A farewell kiss for Ben Gurion

Three thousand years ago, King David wrote these words
"אם אשכחך ירושלים תשכח ימיני"
" If I forget thee, Oh Jerusalem may my right hand lose its skill."
I couldn't agree more.

I know how to haggle.

I know how to make kubah soup.

I know how to cook with fresh spices, fresh vegetables, fresh fruit, fresh everything.

I know how to peel a pomegranate without getting white stuff in the seeds.

I know how to get directions in Hebrew.

I know how to be aggressive in everyday transactions and not get walked over (as much).

I know what real problems are for a nation.

I know how to make nano Stars of David reproducibly.

I know how to survive a giant offensive cultural or religious faux-pax by smiling and sincerely asking questions.

I know how to write from right to left.

I know what it is to be a visible minority.

I know how to get from the New Gate to Jaffo Gate to Damascus Gate in to old city without getting lost.

I know how to read my husband and give him space when he wants to be alone, and force a hug on him when he shouldn't be alone.

I know how to make a joke about religion and not offend anyone.

I know what the shabbat horn sounds like.

I know what the call to prayer sounds like.

I know what the church-bells at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher sound like.

I know how to use a High Resolution Transmission Electron Microscope.

I know that I am able to survive and even thrive in places where I don't fit in.

I know how to mix the sweet with the sad.

Knowing Jerusalem has changed me so much, and I hope, in some tiny way that Jerusalem is a little changed from knowing me.

Being so far away, I has been so nice to know that friends have been reading my little blog and cheering me though the rough times and laughing with me at the fun times. It certainly made me feel less alone in a far away land.

So a kiss for Ben Gurion, not to say shalom (goodbye) but rather laheetriot (see you later), and I am off on my next adventure. Who knows what whacky things will happen next?

The Last few Days

It has been a mad few days of packing, souvenir shopping and goodbyes. 

Yesterday, we made one last trip to Tel Aviv and the flea market in Yaffo. We didn't get what we thought we were going for, but came home with some other unexpected treasures. I also got to walk on the beach and have another plate of yummy shakshuka. 

It is 11:30 in the morning on my last day in Jerusalem. James is asleep since he worked from 1:30 am to about 8 this morning. I have been cleaning up from last night's dinner party with Max and Noa followed by a general clean of the the kitchen and the fridge. 

I feel unsettled and anxious, which is getting to be par for the course around here with the months of job upheaval for both of us and not knowing where we are going to be in six months.

When I think back to my first nights in Jerusalem and how ill I felt with the knot to trepidation in my stomach, this pales in comparison. When I told people I was moving to Jerusalem, I got one of two responses. "Is it safe?" was the most common and "You will have a great time" came from the few who had been to the Middle East. As promised, they were correct. 

I did have a great time. And a great adventure.  

There was a big dinner the other night with my lab and every one came. James and I showed up at the appointed time at 7. Everyone else piled in at 7:30. "Haven't you learned that about Israelis yet?" they asked. "We are never on time for dinner. " After over two years, James and I still haven't mastered even some of the obvious nuances of the culture. And as you folks keep reading, wacky thing just kept happening almost every day. 

It was sad to say goodbye to all my friends. I think they think I am a little cold or glad to be leaving since I didn't tear up at the farewells. It is not a sense of relief or gladness that I am leaving, but rather that it is a timely and necessary change. Or at least that is what I have been telling myself. And I am sure we will be back for visits. But I know it will never be quite the same. 

I survived all the speeches at the big dinner. I survived the hugs and final farewells. To laughter, Yossi and I shook hands by each grabbing one of James and giving him a good shake. 

At some point in the evening, my protégé Katy handed me a bag with the instructions that this was a private gift for me to open at home. When I got the chance and opened the card, my resolve finally shattered. She had such nice things to say about working together in the last year that I got all teary eyed. As for the gift, she said in the card that after two whole years in the Middle East I needed to go home with this appropriate gift. It was a push-up bra. 

Then I started crying in laughter.

Sharp Elbows

I wasn't a yelling match, exactly, more like an every day Middle Eastern disagreement. 

You may think I sound horrible for getting into a disagreement over a bus transfer, but only in Canada can you can get what you want by being polite. In Israel, politeness is mistaken for indifference and will get you walked all over. 

The bus driver this morning wouldn't give me my transfer. I had forgotten to get one when I got on the bus and -no kidding- 50 m down the road I asked him for one. He told me "there isn't any" which was a lie because he was handing them out like candy at the next stop.  

I waited until the stop at the central bus station and asked again politely. He refused loudly saying "it's not possible". 

