Nutshell

This is going to be a quick hitter. Don't have much to say about anything, just some things to nutshell:

Zachy D stayed with me Wednesday and Thursday. He's a great friend of mine from NFTY who did EIE (high school in Israel) with me. He made aliyah last summer and it's been wonderful to spend time with him and catch up.

I'm convinced there's something in the water. I think my chest hair is about 4 times thicker than when I arrived. Even Max has facial hair here. Or maybe the Kress genes just decided to kick in at this exact time in my life.

Yesterday morning I woke up at 6:00 AM (or 11:00 PM your time) to go hiking. We went to Sattaf, a site I visited and lived near when I was on Kibbutz Tzuba a few years ago. We hiked for four-ish hours with a few mini breaks to nosh or enjoy the views. At the end we built a couple fires, made Pita, Tahina, Labane and Tea. I got back to my apartment around 1:30 and passed out.

For dinner two of my best friends here, Kayla and Becka, came over. I made a delicious dish called Shakshouka. I made it as simple as possible. First I sauteed onions, tomatoes, peppers and garlic in a little olive oil. Then I dumped some tomato sauce and about a teaspoon of sugar (tomato paste is better, but i didn't have any) over the sauteed veggies, mix it all together and cover it. You let it cook, stirring it every couple minutes, until it thickens. After most of the liquid is gone, you crack eggs on the top of the mixture (my pan holds 6 eggs on top of about 3 tomatoes, 1 pepper, 1 onion, 2 garlic cloves and 3/4 can of tomato sauce). Recover the pan until you have some nice sunny-side-up eggs on top of the concoction. Sounds gross, tastes like heaven. Try it. Or I'll make it for you when I get home, cause it's just that divine. Thank you Zachy D for teaching me how to make it.

I feel bad that I'm half way across the world in sunny 75 degree weather while three feet of snow is on the ground at home. Staam.

This is a perfect opportunity to teach you all a hebrew word: Staam. It essentially means kidding, or joking. When I was here in 2007 and asked my Hebrew teacher what she thought of the meeting at Annapolis, she said 'staam, Annapolis'. Useful in both serious and not so serious situations.

So, אמא אבא, (dad, mom) I love you but I don't feel bad at all. I hope you are getting a good workout shoveling.

Anyone near my house, go visit Lili and love her for me. Cause I miss her:

Alright. That's all. Hope everyone had a wonderful Shabbat.

Kress