Sukkot

Sukkot is here, and we went to the Sukkah fair!

Etrogs:

Etrogs, me, sister:

Official etrog checker:

I think we got a good deal... All the vendors were offering a complete Sukkot set for 80 shekels but I got mine for 50 (mainly because the guy selling me mine didn't have enough change).

Boogie-Board/ Peanuts

Saturday was my birthday. I was fortunate because I got to spend it with Liat and my family. But more importantly, I got to spend it at the beach.

First off, Liat and I went to a beach to boogie-board. It was nice. It's something I haven't done since I was 15 and in Mexico. It was even more special because it was in the Jewish State and I've always wanted to combine my Zionist fervor with boogie-boarding.

Picture:

Following a couple hours at the beach we ran across a large field. At first glance you might think it's a field filled with foreign workers just doing their jobs:

But you might ask yourself "why do the foreign workers look like 6 year old children with their parents?"

So we went over to ask someone what was going on and he told us that it was a peanut farm and that people were picking up the left-over peanuts that the machines didn't pick up. Also known as gleaning.

Our nuts:

Then I took my Sukkot surprises home and honey-roasted them:

And that's it.

We Have a Roof-top

So we discovered that we have a roof-top right above our apartment (on the top floor of the building). So that means we get to go up there and BBQ/drink with an incredible view of Jerusalem. - It's really nice not being in the dorms-

Apartments suck

People always ttell me that I shouldn't decide if I want to move here until I deal with the mean, competitive, heartless side of Israel. Well, I went apartment hunting for 2 months. Does that count?
I mean, I guess you could say I started out naive. We began by being extremely selective - only looking at very affordable, nice, furnished, 3 bedroom apartments in the center of the city. You can probably guess that was doomed for failure. They were either too dirty, not furnished, cost too much, or weren't in the right location.
Then we broadened our location. Still no luck.
Then we basically took anything that was in our price range. This was a little better, if it weren't for the whole Israeli factor. There must have been three or four times when we decided we wanted a place, called the owner to tell him we wanted the place, the owner told us to meet him the next morning, only to call him the next day and hear that someone brought their security deposit and rent to them the night before we got there.
You would think that after discussing the details and arranging a time to meet in order to sign a contract that a landlord wouldn't just hand it off to someone else. That's not the case. And by the time we finished our hunt for apartments, I realized that the landlords do it purely out of fear for Israelis who would want to guarantee the possibility of multiple apartments.
This is the problem with Israelis. The prisoner's dilemma. It would be great if everyone were nice to eachother and did pretty well. It would be really good for some people and really bad for others if some people screwed over others. But when everyone thinks they are screwing eachother, it becomes a problem - no one gets anything.
In the end, we got lucky. We found an American teacher who is in America for the year and wanted to rent out his enormous 3 bedroom apartment to us for adequate rent and in a good location. We found this place the very last possible day we could find an apartment. It was our last day in the dorms, and our last chance before all the holidays start in October and no one can show anything.

Anyway, here are pictures of my room and living room from day 2 when I just started moving in.