"What's the problem? I got on at Safra Square. I asked you only after only 50 m!"

Then he yelled I had to ask for it just as I got on the bus.

I yelled back saying "It's morning! I forgot!"

Then more yelling but then he gave me the transfer anyway. 

YEA! I argued with an Israeli (In Hebrew) and won!

My elbows are sharp! I put up with no stupidity!

I will just have to wear elbow pads for the first few weeks of readjustment when I get home so people don't think I am bitchy. 

Mystery Fruit: Fruit Caviar

Well, we know what this one is, because when we asked the Shook seller what the name of the fruit was in Hebrew so we could look it up in the Hebrew-English dictionary later, he called it "Papaya."

On the outside, it looks like a bright acorn squash. When we sliced it open we both exclaimed in unison "Caviar!"

"But Fruit Caviar," I added " Which is good, 'cause real caviar is gross."

Unfortunately, fruit caviar turned out to be inedible. So we tried the yellow flesh.  That turned out to be inedible too as it was completely unripe. So now our garbage can contains two partially masticated bites of papaya.

Fruit caviar is gross too.

I got rid of the awful taste with a cookie. The cookie was the best part.

How disappointing.

Haggling

Today is one of those days where the winds blow across the city in from the desert. The sky is a murky grey with sand and a walk down the street means you get a free exfoliating facial treatment. They feel like the winds of change, as in just over a week, The Chicken and I will be leaving Israel. 

We went to the shook one last time yesterday, and James caught some awesome video of the strawberry seller yelling about his "Toot-eem". You can hear his competition yelling from behind with a similar refrain of "Toot! Toot! Toot!" 

Sometimes the shook sellers just like to hear their own voice and yell out nonsense. While trying to bag some swiss chard, the shook dude in front of me bellowed mournfully out to no one in particular

"LAMMA! LAMMA SHALOSH SHEKEL! HOO RAK SCHTIME VE HETZI, BETAH!" 

"Why? Why three shekels? It is only two and a half, surely!"

(FYI we are talking about the difference between 90 and 75 cents)

Today I headed to the old city and haggled for some X-mas presents and I am proud to say I finally discovered one of the great tricks of haggling. Whereas we North Americans tend to put a little extra in our pocket to make sure we have enough on the way to the store, when in a haggling environment one should put less in your pocket than you expect it to be. If the dude wants 60 shekels and you only have 42, there is no question about the most you will pay. 

Also, I got another good deal after an arab seller asked if I liked my two years in Israel and wanted to stay. "I can't stay, I'm not Jewish. You know how it is." He just lifted his eyebrow nodded once and dropped the price further on an item I was looking at. 

Generous trust

To sum up my latest adventure: 

Twelve AM jet-lag wake ups

eleven flights

ten days

nine drives to the airport

eight times through security (I think my shoes are glowing from the X-ray exposure)

seven different airports

six "dinner interviews"

five presentations

four new bras

three interviews

two eggs with bacon

and a missed flight (in a pear tree!)

Am I ever glad to be home. 

Due to my own stupidity, I missed my first flight yesterday morning. The only way I could make my connecting flights was to waste no time, drive 1.5h to Minneapolis and catch a flight from there. My cabbie, who was going off shift to spend time with his wife and take his sixteen year-old daughter for her drivers exam, kindly drove me. Ten minutes into the ride, after a call to his dispatcher, we realized I didn't have enough cash for the 195$ fare and I asked to use my credit card. Because the company is so small, they don't take credit cards. But there wasn't really time to go to an ATM and catch my flight. 

My world travelled cabbie said not to worry. He really just wanted me to get on my flight. He gave me his phone number and email address, and said he would just pay my fare to his company out of his pocket and to just send him the fare when I got home. A complete stranger spotted me 200$. 

Wow. 

Mining the Brains of the Locals

I have been mining the brains of my many cab drivers finding out the best and the worst of their respective cities. Most of my sources have been waxing poetic about the warm people, the proximity to the country, the affordable cost of living or the culture. They have been complaining, almost all of them, about their supposedly horrid winters, which I disregard since the only place in America that could possibly have worse winters than Edmonton is Anchorage.

Today's cabbie had something else to say. When I asked her for her favorite part about living in her chosen city, she said "Honey, I don't get out much here. I get in my cab, I shuttle drunks around, and I go home and spend time with my kids."

Hmmm. Way to sell your home town. Honey.

One interview down!

I think it went OK. Some of the faculty really seemed to like me, but others seemed to be saying goodbye like they were never going to see me again. 

