The Handy Hijab

I saw this woman in Nasareth walking down the street with a toddler adorably sprawled in her arms asleep.

But people in Israel list gabbing on their cell phones as necessities along with food, water and shelter. So how did this woman solve the problem of full hands but still needing to talk on her cell phone?

She shoved her cell phone up the side of her hijab to hold it to her ear!

Hey, if it works, why not?

The War of the Chick Pea

It is simply chick peas, sesame paste, lemon juice and olive oil.

But that doesn't stop Israelis from loving hummus to a passionate extent. It is the filler of bellies, the ubiquitous appetizer, and the elixir of life. Did you know that there is an entire dairy case for just hummus in the grocery store? The variety is overwhelming. When I have to buy it, I get into a panic of decision making, and just close my eyes and pick one at random.

What kind of olive oil? What is the chickpea to sesame ratio? What do you want on top? pesto? paprika? other unidentified green stuff? Little pool of olive oil? Are there whole chick peas floating around?

And no Israeli restaurant could open up shop with out at least four different kinds listed on the menu, usually fresh that day. The one we went to for my birthday had at about eight varieties and because of the open kitchen we saw the magic firsthand.
The cook takes a big serving spoon and dips it into a large pot to bring out a giant blob of warm hummus. With a flick of the wrist and a satisfying plop, the blob lands in a shallow bowl awaiting in the cook's other hand. With the back of the spoon he deftly swoops the hummus around the the edge and fills the resulting cavity with warm chick peas, olive oil or some other topping. Then the bell dings and the waitress carts it off to another hungry customer with a pate full of fresh pitas.

Besides all the culture and ceremony surrounding the eating of hummus, it has also has become a way for Israel and Lebanon to express their dislike of each other without using soldiers.

Last October, some dudes in Lebanon broke the Guinness Record for the biggest bowl of Hummus ever made. There Lebanon was, strutting around claiming to be the Queens and Kings of Hummus.

In January, those Hummus guys in Abu Gosh, in a surprise attack made a four tonne bowl of hummus to usurp the title. It was probably the only time the viciously competing Abu Gosh Hummus restaurants worked together for something. The nation of Israel celebrated.

Well this really cheesed off the Lebanese. By May, they had retaliated with a larger, ten tonne bowl of hummus and reclaimed their coveted title.

Do you think Israel will back down? NEVER! I am sure there are thicker plots and pots cooking in Abu Gosh as we speak.

Easter Food for Thought

Fulfilling his twice-yearly duty, James went to church with me this morning. There were about forty people there from Jerusalem, Tiberias, Bethlehem, Texas, California, Nevada, Germany, Yorkshire, Scotland, Ghana, Korea and of course there was a good looking couple from Canada.

I got my Easter egg of the year. It was yellow.

Taking to George the Rev after, we discovered that there was a bit of a kerfufle with the communion bread this morning. Seeing as it is still Passover, there is no bread to be purchased at the grocery store and even the cracker aisle is covered up in plastic. Luckily, the Scottish Guest house attached to the church came to George's rescue. They get their bread from a bakery in the nearby Arab-Muslim and Arab-Christian Bethlehem (which ironically means House of Bread). They donated a loaf to our cause.

But this brings up a bit of a conundrum. Wasn't Jesus in town for Passover when he got crucified? What was he doing eating bread at the last supper?!? Maybe we should be breaking Matzo!

You know, I only had to ask James once if he wanted to go to church with me this morning, even though we can solidly put him in the non-religious category.

Holidays are really distilled here. No Easter egg hunt, no big dinner with family, etc. And I think going to church every once in a while on holidays, even for a non-religious person, becomes a life-line to the culture you left behind and a life-line to your identity. And perhaps that is why James happily went to church.

I realize that probably makes some of you uncomfortable: church being part of your identity. If you are asked by someone here your religion and you answer "I'm an atheist," people will not be satisfied with that answer since that concept in not understood in the same way here. You are an atheist, but you are still culturally a Christian, a Jew, a Muslim, a Buddhist (in fact, they won't buy the Buddhist thing unless you look Asian, either). If you come here, even for someone who loathes organized religion, you have to get used to stating you are a Christian.

Even I, a practicing Christian, felt uncomfortable with this when I first got here. Now, I readily and easily state my religion and culture without a second thought in a way that I would never do at home.

Happy Easter to Believers and Non-Believers, because, like it or not, we are all in this together.

