Here are some pictures.

After a week here, we have no excuse to not have provided an update. However, for now, this is all our weary, weary, souls can provide. Enjoy vicariously at your leisure.

In chronological order:


Airplane excitement. This is to prove we started loving each other.


Typical building in Tel-Aviv. This combination of decrepit, lush, and sand tones is repeated in countless ways in every part of Israel. This shot is characteristic only of residential neighborhoods in Tel-Aviv city center.


Reinvigorating our spirits and sense of place after waking too late to travel to Haifa, Mira graciously took us to see Israeli dancing. It is a bi-weekly event attended by crowds trailing the typical Popsicle-toting children as well as those well into their middle ages but still fitting well into gaudy sequined t-shits and, at least in one case, booty shorts. Mira explains in broken English her attachment to the event, from which we extracted: community gathering and merriment as a result of constant conflict. You can imagine the significance this hour and a half held.


Later that same day, (which, for the record, was Saturday, March 17) after eating dinner at 2pm as apparently is the Israeli way on the day of rest, we went for a walk. We discussed guns, barley, and tourism while walking through a kibbutz whose fields run up to the Gabay's backyard. What grain is this?


While Jacky stands tall and poised, I crouch and peer and pout, apparently. Go figure.


The next day, we walked for almost twelve hours non-stop around Tel-Aviv. This is Carmel market, where we truly experienced the extent of Israel's bounty. We still had no idea.


Monday, old Jaffa's flea market. Largely Arabic, and again, bounty. Here I wrote with blogging intentions:
'We are surrounded by dust and fragments of ancient capitalist ventures/culture clash, in the way that all flea markets are, complete with intoxicating flashes of light off mottled glass and watch-faces, curves of forgotten stylistic marketing in the arm of a chair, a candelabra, an earring, the wrist of a painted girl, and patches of color telling of glorious times before they were kitsch (or maybe, when they were still kitsch, simply shining). We are drinking the closest approximation to straight brewed coffee offered, identified when we express our longing for a large brewed cup with a vocalization of disgust by Zeev as 'sewage water,' Americanos. This cafe, between two antique store fronts, almost seems itself for sale being layered with fabrics, antique ephemera, and fresh flowers in a way that attracts foreigners as its neighbors' wares, which accounts for us being immediately presented with English menus. I'd like to relay all that we're seeing, all that we're doing, as purely and simply as possible, but then, when blog? I'd also like to keep my enchantment intact.'


From old Jaffa, we spotted a destination (Dad: think 'Ellis the rim man' sign, apologies to all other readers for family secrets), and walked towards it. We found the old port.


Later, we explore a landfill, which empties onto a beach in an Arab neighborhood.


On the bus to Yotvata. We're still getting used to this.


Now, two shots of life(Jacky) on the kibbutz. More to come, with camera batteries.

If animals in a household relay its true nature, this speaks volumes.


Wake at 4.30am, work 5.15-noon, clean house in the afternoon. This above ensues.

Now, dinner. We can promise more frequent updates with a new Internet room key.
Love.