All things considered, it didn't go so badly especially since I did the 12 hour interview on a whopping two and a half hours sleep. Stupid jet lag. By the time dinner rolled around, I wanted to nap in my Pad Thai. I have another interview today, and my sleep clock has shifted enough that I am now waking up at 4 am. So at least I can do today's interview on six hours of shut-eye. 

I am purposefully being vague about my interviews and impressions just in case one of my potential employers is a black belt in google-fu and finds this blog. You will just have to live with the mystery. Or call my mom or James. They have been getting the full story. 

Hmmm, that's odd...

Last night in the Tel Aviv airport, waiting at the gate for my flight to Philadelphia, I saw some strange looking Jews. 

The men had the big black hats, white shirts, dark pants, beards. The women were in long skirts and covered hair. 

But there was something not quite right...

The men were wearing suspenders and had matching (bad) bowl-cut hair. Some of the men had dark coloured shirts which is really odd. And the women's style of hair covering was nothing like anything I had seen in Jerusalem. It was more like scraps of lace clipped to their buns rather than the full scarves I usually see. 

Then I realized they weren't Jewish. 

They were Amish. 

The best part was when I got closer, I realized the men were joking about getting mistaken for Orthodox Jews!

Off to America

Besides our wee road trip, for the past few weeks I have been working long hours which generally have me leaving the house at 7 and getting home at about 8-8:30 in the evening. The Chicken, my Hero, has been doing a lot of the cooking and errand running so I can keep working.

The reason for this is that I am flying to America for a few days starting tonight. Keep your eye on the counter in the left column. This will be changes next week!  Three of them!

An academic interview typically lasts two days. I have meetings (aka interviews) with 15 or so of the faculty individually or in pairs, I have to give an hour long seminar on my current research and another presentation to the faculty on my research proposals. 

As for the research proposal presentation, I was told by the schools to prepare for a 40 minute lecture but expect it to take an hour and a half with interruptions questions and challenges from the faculty. 

My PhD supervisor told me to prepare for it like my candidacy exam- which was not comforting. My candidacy exam was an three hour exercise in humility bordering on humiliation.  It was four years ago and I can still recall horrible details. There is a reason why beer afterwards is traditional. 

Needless to say, I have been requiring lots of hugs lately. If you have a moment, think of me next week and send me smart thoughts from where ever you are.

Woah, where AM I?

With the intention of heading to Talpiot to go clothes shopping at my favorite discount clothing store, I waited at the bus stop pretty sure that one would take me there. The first bus that rolled up, I asked the bus driver if it went to Talpiot and he shook his head no. The girl behind me pointed to the bus waiting behind and said "this one goes to Talpiot." Thanking her over my shoulder, I ran back to hop on the awaiting bus. 

Never trust strangers at the bus stop. 

What should have been a five minute bus ride to a neighbourhood I have been to lots before (except we used to walk there from our old apartment), turned into a 30 minute doodily-doop through back streets. 

I kept checking the signs on the bus stops we passed and they all said "Talpiot" so I figured the bus would eventually doodily-doop back to the neighborhood I wanted. 

When the whole double-length bus emptied, I knew I had got it wrong. 

I asked the bus driver and he just shook his head and said "Lamma lo shalact li?" Why didn't you ask me?

I was truly in the boon-boons of Jerusalem. The driver gave me a complicated way to get where I wanted using two different busses, heading all the way to the south-west corner of Jerusalem and back in again. Furthermore, I only half understood his instructions. So I decided to nod and pretend I understood and then pull the plug and hail a cab.

But, where the hell was I? 

On my way to a promising looking street to find a cab, I realized I was on the top of hill with an amazing look out. 

Woah, where AM I?

There, far in the distance, I saw a golden dome, a dome surrounded by walls and I the knew I was far, far away from the old city and even farther away from the house.

Lucky for you guys, I had my camera and made some lemonade out of my geographically confused lemons. 

Two years ago, this kind of misadventure without a map would have been terrifying. Now it is mildly amusing, knowing that I can easily get myself out of such a mess.  

I hailed a cab, told the driver in Hebrew where I wanted to go, clarified which mall I wanted when he asked, requested he turn the meter on, and I made it to my destination unscathed. 

Something from Nothing

I'll tell you one thing about Israelis. They can sure make something out of nothing.

They have taken a desert country and planted millions of trees and changed the climate. They drained the swamps and basically eradicated the malaria that used to plague the area.

But still a huge chunk of Israel is desert and the only people that live there are the few hardy Bedouin and the transient soldiers who go to the desert to train. To most people, this would be virtually unusable land and the very definition of desolate.