TGIF

Winter, if that is what we can call it, is over. The day time high was over 30 degrees today, and the heat sent me digging though the closet looking for a tank top and a skirt. I have officially started working on this season's flip flop tan. It seems like only a week or so ago it was pouring rain for four days straight, and we were freezing with wet clothes draped all over the apartment.

Wait one sec... let me check... yep that was 12 days ago. This place is crazy.

I don't have that much to say other than it is Friday and we went shopping at the shook. James got a hair cut and used his Hebrew. He has made it his goal to try out as many old-man barber shops as he can in the city. In a fantastic coincidence, the Hebrew word for barber or hairdresser is the same as the word that means to tell a story. Both of which were going on in full force at this barber shop.

While The chicken was getting his feathers trimmed, I bought carrots and zucchinis and red peppers, then headed elsewhere for tomatoes and then to another spot for oranges and apples, then a pomello as a treat for me, some dill from a fresh spice seller, then come cucumbers when I saw some good ones for three shek a kilo ($1). On my way back to meet James at the barbers', I got yelled at by about half a dozen insanely loud shook guys "Gaveret, Gaveret!" "Miss! Miss!" and chased down because I forgot my 30 cent turnip at one of the stalls five minutes earlier. Love it.

Then we went for lunch (hummus and stuffed vegetables) next to a courtyard full of old men gossiping and playing very serious games of backgammon.

And this is just a gratuitous posting of a photo of a little scene at the shook. I am a shameless people watcher and a photographer from the hip.

Gold for Israel

As Canada basks in the glory of having the most gold medals, I think about tiny Israel, whom only had three athletes completing in this winter's Olympics. I have come to realize that Israel has missed out on an great opportunity for guaranteed Olympic glory. Israel would clean up if they entered athletes into the Ski Cross. They have been inadvertently training the populace for years.

If you don't know what ski cross is, it is the newest Olympic sport where they send four people down an obstacle course of a hill at the same time and see who doesn't crash. You need speed, aggression, and very sharp elbows.

I think that Israel should strap a pair of skis on one of those little old ladies at the shook who drive their wheely carts like maniacs and elbow their way through the crowd ruthlessly. Those ladies would shamelessly send all the other competitors into the nets.

I can just see it. Little stooped over lady in a tweed skit and a cardigan, magenta hair flying in the wind, elbow out and cart trailing behind as she busts it down the ski hill.

Gold Medal for Israel!

Three things I avoid

Female travelers are always a little more wary and cautious, not only for the obvious safety concerns. We simply have extra needs that make things sometimes more difficult. But we persevere in the name of adventure. Out of necessity and with only one horrifying brick-shaped mistake, I have now mastered the feminine hygiene aisle without being able to read a label. I have braved the dichotomous and adjacent stores of One-Size-Fits-Slut and Haredi-Humble to buy new tops. I feel pretty confident about getting around and getting what I need these days. Unfortunately there are three things that I avoid still:

1) Buying cosmetics. When my blush ran out in the fall, I headed to the Superpharm (Israeli version of the Shoppers Drug Mart). In the cramped cosmetics aisle, I braved five or six overly painted sales ladies, standing around like bored and hungry venus fly traps. When they were distracted by a cute baby in a pram, I quickly found what I needed and luckily checked the price before I headed to the cash. It was 55$ to replace my blush that costs 6$ at home. I dropped it like a hot potato and made a bee-line for the door. I used every little last crumble of my old blush and had my mom send me a new tin with my X-mas presents.
But then I ran out of mascara, and well, I bit the bullet last week and headed back in to the Superpharm with a mission: buy the cheapest mascara I could find. I did. It was 17$, marked down from the original 35$.

2) Getting a hair cut. For the most part, Israeli women have lovely, thick, long hair, sometimes with great wild curls. I imagine that most of the hair dressers here have never touched hair like mine- thin and poker straight- let alone give it a half decent cut. One of James' favourite hair cutters in the Christian Quarter of the old city, a man with the biggest pompador I have ever seen, tried to convince me with a pick of some blonde chick with layers and body and curls, cut out from a hairdressing magazine. "This," he tapped the photo "This look good with you," he said. I declined his offer kindly and laughed on the inside.
As a result, I have not cut my hair since I left Alberta. It was a cute little bob. Now, a year and a half later, I officially have the same hair cut I had in grade twelve. Lovely.

