Hello together!

Again, 2 weeks passed by since my last entry...

On 18.11 (Wednesday) I visited some sort of conference here in Israel. Official name was seminar, yet it was 3 days long. So there were poster presentations and people giving talks. I was there for only one day, and that was quite enough.

Location of that seminar was in Ein Hod, a small village outside Haifa, a former Arab village. Those of you, who have read 'Mornings in Jenin' by Susan Abulhawa, know what happened there.

Well, on the conference, there were talks given all day long, somehow related to the Mediterranean Sea. Or with the oil catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico (Deepwater Horizon occurred in 2010!). Mostly quite interesting...but some people just should not give talks...

Recently, I was again on the market down town, to buy fruits and veggies. And bread, there you get good ones :) In Israel, you get everything buy in thin plastic bags. That comes in handy, because you never run out of garbage bags. On the other side...I can't produce that much garbage! One of my drawer is already spilling over from all the bags. After my trip to the market, I counted...

Going shopping once...14 plastic bags

By now, I've also been down town a few evenings to have a beer. There are also nice bars and the beer is cheaper than at Nola. Yet, the way back is slightly a problem. It is quite hilly here. The streets are accordingly curvy. And at night, there is not much traffic. So the bus drivers are basically racing! My stomach! At least, I won't get drunk here, when I have to take the bus afterwards! 1 beer is okay. With 2, the next day is not so nice and 3...not good.

On Thursday I met some more Germans...there are fairly many of us here! I went out to join a pub-tour. Yet, we were not so many people :D The organiser of that tour knows everyone here...and then met a group of Germans. All volunteers of the German Red Cross and working in a hospital. All about 18 years old, right after finishing high-school :D Very funny!

Yesterday I went over to my future flat (red wine is a bit more tolerable for taking the bus). My future flat mate has a German girlfriend and she visited for a few days (leaving today). Wednesday we already met and yesterday, there were a few more people invited. That was really nice. The girlfriend is, as my future flat mate, very nice! I'm looking forward to move in there.

A few days I went down town in the late afternoon and just took a walk for 1.5 hours. I must say, I enjoy the city a lot! By accident, I ended up in the in the Arab Christian quarter and even found 2 churches :D

And additionally...how to say...several Christmas shops! I was a bit surprised, I didn't think that far to find that here. I mean, yes, to finding Christmas stuff, but not counting on several shops :D

Unfortunately, I only had my phone on hand, and the camera is not so great. But this is how it looks like:

One out of many :D

Then, I wanted to show you, how street signs look like here. Yeah, exiting you might think...but well, I don't know any Hebrew and somehow want to find my way around. Down town and in most streets, the signs are in 3 languages. Hebrew, Arab and English. Sometimes with lights included, sometimes not. The English version doesn't necessarily help much with the pronunciation, but at least I know where I am...

Street sign

Besides that, every day routine struck here as well. I'm sitting in front of the binocular a lot or read paper. In the evening, we have a beer or I crochet my scarf. Crocheting by the way is a way to spend time on boring weekends! And no, crocheting is not as frumpy as I thought :D And I'll have a new scarf and hat. For winter. Which is supposed to be cold here^^ (We still have around 20°C at day and 15°C at night...)

Tomorrow the working week starts again for me. I'm still not used to a working week from Sunday to Thursday. I mean, it's not bad at all, I'm just hopelessly confused about which day it is as it's different from Germany. When you are celebrating on Wednesday, that the week is half over, then it's almost weekend for me. That is still slightly weird to me :D

I wish you all a happy rest-weekend,

Eleen :)