This weeks adventures

This week consisted of Hebrew classes, water aerobics and hanging out with the neighbor kids. I'm finally starting to enjoy the Hebrew classes. I think we have gotten to a point where we know the teacher's personality and can joke around a bit during the lesson. Swimming has been good for me too, although one day while lap swimming I felt more like I was dodging everyone (no one was swimming in a straight line and it appears that age has the right of way). Tuesday I met a friend down at the beach in Caesarea. It took about an 1.5 hours to find her. Three tour buses pulled in just as I did so there were tons of people there. After an hour of not finding her I thought since I had already driven 20 minutes I would stick around and work on my Hebrew homework at the beach. She finally walked up the beach with her 2 year old and said she was late because her daughter had to be picked up from pre-school since she wasn't feeling well. In the end it worked out and we had a nice picnic on the beach. The neighbors invited me over to make cookies with them and then we made ice cream too. The cookies were interesting... actually they tasted fine but they looked a little funny. We used this stringy "shredded wheat" ingredient, butter and sugar. I'll try and post a picture of it. The icecream was okay. I think we put too many chopped hazelnuts in it and would have enjoyed more cream. It was a fun experience though. Yesterday they said they were going to the market and invited me to join them. We went to a different market than the one I've been going to. There were hardly any people there so it was nice to move about the street and look at the fresh fruits and veggies. They were selling pickles in old 2 liter coke bottles. I guess that's one way to recycle. I tried a fruit that comes from a cactus. It was sort of like a kiwi but with a ton of seeds they told me "don't chew, just swallow". I think one was enough for me :-) We also ate a meal at a famous little shop in the market. This lady has about 10ft x 4ft of kitchen space and her tables to the restaraunt our outside under an awning. In that small kitchen she had 2 propane tanks that had burners on the top where she cooked her food, she had a refrigerator and a small sink. I was surprised how much was on the menu given such a small kitchen! We had a few plates of different hummus and pita bread, a plate of tomatoes, cucumbers, onions and pickles, 3 different kinds of rice mixed with different toppings, 2 bean dishes and some cucumbers stuffed with rice. It was actually pretty good. I brought home some leftovers for Ken ;-) So that's what I've been up to this week. We are looking forward to a relaxing weekend since last weekend was so busy.