Kindergarten's "Playground"

I just took a ride over to the kindergarten with Nava (the ulpan house mother).  We had to bring the leftovers from dinner last night to feed the animals that they keep there--rabbits, guinea pigs, ducks, chickens.  While we were there she showed me their "playground."  It's not really a playground, more like a play area with stuff in it.  If you (someone from the US who played on jungle gyms and toys from the store) you would think it looked like a junk yard and a really dangerous place for kids, kindergarten age kids, to play.  There's old couches, kitchen appliances, tractors, boxes, pretty much just any old crap you can think of. She said that when something breaks or is too old in her house she brings it there.  The idea is that the kids don't always need toys that they have to play with a certain way.  With all this random junk they can be more imaginative and creative and play however they want.  Nava pointed out a little living room that the kids had made and a pretend farm, when i looked around it looked like there was no order at all, just stuff thrown all over. Maybe i need to work on my imagination...

Nightly walks

We go for a walk pretty often after dinner.  By then it's dark out and cool enough so that you don't sweat immediately...and there's not a lot else to do.  On last night's walk first we walked over to the cows.  The adult cows are nothing special to us anymore because we found the calves.  They will let you pet them and play with you a little.  There were some there that had just been born the day before.  Then we went over to the horse stable.  I think we stood outside one horses stall for a good 15 minutes.  From there we went up into the orchards.  There were different things (a fort from the tree limbs, new kinds of fruit trees) that we had each found walking around in there that we wanted to show each other.  It was dark so we stumbled around with our flashlight for a while until we decided to head back.  We stopped to take a look at the view of the lights from the towns/cities between us and the Mediterranean then walked back home to the ulpan.  A lot different than walking around PA or NJ...

Shana Tova

Happy new year everyone! 

It's Rosh Hashana and then Shabbat so lots of time off this week.  We've just been trying to keep busy with not much to do...so I don't have anything really exciting to tell.  I'm looking forward to next week... more than one day of class in one week and then we are going to Tsfat for Yom Kippur. 

I need some feedback.  What I've been writing so far, is it what you want to hear? Interesting enough?I don't really want to write too much about my feelings about things or about things that have to do specifically with other people, but is it too boring? Is there something you want to know that i am not saying? Let me know.

Pictures

These pictures are borrowed from my roommate.  She was smarter and actually brought her camera on the walk yesterday.

There's lots of cows because they make cheese and yogurt here.  The cows are pretty close to where we live so we walk by them at night often.

 

 

Avocado fields.  They'll be ripe in one month...I think there will be a lot of ulpanists hiding in the trees snacking.

One of those clearings I mentioned.  It's kind of hard to tell from a picture, but it's a really beautiful spot.

This is what I was trying to describe at the end of the last blog.  Up on the hill (just under the sun) is Haifa and way in the distance on the right is the Mediterranean Sea. 

I have a couple of pictures from our living area but i didn't want to ruin this post with them. I'll add them soon.

The Orchards

Tonight we took a "tour" through the orchards on the kibbutz.  Now I promise i will work on pictures.  A lot of people got some great ones.  There are avacados, lychees, guava, passion fruit, pomegranate, clementines, oranges, lemons,... (not all of those are crops, but they grow there)  We didn't see all of the different types but not at least we know where to wander and look for them. For the most part you can just pick and have whatever you want.  And they have these areas for you to sit and hang out, eat your fruit, read, enjoy the view.  Some of these spots are beautiful. They are hidden by bushes and flowers and looks so calm and peaceful.  From the top of the of the mountain you can see Haifa and the Mediterranean Sea.  We were there at sunset and you could see the sun rays streaming through the clouds over Haifa with the bay just to the north and the fields of the kibbutz right below us. It was pretty awesome. 

This is the life!

This is how my past two days went...

Thurs: Work in the morning until about 11:30.  Hang out. Go to lunch. Hang out some more, maybe check my email. Take a nap. Dinner. Play tennis. Pub.

Fri: Run and work out at one of those out door gyms...it's so nice to work out outside instead of in a gym. School! Lunch. Beach. Dinner.  Maybe tennis? Maybe pub? Maybe scrabble?
  
This may not be exactly the experience I thought it was going to be but I really can't complain.

Food

The food here is pretty different than at home.  Not the actual food but the way that they eat. It takes some getting used to but, I think today I finally started to do it right. 
First, salad for breakfast.  Tomatoes, cucumbers, lettuce, sprouts, carrots, onion just whole on the salad bar and you do whatever you want with them.  But, no salad dressing.  You eat it with cottage cheese and/or this white cheese, that's kind of between Greek yogurt and sour cream. Some eggs and toast too if you want.  There's some cereal but no one really eats it.
Then, lunch.  This is supposed to be the big meal of the day.  Hot meats, rice/couscous, hot veggies.  Then lots (like maybe 12 different kinds) of different chopped salads. Always hummus. And bread.
Dinner is really light.  Rarely any meat. More hummus and bread. Fruit for desert. 
No snacks in between but that could be because of our situation.
Number one thing to get over is salad at breakfast.  (Now) I like that though...start the day out healthy, keeps you full but not stuffed.  Then you need to make sure you eat enough at lunch, otherwise dinner is very far away and unsatisfying.  Like I said, I'm starting to get the hang of it. Tonight is the first time I'm not starving for dinner.  They also seem to not think as much about what/how much they eat as we do but they seem much healthier.

Tomorrow starts work...