3) Buying jeans. A good percentage of the female population in this city never wear pants. And secondly, after we went through the settlers' protest a couple of months ago, I realized how very tall I am compared to the general population. Making my way through the crowd was like wading though tall grass. And those fabulous boobs that I see around here? They often come with appropriately sized hips. All in all, finding jeans in a 28 long that doesn't have that weird gaping part in the back is going to be interesting. I am down to two pairs and have had to put my dress pants into regular rotation.
I am soon going to have to buck up and find a half decent jeans store (Tel Aviv perhaps?) or hold out till the Munich conference and hope I luck out with the Germans.

How does The Chicken cross the road?

Some things are culturally universal. Just like in Canada, parents in Israel teach their children to not talk to strangers, respect their elders, tie their shoes before playing outside and to look both ways before crossing the road. One thing that you also teach your kids in Canada: you do not hang out in the middle of the road.

Teaching your kids to stop in the middle of the road is a unique Israeli quirk as a result of some civil engineers for whom pedestrians could only have been an afterthought. Often there are one or two medians in the street and completely separate pedestrian traffic signals for each lane. And the timing of the little green walking man never makes any sense. You are often stuck on median for 30 seconds to a minute before you can get to the next median or the other sidewalk. The one in the pick here has fences but many just have you perched on your average three foot wide median, with up to six lanes of traffic buzzing past you.

For years I have been trained that when little green man shows himself, I should get across the street quickly and directly. It is so ingrained that I have walked out into traffic here several times almost getting run over and being honked at in anger in the process. And there have also been a few near misses when James hauled me back to median with a swift yank to the back pack (either my head was in the clouds or I was in the middle of telling one of my many stories- either way I was distracted). I was a dangerous walker here at first, but I am much better after a year and a bit of practice.

How does The Chicken cross the road?
In Israel, with stops and starts.

Yaffo: flea market of the gods

Yesterday The Chicken and I took a weekend warrior trip to Yaffo, the old city part of Tel Aviv.

We hopped on the famous and infamous train to get there. Famous for replacing camel trains and three day donkey rides from the Port of Yaffo to the Holy City, sometime around the turn of the century. Now infamous for taking a whopping hour and a half to do what is now a forty minute drive. Buy we were told the trip was pretty, and they were right. We snaked our way between rocky desert hills, now verdant green with the winter rains, the train gently rocking back and forth. I thought it was beautiful. When I asked James if he thought so too, his response was a soft snore. I guess we will have to take the train another time as well.

Yaffo is an ancient and once very important port with a colourful history- that colour being red, as in blood red. The Egyptians took it by hiding it in clay pots- trojan style- then breaking out and slaughtering a bunch of Caananites. Some other stuff happened and then notably Saladin took it and made it a Muslim port. Then there was Napoleon, who killed three quarters of the inhabitants and they say the smell of corpses could still lingered two years later. Somehow the Ottoman Turks then got it, probably with more blood shed. Then of course Allenby and the British took it in 1917 with the help of new-fangled guns to kill everyone off, followed by the state of Israel in 1948.

Despite the long and important history, there really isn't much there. A clock tower from the Ottoman Turks who realized that every important European city has a clock tower and so built them all over their empire in the hope to make their cities just as powerful. There is the ever preset monastery, a couple of mosques and the best part of all, the best flea market I have ever been to. Yaffo is where all the junk of Israel, seemingly hundreds of years of it, goes to seek new life. Pots, pans, mix-masters, TV remotes, shoes, clothes, furniture, old maps, crystal chandeliers, ancient hanukah candelabras, cassettes and LPs of bad Israeli music, a life size statue of Spartacus, a mannequin with ethnically correct giant bazungas, a rusty automatic xylophone, terrible velvet art, WWII green helmets, telephones from every era, and endless treasures to be found. Some of the furniture was particularly remarkable and sometimes very beautiful. The market must have extended 6 or 7 city blocks. Hundreds of people were wandering around and looking for a "good deal" on that perfect piece of junk.

James was taken by the framed old maps, and I think we will be back to pick one up as a souvenir.

Now, lately I have been getting emails and notes from people who have gone skiing, went tobogganing, or skating or other joyous winter activities. My family, in particular, went on a three day cross country skiing trip without me and hid it from me until after it happened. I must say, I am absolutely green with envy. But, on the flip side, it was 25 degrees yesterday in Tel Aviv, and we topped off the day by going for a swim in the Mediterranean. After reminding myself, yet again, that I have to swim in the sea with my mouth closed, I floated and floated and let the gentle waves rock me in the sunshine.