If you drive south from the Dead Sea through the Arava Valley that separates Israel from Jordan, you will be struck by the beauty and the bleakness of the landscape.

The view from Yotvata in the Arava Valley

After an hour of driving through the desert and gawking at the hills and wadis, suddenly you will come across the road-side stop of the kibbutz Yotvata.

If the wind is blowing just right, you might catch a whiff of something you would never expect to smell in the desert: cow manure.

That's right, the kibbutz somehow has a very large dairy farm in the middle of the Southern Negev. With no grass or hay fields in sight, Yotvata manages to feed 700 cows and produce 63% of Israel's milk needs.

I can't figure out what they are feeding those cows. Sand?

A carton of our milk and the shopping centre of the Kibbutz it came from. 

Ben Gurion, Israel's first Prime Minister, used to say that Israel's future is in the Negev. I am not sure he expected a dairy farm but he would probably have applauded the obvious stick-to-it-ness of Yotvata.

Road Trip Photo Journal

On the first day of our wee road trip, we headed down by the dead sea to the famous Ein Gedi Nature Reserve to do a little hiking. We forwent the most popular trail for a longer one up a wadi, being told we would have to get our shoes wet to hike through the "river", which turns out was more like a stream.  

The walk up was a hoot as we spent an hour either hiking partway up the side of the valley admiring the views of the hills of the Negev, or deep in the wadi jumping from rock to rock up the stream and somehow managing to keep our sneakers dry. It was my trusty traveling skirt, I tell you. No movement hindered in that baby. 

The scene at the top was madness with about 150 tweens on some sort of school trip, eating lunches and taking a dip in the pool of the waterfall. It wasn't the tweens themselves that bothered me, it was the collection of their 150 excited voices confined by the canyon. 

We spent about two seconds admiring the waterfall before heading up to a section that the guy at the gate said "is beautiful and hardly no one goes there." The extra half hour hike in the blazing heat was worth it and we cooled off in the pools before heading back down again.  

There were lots of horned ibexes, scads of hyrax (some sort of ground hog thing), and lots of new birds for The Chicken to gape at. 

After a well deserved icecream, we made the 300 m trip down to the dead sea to dip our toes. It is a Muslim holiday and the place was packed with Palestinian vacationers going for a float in every possible level of dress. (Well except naked- but it sometimes can be difficult to tell with the large hairy men in the speedos!)

We hopped in the car and headed South towards Eilat. Near the end of the Dead Sea, surrounded by the Nevev desert, we saw SNOW!

 Ha Ha, just kidding. It was the mountain of salt from the Dead Sea Works where they harvest all the salts and minerals. 

In Eilat, we spent a couple of happy days scuba diving in the Red Sea. As you can imagine the colours and the fish and the corals were fabulous. The only thing not to like about scuba diving is that I can't ask any questions! But I for sure saw something called a trumpet fish and a spotted ray. As for the others, there were neon blue fish, zebra striped ones, blue and pink ones, blue ones with yellow fins, ... Poor James got "chased" by some mean coral and surfaced with a very impressive looking scrape on his forehead. 

As I mentioned before, we stayed at Arie's Awesome Guesthouse and Museum of Kitch, which can be found on Patio Antenna Lane.  And as you can imagine, the proprietor was just as eccentric as his guesthouse's name. But these are always the most fun places to stay, and we greatly enjoyed Arie's stories, sitting on his couch on his roof watching the sun go down and reading a couple of his many books (stored between the kitch, of course). 

When I headed up to the roof, I exclaimed "You have a couch up here! It must really never rain". Arie told us that he used to be a high school English teacher and that last year it rained in Eilat for the first time in years. His students went completely ape and he finally just sent the teens out to play in it. 

Some genius civil planner decided that Eilat should only have round-abouts, and so there isn't a single traffic light– except this one corner. Proving that going to university doesn't make you smart, as we drove up to the intersection, James said "What the F?" at the same time that I said "What does a BLUE light mean?" It took us an embarrassingly long moment to realize it was art. 

Then back home again, home again, jiggity jig. And another whole week of work to do. 

One Last Road Trip

The Chicken has wanted to take a trip into Egypt to the Sinai Peninsula since the moment I told him that I wanted us to move to Jerusalem. The scuba diving is fantastic and cheap and apparently Dahab and its Red Sea coast, a common tourist destination for Israelis, is simply beautiful. You just drive down to Eilat, hop over the border, take a cab for 40 km and there you are. Since our time here is coming to a close and the weather is now a sane 28C, this weekend was the time to go.

