I heard you gasp. Don't deny it. For just a second there you panicked...
UltraSound is a dance club near Haifa. We went on Friday night after being invited by Eli, the guy who held the party we went to a few weeks ago. Nope, no gross gooey substance or supermarket checkout scanner-looking thing to think about. (For the record, my entire knowledge of what the process of an ultrasound looks like is completely compiled of clips from movies. I have no first-hand knowledge whatsoever.)
It was a pretty cool place. Housed in a warehouse on a kibbutz, UltraSound sports 4 seperate dance floors and what I estimate to be around 8 to 10 bars, including a hot dog and crepe stand and a seperate food bar with flaky pastries and other yummy stuff you're craving after a few drinks. Spread out over several levels, all open-air, each serving as an observation deck for the one below, the club has a strange amusement park feel, most significantly displayed by the two slides that drunk-off-their-ass patrons can utilize to carry them from the top floor to the bottom floor. Quite clever, I know. When your club is populated by stairs as an element of design you have to devise some sort of plan to prevent the alcoholics from taking nasty spills on their way downstairs.
If the place sounds huge, that's because it is. And if you're wondering how many Israelis it takes to fill a warehouse, my estimate would be somewhere between 800 and 1,000. When we left at 2:00am the massive parking lot (think Stamford High School) was full to the brim and the street on which the club is located was lined with cars on both sides. There were even some vehicles all the way out on the main road, approximately a half mile away. And people were still arriving... You see, the club doesn't close until somewhere between 4:00 and 6;00 in the morning. We, on the the other hand, had to get up at a reasonable hour the next day. So unfortunately, we missed the live musical performance. Oh well, maybe next time...
We weren't really prepared for the experience anyway to tell you the truth. We kind of got sucker-punched into going. When Eli called to invite us, he left out some of the details. In fact, he pretty much didn't tell us anything. If I recall, he invited us to "a party... on a kibbutz". I don't know about you, but when I think about a "party on a kibbutz", I think about a small to medium sized function room, filled with youthful students (he said it was a party for the end of the semester), maybe with a DJ in the corner next to a small fridge with lousy beer. We were misled. We were hoodwinked. We were taken totally unawares. Not dressed for the occaision and forgetting my dance shoes at home, we felt slightly uncomfortable. Not to mention the fact that we hadn't brought much cash with us, leaving us unable to purchase food and drink, only admission to this circus.
Well, "why didn't you use your credit card", you must be saying right about now. I asked myself the same question, only to discover that the entire establishment, all 4 floors and 10 bars are completely CASH. Sure, it doesn't seem like such a big deal, until you remember that Israel is 4.7 sheckles to the dollar, meaning that every single one of those 1,000 people had to be carrying on them a seriously significant amount of money. The whole thing took me by surprise, from beginning to end.
I regret not having a camera with me to take some pictures, but I will have one soon as it is in the mail. I will most definitely return to UltraSound camera in hand, money in pocket, dolled-up girlfriend on arm to take full advantage and observation of what I can only call an event to behold.
Sunday, January 29, 2006
Saturday, January 28, 2006
RSS Feed
A quick note about the blog.
In case you didn't know, or rather, don't know how, you can subscribe to my blog in a variety of different ways, making it easier to keep up with new posts as soon as they get posted.
For example, if you use gmail, or google's personalized home page, you can program both services to subscribe to my blog, alerting you whenever I add an entry. Both services offer RSS readers, which are explained in the help and FAQ sections on the google site. Other RSS readers work just fine as well.
The link to enter into your RSS reader is as follows:
http://deklein.blogspot.com/atom.xml
If you have any questions let me know. i'd be happy to try and help if I can.
Also, comments are an important tool for you to utilize. They let me know that people out there are reading and make the blog a dialogue instead of rant after rant from just me. I encourage you all to take the time to write even just a sentence, whether it's to agree with me, contradict me, or just say hello. I'd like to thank Andy, Adam, Kate & Gillian for consistently engaging in the process and posting comments. And a reminder to you all: please remember to include your name with your comments... it helps me know who's listening.
Hope to hear from you all soon!
In case you didn't know, or rather, don't know how, you can subscribe to my blog in a variety of different ways, making it easier to keep up with new posts as soon as they get posted.
For example, if you use gmail, or google's personalized home page, you can program both services to subscribe to my blog, alerting you whenever I add an entry. Both services offer RSS readers, which are explained in the help and FAQ sections on the google site. Other RSS readers work just fine as well.
The link to enter into your RSS reader is as follows:
http://deklein.blogspot.com/atom.xml
If you have any questions let me know. i'd be happy to try and help if I can.