We also did some people watching since Tel Aviv is where the funky mesh of Old meets New, East meets West happens in Israel. This elderly Muslim lady was wearing a nice green velvet robe. I was shocked when she turned around and it said NIKE in big letters across the front. We also saw two girls head down to the beach with a coat rack. Sure enough, they set it up and hung their purses on it. Then there was the usual hairy men in speedos, seven year olds on child-sized working motor bikes with no helmets, and giggling fully dressed Muslim girls wading though the water. A very pleasant day all together. We must go to the beach more often.

A Shook Snapshot

At the shook today, I headed to our usual fruit stand and loaded up on a week's supply of apples and a pomegranate.

I thrust out my arm holding my bag of loot for the proprietor to weigh several times before he took my bag over the many other hands holding out bags of fruit. The proprietor was busily weighing the bags, taking money, tossing coins into a wooden box and handing back change at lightning speed. All the while, dangling precariously between his two lips was a long cigarette seemingly never touched by his busy hands.

He weighed my fruit.
"Mumble mumble mumble" he said gruffly through his mostly closed mouth. "Ma?" I replied.

"Shmoneh ve hetzi" he tried again more loudly, the cigarette dancing madly, the long ash weaving treacherously looking as if at any moment it would end up amongst the great pile of bananas before him.

I fished the required coins out of my pocket and held them out. All the while he was weighing yet another customer's fruit. Spying my handful of coins, he eagerly tried to take them and knocked my hand in the process. Ten Agarot dropped neatly with a little plop into his cup of coffee resting on the table.

Without a word, he just waved me away, and he and his cigarette turned to grab another's outstretched bag of fruit.

I bet he finished the cup of coffee.

Here Bussy Bussy Bussy!

Given the limited size of J-town (725000 people), the bus system is not so bad. The buses are usually on time and the ones we use regularly come every 20-30 minutes. The routes can be a little confusing though and for some bizarre reason the bus company doesn't print or have available route maps. (Perhaps they think that if there are no maps, suicide bombers won't be able to find the buses.) The only way to find out where a bus goes is a somewhat sparse wikipedia page which lists the streets the buses go on. But figuring that out takes a good map, a computer, a prior knowledge of Jerusalem geography and some serious patience. And now that I have mastered the online Hebrew bus schedule, things go a lot more smoothly.

The bus company, Egged, has almost a monopoly on all the city bus systems and the intercity buses throughout the country. Despite the monopoly and the legislation to provide service to almost every obscure little town, I have to give them props; the bus between cities is really cheap, reliable and not too slow. On top of that, they run almost like a city bus, where people can and do get off and on at all these little along-the-road stops. These guys put Ontario Northlands to shame.

The stops on the side of the road make me laugh. If you are lucky, they have a bench with a covering curiously shaped like a question mark. I think this must be an ironic joke by a civil engineer. It makes me think of the questions all waiting bus passengers are asking themselves. "Where is the bus?" "Is it going to come?" "Did I miss the bus?"

If you are unlucky, the bus stop only has the tell-tale yellow sign marked with the bus route number. On our recent trip the the Negev, we saw what we consider possibly the worst bus stop in the world. It was so bad, I had to take a picture. Imagine the poor sucker waiting out here. (And the other side of the road didn't look any better.) I'll let you be the judge:

Street Food

Israel has some pretty darn awesome street food that can be purchased from booths or little itty bitty restaurants where you are lucky if it seats five. For instance:

Every once in a while my labmates and I pile into cars and head to a shawarma place called Hashemen which means "The Fat Guy". On tall spits are piles of chicken, turkey and beef. The guy shaves off some of the meat with a special electric shawarma meat shaver that looks like a rotary sander/hand held circular saw into a special shawarma meat catcher that looks suspiciously like a metal dust bin. The meat goes into a pita along with hummus, tehina (sesame paste), cucumbers, tomatoes, onions, hot sauce, eggplant and possibly other mystery vegetables and sauces. What results is a pita full of yumminess. Despite a foil lined paper expertly wrapped around your meal, with all those sauces and vegetables, by the time you are done, there is tehina smeared across your chin, a piece of eggplant stuck to the side of your mouth, your hands are covered and dripping, there is a good chance there is a drip on your shirt and your belly is protruding proudly with the after effects of gluttony.