But this week there was a terror threat from Al-Qaida on the Sinai and the Israeli government issued a travel warning. Apparently, they want to kidnap some Israelis and smuggle them in to the Gaza Strip to be held for political ransom like Gilad Shalit.

But since we are not Israelis and really can't be mistaken even for any type of middle easterners, we weren't so worried. On top of that, the government travel warnings for Dahab are frequent and perennial, the fear often blooming up right around Jewish holidays. We decided to go anyway.

But our insurance agents won't grant us travel insurance, and I refuse to go to Egypt- or anywhere without health insurance. So we can't go.

I guess that means that insurance agents are worse than Al-Qaida.

Instead were are going to take one last road trip. We'll head to the Ein Gedi nature preserve near the Dead Sea and then on to Eilat to go scuba diving. The diving isn't as good, and our budget wont go as far, but whatever.

Instead of a fancy five-star Egyptian hotel, we will be staying 40 minutes away in Arie's Awesome Guesthouse and Museum of Kitch, on (no kidding) Patio Antenna Road.

At least if I cut open my foot, I won't have to haggle for getting stitches.

Well that's unexpected

Now that we live so close to the Damascus gate of the old city, we hear all sorts of noises:

The call to prayer, men yelling out their wares on loud speakers, sirens, traffic, incessant honking and churchbells of every variety.

But with my window open, I am hearing something I would never have guessed to hear coming from the old city. 

A full pipe band and drums. 

This place just gets whackier and whackier. 

Over the Shoulder, Pebble Holder

This morning, I narrowly escaped a wardrobe malfunction. I heard a rip and looked down to notice that my bra was being held together with one thread. 

My other bras are in no better shape, with holes, escaping underwires and dead elastics. 

I couldn't put it off any longer. 

I had to go bra shopping. 

In Israel. 

The homeland of the well endowed bosom. 

The first store I went to didn't stock anything smaller than a C cup. 

The second store was nearly as bad. Even the comparatively smallish looking ones were sizes larger than what genetics gave me. 

But hiding at the back of the store was a crammed sale rack with some that looked possibly my size. 

I told the sales lady my size and she immediately headed for a style with little blue flowers and heart shaped brackets on the bra straps. In essence, a training bra. 

Every time I moved to look for my size amongst styles that were appropriate for a 31 year old with a PhD applying to be a professor, the sales lady shoed me away, shook her head and said "Not your size."

In a whole store full of bras, there were exactly two styles in my size: the aforementioned training bra, and one with cute little polkadots. Bras for 13 year olds. 

Since I am down to only wearing my sports bras, I really had no choice. I bought one of each and thanked God that no one but The Chicken sees what's under my shirt. 

The Chicken, Chemistry and Cats

Photoshopping by the maple shekel! 

You may be wondering what James had been up to. His post doc finished in August, and since then he has been working full time on his online organic chemistry tutoring business.

It seems to be taking off and James is frequently up in the wee hours of the morning discussing bromination of alkenes with someone in Florida, or Boston, or Texas. He uses a web cam, Skype and a white board. Students call him from where ever their laptops are, and pay with Pay Pal. Simple, effective and hopefully increasingly lucrative.  

As a complement to his business and as a way to draw students to his site, his has been writing blog posts about organic chemistry. You should check it out at www.masterorganicchemistry.com

Today, he managed to combine both his love of Jerusalem's street cats with his passion for organic chemistry. An unlikely combination to be sure, but it is really one of the more clever and hilarious teaching aids I have seen.

NanoIsrael 2010

For this week's conference in Tel Aviv, most of my labmates found family or friends to stay with, so very few of us actually had to travel from Jerusalem each day. We poor suckers had to take the bus. 

No local stepped up to the plate, so in the end I had to organize getting out two new Polish and Chineese post docs on to the three necessary busses. As they say "In the land of the blind, the girl with level gimmel Hebrew is Queen"

Annoyingly, just after I had them all organized, maps drawn, schedules and bus routes for each confirmed, two locals asked to tag along! 

In theory, Tel Aviv is only 50 minutes away, but with the morning traffic it took nearly 2 hours. I can't believe people do this every day. At some point two black Audis with tinted windows and sirens pushed their way through the stop and start traffic. 

"I bet that is the president" David said. I thought he was joking. 

Sure enough, when we got to the conference, 1/2 hour late, the Audis were parked outside the hotel, and inside Shimon Perez was giving one of his famously relaxed paced, visionary, and yet slightly whacked speeches to a couple of thousand nanoscientists and his numerous body guards. I missed the first half hour, but in the last fifteen I caught the flavour. Apparently I missed a good story about Che Guevera. 