Also, comments are an important tool for you to utilize. They let me know that people out there are reading and make the blog a dialogue instead of rant after rant from just me. I encourage you all to take the time to write even just a sentence, whether it's to agree with me, contradict me, or just say hello. I'd like to thank Andy, Adam, Kate & Gillian for consistently engaging in the process and posting comments. And a reminder to you all: please remember to include your name with your comments... it helps me know who's listening.
Hope to hear from you all soon!
Friday, January 27, 2006
From Hummus to Hamas
In other news, you may have heard that elections took place and the Palestinian people decided that Hamas, a known terrorist organization, was the right choice to lead them. Where Hamas will lead them seems to be the question of the day around here. Whereas everyone watching the election believed that Hamas wouldn't win a majority of seats in the parliament, leaving the Fatah party (of which Mahmoud Abbas, the current president, is a member) in power, it turned out that Hamas swept the election, winning approximately 76 of the 132 seats available.
The debate here in Israel for a while was whether or not to allow voting in East Jerusalem by absentee ballot as long as Hamas was on the ballot. The argument raged for weeks. Eventually, Israel allowed a limited number of absentee ballots to be cast.
It's a sticky situation worldwide, prompting our own shining example of leadership to step up to the mic and say a few words. Bush stated that the U.S. would not deal with Hamas unless it renounced its call for the destruction of Israel. Oh yeah, and he also told them to stop being terrorists. He's not happy that they won, but now that they have, it would be dangerous and politically damaging to do anything but shout hooray and point at what he claims is another instance of western-inspired democracy at work. It's funny, I can't recall the last time the Ku Klux Klan was allowed to register a candidate for president...
There is obviously a lot of info I'm leaving out, so feel free to look it up on your own and post a comment or two.
The debate here in Israel for a while was whether or not to allow voting in East Jerusalem by absentee ballot as long as Hamas was on the ballot. The argument raged for weeks. Eventually, Israel allowed a limited number of absentee ballots to be cast.
It's a sticky situation worldwide, prompting our own shining example of leadership to step up to the mic and say a few words. Bush stated that the U.S. would not deal with Hamas unless it renounced its call for the destruction of Israel. Oh yeah, and he also told them to stop being terrorists. He's not happy that they won, but now that they have, it would be dangerous and politically damaging to do anything but shout hooray and point at what he claims is another instance of western-inspired democracy at work. It's funny, I can't recall the last time the Ku Klux Klan was allowed to register a candidate for president...
There is obviously a lot of info I'm leaving out, so feel free to look it up on your own and post a comment or two.
Palate Report
Today I start off by saluting a food I've come to know and love. Sure hummus exists in the states but here, in Israel, hummus is the staple of all things edible, and locally its quality far exceeds anything available back at home.
Salads and dips and spreads and anything else you can shmear, lather, glop or shovel are the basic building blocks of authentic middle-eastern cuisine and Gillian and I have tried our fair share. Hummus is by far the most versatile but tahina (sesame seed sauce), hatzalim (eggplant dip) and labane (cheese spread) have all become fast favorites.
Of course none of these could be consumed properly without an appropriate scooping, smearing and shoveling tool: the pita. Again, I know that pita exists in the states, but like New York is to the bagel, Israel is to the pita. At home, pita can often be confused with cardboard, or if you're really unlucky, chewy. Here, pita is baked fresh every day and is served fluffy and flexible. It is also employable as a vessel for such favorites as felafel (balls of fried chickpeas) and shwarma (shaved meat, usually lamb). In addition to pita, we have discovered some other types of bread that aren't so popular (they don't exist) back home. Laffa, kinda like a wrap but with more substance, and malawa, a flaky sort of wrap, circular in shape and tasty beyond belief.
Burehkas, or flaky pastries filled with cheese or potato, are also quite popular here either for breakfast or as a snack. I'd comfortably compare their prominence to bagels and donuts at home. Sadly, in the land of the Jews, nowhere have we come across a good bagel and donuts are practically non-existent. (I say practically because during Hannukah "suvganiyot" are fashionable to eat but are awful, spongy, not fluffy, disgustingly pathetic attempts at replicating the goodness that Krispy Kreme perfected long ago.)
That's all I've got on food for now but I think it gives you an decent overview. As for what they don't have... that's a very long list. Among the things I miss the most: Chinese food (apparently, noodles and soy sauce pass around here), good pizza (they don't use enough cheese, the dough is wrong, and people put ketchup on it...), a decent cheeseburger (McDonald's & Burger King are our only options), and god help me (sure we're neighbors now, but the kind of neighbors who don't lend each other gardening tools) I miss diners. I know many of you remember I had the same complaint about Boston, but believe me, Boston was in good diner shape in comparison. At least in MA you could find a restaurant willing to pretend... here they simply don't exist. I'm sure there are other things I will no longer take for granted when I get home, but these are the ones that I find myself pining for. Gillian on the other hand misses pie. She really misses pie. I can't blame her. They just don't do pie here. It's a real shame.
