Tel Aviv

So it only took me a month and three other attempts, but I've finally made it to the Mediterranean. I probably wouldn't have if it weren't for Nari's exceptional skills in figuring out how to use public transportation around here. I pretty much have the buses, taxis, and local sheruts down, but now I've graduated to inter-city travel. Go me.

Tel Aviv is really cute, actually, or at least the parts I saw. It was a really warm day and a warm night as well, so we had no problem just hanging out on the beach until just before the sun went down and we went in search of dinner. For a moment I thought we'd found an actual Mexican restaurant, but while we noticed the big "Mexicana" sign, we failed to notice "pizza" spelled out in Hebrew above it. So I got pretty good pizza instead. And they gave us margaritas in really cute glasses shaped like little cacti. :)

The beach was gorgeous, I feel so much better for having been to one, although it contained the saltiest water it's ever been my misfortune to get up my nose. Unbelievably warm, though. Forget the Dead Sea, you can float just fine in the Med. Amazingly, the whole trip there and back plus dinner amounted to about 70-80 shekels for each of us, which is less than 20 bucks.

Our class had oral tests earlier today, done in pairs. I think Anna and I passed, if only because we had thought up such a goofy premise for our dialogue beforehand that the teacher who tested us ended up cracking up, but not in a bad way. You can tell when people are laughing because your language skills are underwhelming, or when you're just being funny. Considering we've only been studying this language for less than four weeks, I personally am impressed we managed to ramble on about anything at all for seven minutes. :)