When I am 87 years old and given a microphone, who knows what I will say. At  the early age of 31, I must admit I am already a bit of a loose cannon in front of a crowd. 

I am in the process of preparing talks for two interviews I have at the end of the month. As well, I have to get started on preparing the course I am going to teach to those 425 freshmen. 

Wishing for a Guillotine

For three days last week I wanted to be beheaded. My head throbbed incessantly with an incapacitating headache that just wouldn't go away. Every tilt of the head brought new anguish, every step added jarring agony. 

The first evening of pain, I had been scheduled to go out to dinner with a my boss, another prof and a Very Important Speaker. I had left work early in the hopes to sleep it off.  I crawled out of bed like a good soldier,  loaded up on Robaxacet, and headed out to the seafood restaurant. To my dismay, there wasn't a single entrée that wasn't fish. 

I hate fish. 

Turns out it didn't matter beacuse between the glass of wine, the empty stomach and the painkillers/muscle relaxants, I didn't taste a thing. I am have been extra-especially janetish, but am pretty sure I didn't make a complete ass out of my self. All the same I don't think I will mix wine and painkillers/muscle relaxants again just to be on the safe side. Although maybe it was for the best. By the time I got driven home, the Robaxacet was wearing off and I almost moaned in agony when the car went over bumps.  

On the second day of pain, I just longed for the day to be over. I was fantasizing about being really stupid with the hope that maybe my head would weight less. A little Flowers for Algernon action, but hopefully without the diapers. 

On the third morning of pain, I cried into my branflakes out of frustration. 

But luckily, at about 6 pm on Friday, the worst of it broke. Which is good because I had another phone interview at 8 pm. Probably not my best interview ever, but I said that about Laurier and look at how that turned out. 

Today is my first day back at my desk. I still refuse to lift anything because I can still feel it waiting to return  like a monster under the bed.  I have drugs in my purse at the first sign of trouble. Just keep me away from the wine. 

TV Stars!

I promise this is the last time I will bring these guys up, but I finally got this fantastic and hilarious Israeli tv clip converted. I am still trying to figure out what the hand sign is for "nanoparticle"

Proud Auntie Janet

Months ago, when the whole family was here including my sister's growing belly, we went to the Temple Mount/Dome of the Rock. There a little girl was taken with Vivian and Dominic asked her what her name was. "Naveen" was her answer.

Dom and Nancy so liked the name that after their healthy baby girl was born yesterday evening, I became the proud Auntie of Naveen Aline Macdonald Lozada. That's right, her name is Middle Eastern-French-Scottish-Spanish.

When I heard the origin of the name, at first I had a little panic. What if this little girl had given Dominic her nick name and my sister just named her kid "Princess Poopy Pants" or "The Whiner"?

I headed to my Hebrew speaking labmates brought they brought no clarity. There is no name "Naveen" in Hebrew. There is Navah, Navit and even Nedivah but no Naveen. However, there is a word naveen in Hebrew and it ironically means "we will understand."

So I headed to the lab next door where an Arab construction crew is working hard at the renos. It think they are still confused as to who's kid it is, but with stilted Hebrew (on both sides) I managed to learn that Naveen is indeed a popular Arab name for a girl. "Shem tov," they assured me. "Good name."

Then there was the stress over the correct spelling. Is it Naveen or Neveen? It was pretty easy to find how Arabic speakers translate it into Hebrew (thank you court documents and newspaper articles!) But since both Arabic and Hebrew are a little vague with their soft vowels, I told Nancy and Dom to just pick their favorite phonetic translation and go for it.

So welcome to the world, baby
נוין
Naveen

From the Proto-Coop to Coop-Nouveau

We have schlepped almost everything to the new apartment. James, like a good Israeli, is just finishing squeegieing the floors ('cause that is what Israelis do instead of mopping).

We are about 10 minutes away from taking out the last bag of trash, and locking the door for the final time.  

Although I have a few weeks left, leaving our Proto-Coop is the beginning of the end of my time in Israel. 

This is the apartment where I started my marriage in earnest, celebrated two anniversaries and two Christmases, contemplated the meaning of god and humanity, was occasionally horrified, got fuming angry, grieved, was blissfully happy, and laughed so hard I had tears running down my face innumerable times.

And as I grab my backpacks brimming with the odds and ends we left to pack to the last minute and head out the door, my heart is breaking just a little bit. 

Gainful (Part-time) Employment (Temporarily)

Behold the Happy Dance

Despite the fact that I screwed up the first ten elements of the periodic table, for some miracle, the folks at Wilfrid Laurier seemed to like me. Maybe it was the fact that I flew halfway across the world for the interview. 

