I Have My Days and Nights Mixed Up...

...except that in Israel, people are out late into the night, and we have gotten used to that schedule already, so I'm perfectly average. Folks eat dinner late and walk around a lot or get drinks or coffee. And Thursday nights, like tonight, are the equivalent to Saturday nights in cities stateside, so people are definitely out late. I have always had the tendency to be a night owl, and that tendency is thriving here. Either I'll try and change my pattern or just go with it, be productive with it and be happy that for this year, at least, I can for the most part be up late and sleep a little late if that is what my body wants. My in-laws, Rachel's parents Sam and Dori, arrived from Berlin this evening. They are staying for 10 days. We haven't planned much except for Shabbat. They are very low key and flexible, so I know we will do fun things and eat good food, but we'll just figure it out as we go. A trip to Ikea is definitely going to happen! I went out today alone for the first time and did well. I have a really, really, really bad sense of direction, and it is frustrating both Rachel and I immensely. I walked to Ben Yehuda because I needed to go to a bookstore to buy a book for Rachel's classmate whose daughter turned 1 today. I was very drawn to the cover of a particular book and asked a woman what it means in English. She showed me the inside of the front cover where the title was written in English. I of course have forgotten what it said, but working with the title and great illustrations I was able to see that it is an adorable story about a baby mole who tries to capture the moon. When I paid for the book, I told the woman that I would come back in a few months and be able to read some of the titles myself. She just looked at me and obviously could have cared less, but I realized as soon as I said it that I had created a good challenge for myself. I need to start ulpan before the end of the summer, and I need to apply for grant money and start taking classes at the Conservative yeshiva. I want to go to Hebrew University and inquire about taking a social work class, and I really want someone from Crossroads to respond to my emails because I really want to volunteer there regularly. Who says no to or ignores someone offering to work for free?!?!? My new thing, thanks to Rachel, is to tell people when they ask what I will be doing this year that I plan to surf a lot. The question has already gotten quite old and annoying. We plan to go to services tomorrow evening and then have Shabbat dinner at our apartment, just the 4 of us. It will be so nice to have access to a car for 10 days. We plan to run lots of errands that involve buying big things that we can't typically carry. Sam and Dori brought me my favorite Haribo gummies from Berlin. Now people who visit us will really know if I like them or not based on whether or not I share gummies with them. We are really looking forward to the sunrise concert at Masada this weekend. We're none sure how we will stay awake, but we are all excited nonetheless. The fact that it is now past 2am is definitely ridiculous, but I hadn't posted anything today and I promised myself I would try to do it at least daily. This was random, but that is how my brain often works, so this is what I give you this early morning.