Let us not forget the national snack of felafel, of which I think "snack" is a bit of a misnomer. Felafel is again a pita packed to bursting with yumminess that can leave you full for hours. Apricot sized balls of this chick pea mixture are deep fried, and then stuffed in a pita with many of the vegetables and sauces mentioned above, but also some pickled cabbagy stuff and grated beets and a few french fries thrown in for good measure. There is a felafel joint outside Damascus gate to the Old City that we frequent since it is the cheapest felafel in town at an amazing 6 sheck (2$). And since everyone goes there, everything is fresh from the high turnover. But you can't eat felafel without basically sticking your face right into the foil lined bag and taking a huge bite. And napkins are not just nice, they are a necessity with felafel. By the time you are done, the foil lined paper bag is dripping from one corner onto you, the street and/or your shoes.

And the bakeries, oh the bakeries, make these wonderful arrays of pastries that they display at the shook, warm and fresh for you to smell. On top of that, you see men walking by with trays of them on their heads, leading the way like the pied piper from the ovens to the booths where they are sold. Some sweet, some savory, some cheesy, all of them addictive. With a sigh of happiness you take your first bite which then causes a veritable white out snow storm of pastry flakes that fly everywhere – some of which inevitably cling on your clothes and rest there for several hours unnoticed.

The truth of the matter is Israeli street food is seriously yummy, but it cannot be eaten with anything resembling dignity. On top of the sloppy and flaky messes, they think of nothing of garlic and great piles of raw onion at lunch time. Here is my recommendation for you if any of you are planning first dates: Israel is not the place to go. Save this place until you get to know each other a little better.

Shook Guitar Dude

This guy at the shook on Saturday was having a great time. I couldn't help but smile.
I love how this video catches the crazyness of the shook. People passing by, some dancing by, the guy with the board on his head, the cart of boxes, the strollers, the dollies and the ever present Irsaeli yelling into his cellphone while he should be concentrating on something else. If you are really keen eyed, you might spot a Jerusalem Chicken.

"Real Winter"

Here is one for all you getting your toques out and ready for the season.

Scooter Spectacular

Further proof that no day in Jerusalem is "normal". The other morning, James and I did our usual hike through the Valley of the Cross, and up the hill to the museum on the way to work. We popped out of the valley and into the park an this is what greeted us. In the trees, hundreds of scooters and the odd motorcycle collecting like fruit flies on a banana peel.

I am sure there was a reason, but this is Jerusalem, so I have no idea what the story was.

I can tell you this: there was not a Harley in sight. J-towner's are big on their rice rockets and their completely sooped up scooters.

The Poop Post

Yep it's true. This post is about where the poop is and where it is not.
The poop on the scoop.

You see, until this blessed rainy weekend of new years and fresh starts, it hadn't rained here since early April and as an unfortunate consequence of the dry times, things were getting pretty smelly. The park near our house is a haven for street cats most of the year, but the overwhelming smell of litter box in the park has driven even the hardiest of the mangy beasts elsewhere.

Especially annoying are the small handful of irresponsible dog owners who have left enormous piles of desiccated dog poop all over the streets and besides the walkways. It doesn't wash away; it doesn't rot into the ground; it just lies there making the walk to work into a obstacle course of fecal booby traps. It is truly disgusting.

Now that it has rained, I can hope that things will start to decompose around here and the park will start to smell like flowers again rather than urea.

I have been informed by a lady in my Hebrew class that there is absolutely no dog poop in her neighborhood, simply because there are no dogs. East Jerusalem is a heavily Muslim area of the city and dogs are considered unclean and filthy animals in Islam. Which makes sense considering this is a species that identifies individuals by putting their noses in each other's crotches.

When it is all said and done I am of the opinion there is nothing wrong with he dogs themselves, it is their owners who are filthy and unclean. Poop and scoop people! Poop and Scoop!

Mazel Tov to David and Galia

Since about January, my office-mate David has been keeping me updated on his ongoing marriage saga, starting with Galia "just visiting the family in England" in the winter. Then there was buying a ring, proposing, wedding planning, finding a Rabbi, proving they are Jewish, finding a photographer...

Finally last week, the big day came and I was there along with three hundred others there to witness. Adiel tells me the wedding size was pretty average for Israel and his wedding was 1000. The place was pretty swank with palm trees, spot lights, decorative potted plants, etc. It made out wedding under the trees in my parents back yard look extremely simple (not that I mind!)

