human race would follow suit ... read more

OK so this is going to be a short blog, but I wanted to share this story with you. So we get food paid for us at work during the night shift. Depending on how many people are working depends on the food we get. Tonight in particular we had 11 people working which meant to only be able to spend 100NIS we had to come up with a cost effective way. Hence the idea to go to the supermarket and get cold cuts, cheese, salads, and bread. We even threw in some barukahs (potato filled pastries...not periogies but actual pastries). Delicious, right? Well............................................ This is apparently the busiest supermarket EVER in Israel, and it doesn't help that Pesach is almost here and that means that people are cooking for their whole family and their ... read more