burnin' through the sky

went to ulpan today. it was a really good class. i'm very much enjoying it and i think i am catching on. hopefully i'll be fluent by the time these 5 months are over. i can already have short conversations. woohaw! after ulpan, al and i walked to get some groceries to make lunch because we are running a little tight on money right now. just budgeting. on the walk back home, we found some long scraps of astroturf so we grabbed them for room decorations. very resourceful, i know.

we hung out at home for a little while, and talked to our friend abram (from our birthright trip) who is in tel aviv with his whole family (30 people) doing a 3 week tour of israel. we got all spiffied up and waited for a sheruit for seriously 40 minutes outside our house on herzl street. while we were waiting, i saw this dreamy old man sitting on the bench with some plant in his front shirt pocket. somehow i summoned the strength to ask him to take a photo. it was good practice and i think the picture turned out really well. i asked him what he had in his shirt, and he practically stuck the thing up my nose before handing it to me, but it smelled like a nice herb. he let me have a stalk of whatever it was, so i'm going to save it and keep it with the photo of him. i didn't catch his name, but he tried to speak french with me since i couldn't speak hebrew. it was cute.

we finally caught a sheruit and once in tel aviv, we walked an ass long time (but not as long as we were informed) to abram's hotel. his parents and brother took us to a lovely dinner on the beach at a place called 'gordo', which in spanish means 'fat'. it was a dream, since al and i haven't had a nice dinner at a restaurant in a while. the best part of the dinner though, besides the food, was the story that abram's mom, vera, told us about the time she met woody allen. he had been filming 'manhattan' in the two apartments next door to theirs, so one day a producer asked to use her phone while woody waited and played with vera's 3-year old daughter. he apparently wasn't very socially competent with adults, not even making eye contact with them, but was very communicative with her daughter. he was sitting on the floor playing lego's, and telling the 3 year old that she was adopted, in typical woody allen fashion. he also told the little girl that he liked to put food on his head. i don't really remember the rest, but right before he left, he said that he would keep his promise and put food on his head, but it had to be meat and it had to be cold. so vera rummaged through the fridge and luckily found a nice cold slab of steak. woody, true to his word, slapped the meat on his head. about a minute passed, and he said, "when can i take this off?"

one of the best stories i've ever heard. we finished dinner and walked back to abram's hotel, where he played some beautiful classical guitar pieces; one by a paraguayan composer and one by a more famous guy that i can't remember. but he had better send them to me, because they were gorgeous. if i ever make a movie, i'm scoring it with classical guitar. so amazing.

we said goodbye to abram and his brother and walked all the way back to the bus station to catch the sheruit. after bargaining with the driver to let us go for the regular amount (15 NIS) rather than 30 NIS, he finally agreed and i'm going to bed now. ulpan tomorrow. then nap. and maybe laundry.

lila tov (good night)

love,

sally