Assi was coaching me on the appetizers which he says are often better than the meal. "First we go to this station, then we eat as we walk to the next station." and "No, don't bother with that one. There is no meat."

I was particularity impressed by the appetizer hunting and gathering skills of a couple of rotund guests I noticed standing near the entrance to the kitchen like vultures. They were deftly intercepting every plate of appetizers that came out.

Yossi, the most religious of the lab mates, intently watched the Chuppa ceremony to make sure it was done right while Amit provided a running translation for us anglos. Did you know that the groom actually gives the bride a contract saying what he will give her if he leaves her? Although not done this time, usually they announce the actual dollars and cents.

In time the cup was broken, everyone cheered and hugged the happy couple and we headed off to eat.

Then I discovered that my labmates like to dance. A lot. In fact, my labmates are dancing machines. At first there were just wild circles spinning around the couple. Shira and Ehud insisted we join in as a cultural experience, and I did, but I feared for my life at times. Later was the usual wedding reception dance with the added bonus of plastic maracas and glow sticks handed out by David's Mother. I discovered that some of my male labmates know every word to "Momma Mia" and aren't ashamed to sing along. My sister would be impressed.

Sorry about the out of focus pic. It was the only one I took because the rest of the time I was dancing.

That evening I had further proof that I indeed needed a vacation. Some guy asked me about my research and then asked "What's the application of that?". In a few minutes when I asked what he did - architect- I boldly asked "What's the application of that?" I have never been so rude and I regretted it as soon as it came out of my mouth. I have always thought these things in my head but have never actually let them escape my lips before. He could have only gotten my hackles up more if he had said the dreaded "I hated chemistry in high school." People say this like I am a tax auditor or a repo man or something.

David and Galia's wedding was great. We got home at wearily at 1 am, packed, got one hour's sleep and then headed to the airport.

Janet 1, Travel Agent 0

Lately, I have been in short temper with my coworkers and my science. To boot,
the university is closed for the week along with the TEM, making chemistry difficult. And the guns and the security everywhere and the almost pathological fear of the neighbors have been grating on my nerves. I need a break.

So James and I decided to book a last minute trip to ANYWHERE- just not in the Middle East. After navigating a heap of Hebrew travel websites and visiting a travel agent who thinks Greece isn't in Europe, we settled on a sweet internet deal to Crete for five days.

With the help of a trusty Hebrew-speaking lab mate, Itai, who read to me all the fine print, I booked the trip this afternoon. Strangely along with my credit card number they wanted my nine digit "Identity Number" but being a Canuck, I don't have one so I put in my 9 digit student number. Itai, suggested that he call and tell them, out of courtesy, just to make sure everything goes though.

Travel agent lady gets worried and emails me a "form" to sign that she tells Itai only confirms that I will be returning to Israel with a foreign passport. The form shows up in my email in-box and I wisely translated it. At the very bottom it sneaks in something about a mystery "2.5% credit surcharge". One email and four phone calls later the Lady tells me I am charged extra because I have a foreign Visa Card.

Any other time I would have caved over the extra 23$, but in the last two weeks I have been in a constant bad mood and so I behaved out of character and proceeded to lash out with the full power of the thundercloud that has been hanging over my head.

I balk. We argue. She threatens to cancel my reservation. I tell her the policy is ridiculous and I say I'd like to cancel and hang up.

Two minutes later I get a phone call. The are not going to charge me the 2.5%.

For the first time ever, I called an Israeli's bluff and won.

Just when I am starting to get cranky enough to start negotiating like an Israeli, I am heading out of the country to get back my Canadainess. I relished in the victory all the walk home but it will be nice to get away for a bit so I can begin to recognize myself again.

Sun Tanning

Welcome to the roof of my apartment building at 7:30 am this morning.

Behold the awesomeness of Israeli energy efficiency. Passive solar water heaters are simply everywhere. Over 90% of Israel residents have a solar water heater on the roof. We flick on the red switch next to our bathroom for 20 minutes in the AM just to give the sucker a little boost and then we have piping hot water all day courtesy of that great nuclear power station in the sky: the sun.

The genius of these guys it the simplicity. No fancy-dancy photovoltaics here. Just essentially a panel of black pipes hooked up to a hot water tank. You either have a wee pump to circulate the water or put the tank up on a stand, using the warm-water-rises principle to let the water circulate itself.

