Lessons from Israel

Here are a few things i've learned over here in Israel:

~ "coffee" apparently doesn't mean coffee, it means cappicino and you'll pay about five dollars for a small cup

~ eveyone here speaks more languages than you do, just get used to the fact that you're an arogant american who thinks he's educated but can still barely even speak english

~ any price a shopkeeper gives you is just a little more than half of what you should actually pay him

~ yelling "hey dude" in a middle eastern accent is the teenagers attempt to get you to stop so they can practice their english on you

~ "football" is the international sport - we've even played in the valley of hell with a bunch of palestinian kids - one of whom was named ochmed

~ if you stand on the side of the street waiting for traffic to let up so you can cross the street safely, grab a seat, you'll be there a while

~ the way to cross the street is to step out into the middle of it with complete confidence, they'll stop... if you have enough confidence, otherwise you'll end up jumping back to the curb - as a note: this process is entirely safe, it's how they do things here and i've never even heard of an accident from those types of actions

~ a nice burger can be purchased for 30 NIS, New Isreali Shekels, about 7 dollars; filafels cost 6 NIS and are more filling

~ drivers in Israel have one hand on the wheel and the other on the horn - producing madness to the nearly constant beating of car horns

~ the good, yet cheap, food is found in the muslim quarter of the old city

~ the school roof is perfect for being alone with God and doing some peacefull cloud watching

~ Israeli girls are not to be dated. They're all in the military, which means they carries M-16s and could kill you faster than you could blink

~ people here look mean, but are super nice instead - southern hospitality is alive and well in the middle east!

~ the "zit" store isn't a cosmetics place. no, it's the grocery story.

~ Christmas happened late summer and baby Jesus was probably born in the stable part of a small house with Joseph's whole family gathered around to help - oh well, we're still going to sit around a Christmas tree December 25o

~ most importantly, there are two kinds of milk here: the kind that has been uber-chemicalized and can be left out for days and not go bad or 3% milk that tastes delicious and does wonders for your dietary system. Basically, good milk or something that tastes like chemical warfare

Chocolate!!

In the small German colony there lies a small cafe on the side of the road. Its gate is covered with vines, so the unnattentive viewer will pass by without a second glance, but inside is the Italian Chocolata = delight in a cup. It is a cup of pure, hot, rich dark chocolate that must be eaten with a spoon.

Here's a close up...

Life is good in Israel.