Dinner and Arab Kadima

My two companions were sick, so I went to the Arab Kadima alone today.  I had a lot of fun, working with a few kids on some oragami projects.  We made some birds and some balls and I made a fortune telling thing for them at the end (probably the simplest) but I didn't have time to explain.  After, during the study period, I helped one girl with her english homework and then taught her a little spanish at her request.  It was fun, I had to figure out what she wanted to say in Hebrew, and then translate into English and then into Spanish.  Luckily, it was mostly phrases, so I recognized things like how are you and how old are you pretty quickly, but it still necessitated the dictionary at one point to clarify some points.

I left during the free time, and headed to the market.  After starting to fill a basket, I realized that the produce there was awful - things were withered and not fresh at all.  I returned the few items and went to the canned foods, and other things like that, but realized that they were probably over priced.  I called a friend, and found out that there is another shopping center closer to Lod, so I am going to head there tomorrow to see if I can get a better deal on groceries.

While walking back from the Arab Kadima, I noticed black smoke coming from around the field.  I turned the corner to see a large conflagration.  Instinctively, I reached for my phone, and dialed 002.  Wrong number.  102 and 101 got me an error message as well which is strange, so I called the police, 100, and after talking with them for a few minutes, a firetruck came.  Not sure if I had anything to do with it, but I like to imagine I did my part, my civic duty.

Back at the apartment, I offered to make Izy dinner.  All I had left were starch items, so I sliced the skins from the potatoes, put them in some olive oil and tossed with some herbs before putting them in the oven.  The were awesome when they finally finished.  I also made some spaghetti sauce from scratch, some pasta, and some garlic mashed potatoes.  All came out well.  Izy did most of the dishes, and I offered to do some of the pots since I went overboard.  We sat down to finish some wine, a cabernet from Tishbi, when the phone rang.  It was some other members of our group inviting us for dinner.

We grabbed the rest of the wine, and the potato skins, and headed over to sit with them and talk, but arrived as everyone was finishing eating.  It was nice to get out for a while, but I came back early to make a call and write up this blog.

In other news, I am getting into the source a little bit, which is starting to get interesting.  I wish I could have seen Israel then, when it was a sea of sand full of adventures.