Lets see. The government website says you save 2000kWh/year and at ~16 cents (CAD) a kWh (according to our power bill), that is 320 bucaroonies a year of power savings. Sweet. And they cost only about 1000 bucks to buy and install (with the tank).

These suckers are so great that as of 1980 it is law that every new building has them. Our building is from the 50's so no pipe spaces were put in the concrete walls. As a consequence, there are black pipes everywhere snaking over the roof top down the exterior walls into each apartment. Not the most sightly thing but they are like power lines; you stop noticing them after a while.

Thousands of solar water heaters stand like guards on every roof becasue all of Israel's energy comes from imported coal and oil and this is not a good thing. Israel fears any reliance on the oil-rich neighboring arab countries. The anti-oil craze is bizarre for me as a researcher since all of Alberta's psyche was focused around the oil industry. If your proposal did not have the word "tar sands" in the fist sentence, rejection by the funding gods was inevitable. Here, research money is focused on getting rid of reliance on fossil fuels due to environmental, financial and, like all things in Israel, political motives.

Hence, the boss has recently become some high-falutin' chair of solar energy.

What does that mean for us grunts in the lab? This means there is money for students to work on our high tech ideas to collect solar energy, and we will make progress, but don't hold your breath.

You could hold out for highly-efficient inexpensive plastic photovoltaics that also make Julienne fries, but I think often the "low tech" solutions like passive solar water heaters, proper insulation of your house, heat pumps, double paned windows, a bus pass, a bicycle, getting a tune up or planting shade trees are the best and easiest decisions for now. As a consumer, this is where I would put my green money first.

Stacked.

Now that we have confirmed that we are living within our means, we have splurged on gym memberships to round out my twice-shabbat runs. Twice a week we are getting up to go to the gym: The Chicken to the stair-master where he ironically climbs his way down to the seventh level of hell, and me to the pool.

The demographic at the pool at 7:30 am is an odd one. Apparently students can't afford gym memberships at the University so the patrons are mostly over the age of forty and many over sixty. Indeed, at the advanced age of thirty, I feel like a sprightly young thing next to the potato shaped women in floral bathing suits and hot pink latex swim caps. Their dedication to fitness is commendable and I look forward to swimming until I need two canes to get to the pool.

The reason for all this exercise is because since I came to Israel, I have gained a whopping 15 pounds. It is the pita I tell you! Curse it. And the Rugelach: this evil addictive croissante pastry thing that comes still warm from the bakeries oozing sweet warm chocolate.....

Although my butt keeps getting bigger, I sadly still look like a green bean that has spent too long on the plant: long, thin, with odd bumps. If I am going to gain weight from Israeli food, I want to have the benefits of an Israeli body: Israeli women are stacked. I am not really a connoisseur, and even I have noticed the large number of high quality racks around here. I bet you that if I went into the bra store, the only ones I would find in my size would have Disney characters on them. These are a genetically blessed people.

Even The Chicken has commented on this, not to be mean ('cause commenting on other women is a death trap for hubbies) but because it is hard not to notice. "Unfortunately," he noted "what comes up must come down. " Which brings me back to the potato shaped women in the gym... =)

Mystery Fruit 10: The Sabras

Israelis can count themselves amongst an elite group of edible nationalities containing the Kiwis (New Zealanders) and the Krauts (Germans) and possibly the Dutch if you count Dutchie doughnuts. Israelis call themselves Sabras which is a type of edible cactus (the prickly pear cactus to us anglos) that we have seen growing on the side of the road in abundance.

Itzik tells me as a child he and his siblings would risk life and limb collecting the fruit with the traditional weapons: a long stick with a tin can on the end and a bucket of water to help the thorns fall off. He said that even so, you often got thorns in your lips that would sting for days. We chose the less dangerous route and went armed to the market with a hand full of change and bought some de-torned specimens.

Indeed it is true that Israelis are like Sabras. They are thorny on the outside, but their insides are soft and sweet. Unfortunately, the insides also have seeds and you have to eat the seeds with the flesh. I guess no fruit or Israeli is perfect, even on the inside.

Both James and I agreed that there was something in the smell and the flavour that was vaguely pumpkin like, although when Itzik gave me one last week and I mentioned so, he looked at me like I was crazy.

The Sabras if a fun an exotic fruit to have while I am here, but it lacks the ka-pow flavour to make it a fruit I will really miss when I leave.