It's like kindergarten all over again!

I'm trying really hard not to be one of those American travelers. You know the ones: obnoxious, expecting everyone to speak English and cater to their every whim, expecting things to be 'like they are at home" in regards to comfort and space and things. So I'm learning Hebrew. At least pidgin Hebrew, and I must say it's coming along nicely. We ended up missing the classes at Lee's work, so I'm doing a self-taught read/write Hebrew lesson (which, as all the signs and websites are written that way, will come in handier than speaking it fluently, I think). I have to sound out the letters as I write them, stumbling and struggling a little - I am humbly reminded that I'm just not as clever as I like to believe I am through this process.....

My sample:


(it says Shabbat, the word for sabbath. And yeah, I wrote it.)

Our adventure to the Israel Museum to see the Dead Sea Scrolls was postponed one week. Tuesday nights are a good night to go, as the museum is open from 4pm-9pm (the only hours it is open on Tuesdays....they are open 4 hours a day, random times), so Lee can go with me on the adventure. I learned that they're revamping the WHOLE museum, and the only sections open are the Shrine of the Book (where the scrolls are housed) and the Children's and Youth section. Were we going to be here in a year, we could see the remainder of the exhibits that are currently closed- I am sure their Egyptian wing is astounding, and I am a bit sad that we'll miss seeing it.

I did get to take a taxi for the first time, and learned that you have to be REAL specific about where you want to go. First stop: take Lee his umbrella and waterproof jacket (Surprise! Rain!), which went fine. Then on to the post office in city center. It's huge. It's a HUGE BIG POST OFFICE with "Communications Center" written on the outside. Only it's on a street that is undergoing major construction (Jaffa street, which terminates at the gate of the Old City), and I think my cabbie was a little reluctant to go there, as he tried to drive me to the outskirts of town to the 'main' post office, rather than the one downtown. After we sorted that out, I was dropped off at Ben Yahuda street - a really large pedestrian mall - near where I stopped for coffee on Sunday. The post office is a massive stone building, not so impressive from the outside, but through the metal detector and security guard stand is a shiny marble lobby, split into two sides- the left was the post, and the right was a telecommunications shop (phones, modems, cables, calling cards, etc). Once inside the post office, I discovered I had absolutely no idea how things worked. There were polite rows of chairs set up facing a wall with 15 counters, with polite people all staring at my confused look, waiting patiently for.....something. The overhead speaker system blared:

עכשיו מנה מספר חמש שלוש ארבע חמש בתחנה

and my confusion deepened to near panic.....until I saw a little red touch-screen stand with multiple labels, one of them being "English". I pressed that, and it spit out a paper receipt with a number on it. Which appeared to coincide with numbers on the large plasma screen displays above each counter. (The counters reminded me of an old western bank- with brass bars and wooden counter tops - it was the bullet-proof glass that ruined the effect somewhat). The displays showed the number being called, but not which counter to report to - so I could see very well that I was three numbers away from being called up, but I had no idea what counter to go to. I fumble through my bag and grab my Hebrew quick guide, and flip to the numbers page (all the while, holding my dripping umbrella, trying not to slip on the marble, count the number of items I had to post AND wondering if I had enough money to post them...), and wait. Thankfully, I was called to counter akhat (one), and the woman spoke lovely English, and I got my (super expensive!) post cards mailed.

After that I walked back home in the rain (with a quick stop in the mall - through another metal detector and security guard bag search).

I've learned that it doesn't matter where you are in the world, every place smells exactly the same in the rain - clean, fresh, damp. As foreign as Jerusalem is, it feels like home in the rain.

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Lee and I are headed to the UK tonight to spend his birthday weekend with his family, and as we have tried to clean the house out of 'very perishable' food items, we were left with few options for dinner last night. Which always means PIZZA! Hooray PIZZA! Since we've been here, I've seen Domino's, Pizza Hut and Sbarro. So I'm not thinking it'll be great, by any means, but it's still PIZZA! Animation Lab provided Lee with a settling-in book, which had the numbers for local delivery places. We chose Domino's over Pizza Hut (oh, KFC also delivers here. KFC!), and ordered a pepperoni pizza - who knows what the pepperoni is made out of, but might as well give it a shot, right?

Oh boy, wrong. We now know that we will be living a pizza-free existence for the remainder of our stay here. The cardboard crust and pepperoni disks weren't hidden at all by the faux mozzarella topping. Flavorless, except for a weird plastic aftertaste, and the condiment packets contained some sort of spice combination. I'm pretty sure it was cumin, coriander and some other strange flavors you normally don't find on a pizza. No parmesean, no hot peppers.....just blech.

Live and learn, eh?

And for all my friends and family back home- have a very Happy Thanksgiving, and I expect each of you to have an extra helping of turkey with gravy for me today!!