So for the months of January through April, I will be teaching  chemistry to 425 eager/sleepy/stessed/terrified/hungover freshmen. It is officially a part time job, but I think that putting together a whole course and wrangling 425 students worth of questions will be full-time in reality. 

I think I will (eventually) be good at it, but I must admit I am completely daunted by teaching a whole course. 

It is only a contract position, but at least I will not be living off my savings only, since I probably don't even qualify for Unemployment. And this will be a nice stepping stone towards a faculty position that, in principle, would start in July or August. Keep your fingers crossed for full-time, permanent employment.  

Run Janet, Run

We booked our meeting with the Ministry of Interior in early September and the earliest appointment they could give us to renew our visas was only three days before they expired.

At 1 pm today was our long awaited meeting.

One does not mess with the Ministry of Interior. One arrives early, with all documents in perfect order, filled out in both English and Hebrew, and the visa cost in hand in perfect change.

I gave myself a generous fifty minutes with the plan to catch two short buses downtown rather than a single one that doodyl-doops through the streets to get only somewhere close.  My plan was a disaster.

I took bus Route 1, on the advice of Ben, the guy we are renting our next apartment from. I ended up in a grid lock of traffic with James frantically calling me every three minutes as the clock ticked towards 1pm.

Not only was the traffic moving at a snail's pace, but I was stuck in the middle of Mea Shearim, the most uber-orthodox community in the world (no kidding, The World). I wasn't actually a hundred percent sure where I was at the time, but looking around, I had a pretty good idea. The streets were humming with people; this was the busiest street I have ever seen in Jerusalem. But the big clue was that I felt like I had started seeing the world in back and white, there were so many black suits, long black skirts and white shirts.

I need to explain a little bit more about Mea Shearim. I have heard that those not in appropriately modest clothing will be physically removed by the locals from the neighbourhood. With hundreds of very observant Haredi on the street with me in my jeans and bubble-gum pink t-shirt, I didn't want to test the definitions of "appropriately modest."

At this point, James, who didn't understand my predicament, was pacing up and down the street like a mad man in front of the Ministry of Interior calling me frantically.

"Just get in a cab!" he suggested.

"No point!" I replied emphatically as I looked at the grid locked traffic.

"Just get out of the bus!" He said.

And this is when I learned that a funny euphemism I had learned for Haredi people is possibly more offensive than I had been lead to believe.

"I can't just get out of the bus! I am in a neighborhood I don't know," I said and then whispered into the phone "There are lots of penguin-im!"

The guy sitting next to me on the bus shot me a look of death. I still don't think it is as bad the "N" word or anything, but I won't be using that one in public again.

After finally coming out the other side of Jerusalem's Antarctic, I recognized a landmark, hopped off the bus and ran, no, sprinted the last 300 meters to the Ministry down Yaffo street.  I found the small windowless door amongst the the shops and knocked to get entry from the security guard.

Can you find the door to the Ministry of Interior?

If you are having trouble finding the Ministry, there is a handy street sign to point you to the right one.

I ran up two floors of steps four at a time, and arrived 10 minutes late in a frantic sweat and out of breath. I rounded the corner and found The Chicken with his head in his hand and his hair sticking straight up from running his fingers through it.

Luckily for us, of the four agents all lined up in cubicles, we got the nice understanding one and not the one screaming at the applicants like a banshee.

Thirty minutes later, we had our visas.

Wolly Socks

The days are hot, but once the sun goes down, the mercury really drops now.

Last night I put an extra blanket on the bed, tossed on some wolly socks and snuggled up to my very large hot water bottle, The Chicken.

That makes 24 days between being so hot I had to sleep on the tile floor and being in serious winter snuggle mode.

I think they really only have two seasons here:  קיץ (Kites) and  חרף (Horef) which I will translate as Touch of Hell and Chronic November.

Whirlwind Trip

You may be wondering why exactly I was in the airport flying to Moscow the other day. 

It turns out, I got a job interview.  I normally would have told you earlier, but I had to keep it a secret since the sudden trip home coincided with an old friend's bachelorette party. I was so disappointed that I was going to miss Terri's wedding, so it was a real treat to roll up the pathway with my suitcases and give her a big surprise as she and all her girlfriends were getting manicures. Polly, another old friend and one of the bridesmaids, was the only one in on the secret. I was pretty excited to rub Polly's growing belly; she is having her first child in January.  I was also able to surprise yet another high school friend who came to the party, Alison, who got engaged only last weekend. 

The job interview was this morning. It was the first live interview I have given in about seven years and consequently, I was shaking I was so nervous. And of course, now that it is over, I am obsessing over what I should have said and didn't, and what I did say and shouldn't have.  It is a good thing my mom is on a diet and doesn't keep nibbles in the house, because I could stress-eat a whole package of cookies right about now. 

My super cheap flight back home- I mean Israel- is tomorrow on the random Russian airline (hence going to Moscow).  It was a whirlwind trip but it won't be long until I am home-as in Canada- for good. We have decided to spend a couple months at my Uncle's house in Listowel. Even though I wasn't raised here, I am related to about half the residents of the local cemetery. After so many years living like a vagrant, the thought of moving–even temporarily– to a place that I have roots is comforting. 

Purple Sexy

The security at the air port was extra-especially thorough today. I got interrogated for at least 30 minutes including detailed descriptions of my research, a list of my friends, showing emails, going through one of my chemistry talks and showing the list of contacts on my cell phone.

Not to mention the swabby-swabby-swabby of my stuff. My computer was X-rayed, count em', five times.

I was so flustered by the end of it I forgot to grab my coat out of my luggage before I checked it.

Waiting for my delayed flight to Moscow, I was freezing my butt off in my tee shirt in the over air-conditioned terminal. After three hours of goose bumps I gave up and shivered my way to the duty free to try and buy the cheapest warm piece of clothing I could find.

After hunting though the bottles of booze, cartons of cigarettes and ridiculously over priced sweaters because they had an alligator on them, the result of my search was a miracle thirty dollar track suit hidden behind the one of the cash registers. After the purchase, I immediately tossed on the purple zip-up sweater. But then thought, well heck. If I am going to spend all night on a plane, I may as well wear the comfy pants too. They are a little on the tight side; you can see my underwear lines when I walk- but who cares. I am warm and I am all decked out to sleep on the plane.

So here I sit outside Gate C6 illustrating my indomitable sex appeal by wearing a matching purple track suit.

But don't worry, since I am heading to Moscow first, I am surrounded by the fashions of Russians. The purple track suit actually seems to fit in.

Souvenir Shopping

In the nearby village of Ein Kerem, there is a wonderful tile painter by the name of Ruth Havilio. Her shop can be found behind the blue gate on the main road. Head up the pathway to the stone house that has had many additions and changes over the decades and never seen an architect. Climb up the twisty narrow stone staircases to her studio in a single room that seems to be perched on the roof. Just follow the tile signs that say "studio" and knock on the blue door. 

James and I have had our eye on her stuff for over a year now, and today we picked out our "big purchase" to remember Israel by. It took us a while to decided what we wanted because there were simply too many designs and options to choose from. 

In the end we opted for two classic geometric designs in the traditional cobalt blue. She is painting them just for us, and they will be ready in a month's time. 

Surfer Girl Storms Tel Aviv

I rose with the sun and took the first bus to Tel Aviv this morning. I can highly recommend the convenient number 8 bus from near our house to the central bus station and the 8 shekel giant coffee available at the terminal. What I do not recommend is the then required 8 minute frantic hunt for the washroom in the Tel Aviv bus station and the 8 second hang over the nasty, dirty, graffiti decorated, cigarette burned facilities. 

All this was to head down to the beach and cash in on my brithday present: surfing lessons. I got a private lesson from Oded who seemed just like you would expect a surfing instructor to be,  but with a Hebrew accent. Two hours later, after catching a few waves, some spectacular falls, swallowing half the Mediterranean, I could stand on the board (although while still holding the board). It was tonnes of fun, and seeing how I love the water, it was a great birthday present.  

Arms aching and shaking, sinuses well salted, tummy grumbling, I met up with Assi and Amit for some food. "What do you want to eat?" Amit asked me. 

"After two hours surfing? Breakfast, lunch, or a horse. Doesn't matter," I replied. 

We ended up at a lovely garden restaurant (I love going out with locals! They know all the best places!) As we were ordering, I heard the rumble of dumpster being moved on the street, or so I thought. As our drinks came, I felt a drop. Three bites into my delicious shakshuka (eggs cracked into tomato sauce, topped with cheese and baked in a cast iron pan, served with hearty bread) it started raining in earnest. 

It was the first rain in nearly six months. 

It poured. 

We ran under the awning, but not before my shakshuka became more like shashuka soup. It was still tasty though and filled the giant gaping hole in my tummy. 

It was such a good day, I think I will be splurging on another surfing lesson and a meal with friends in TA again soon.