Salads and dips and spreads and anything else you can shmear, lather, glop or shovel are the basic building blocks of authentic middle-eastern cuisine and Gillian and I have tried our fair share. Hummus is by far the most versatile but tahina (sesame seed sauce), hatzalim (eggplant dip) and labane (cheese spread) have all become fast favorites.
Of course none of these could be consumed properly without an appropriate scooping, smearing and shoveling tool: the pita. Again, I know that pita exists in the states, but like New York is to the bagel, Israel is to the pita. At home, pita can often be confused with cardboard, or if you're really unlucky, chewy. Here, pita is baked fresh every day and is served fluffy and flexible. It is also employable as a vessel for such favorites as felafel (balls of fried chickpeas) and shwarma (shaved meat, usually lamb). In addition to pita, we have discovered some other types of bread that aren't so popular (they don't exist) back home. Laffa, kinda like a wrap but with more substance, and malawa, a flaky sort of wrap, circular in shape and tasty beyond belief.
Burehkas, or flaky pastries filled with cheese or potato, are also quite popular here either for breakfast or as a snack. I'd comfortably compare their prominence to bagels and donuts at home. Sadly, in the land of the Jews, nowhere have we come across a good bagel and donuts are practically non-existent. (I say practically because during Hannukah "suvganiyot" are fashionable to eat but are awful, spongy, not fluffy, disgustingly pathetic attempts at replicating the goodness that Krispy Kreme perfected long ago.)
That's all I've got on food for now but I think it gives you an decent overview. As for what they don't have... that's a very long list. Among the things I miss the most: Chinese food (apparently, noodles and soy sauce pass around here), good pizza (they don't use enough cheese, the dough is wrong, and people put ketchup on it...), a decent cheeseburger (McDonald's & Burger King are our only options), and god help me (sure we're neighbors now, but the kind of neighbors who don't lend each other gardening tools) I miss diners. I know many of you remember I had the same complaint about Boston, but believe me, Boston was in good diner shape in comparison. At least in MA you could find a restaurant willing to pretend... here they simply don't exist. I'm sure there are other things I will no longer take for granted when I get home, but these are the ones that I find myself pining for. Gillian on the other hand misses pie. She really misses pie. I can't blame her. They just don't do pie here. It's a real shame.
Monday, January 23, 2006
I'm Just Not That Interesting...
I think that I've come to the conclusion that I am not interesting. I don't have a lot to write about. There isn't that much that is happening to me here in Israel that seems worth writing about. Maybe that's just an easy way out but it is the way I feel. I'm sorry. Wish there was more to it than that, but I'm not sure there is. Let's see what I can come up with...
A week or two ago Gillian and I confronted the people in charge of our stay here and told them that we were getting bored having the same conversation over and over again with students in the two high schools we're vollunteering in. They responded by finding us a place to teach in a school in Qiryat Bialik, only 20 or so minutes from Karmiel. We will supposedly be starting soon, teaching (not tutoring) Ethioipian students in English. I remember saying I was bored, not insane... Regardless, I think it is an opportunity to truly be useful, and maybe prove to myself once and for all that I'm not cut out to be a teacher.
Way back a few weeks ago, on the fourth of January to be exact, a birthday was had. I turned 23 years old. We didn't really make a big deal out of it or anything, simply going out for dinner to a local restaurant that specializes in chocolate. It was a very pleasant day punctuated by the consuming of an apple crumble pie, baked by Gillian Tanz, dessert chef extrodinaire. The apartment reeked of deliciousness for a week...
In other news we have taken up tennis. OK, I'll give you a moment to stop your snickering. Are you finished? Good. Let's proceed. So we've taken up tennis. Stop snickering. That's enough. I gave plenty of time to get it out of your system and I won't stand for it any longer. OK, maybe just a bit more... Anyhow, yes, we've started playing tennis, or rather swatting at a bouncy yellow ball with so-called "rackets". We're not very good at it and have the sore muscles to prove it, but we're trying anyway. We need to get out of our apartment more and be more physical. We haven't gotten much exercise since we acquired the car.
We've been taking instruction in the ways of speaking Hebrew. We're not very good at it (me worse that Gillian) but we're slowly trying to get better. We weren't able to enroll in an Ullpan program (Hebrew Language Immersion Program) because our schedule didn't allow it, but we're meeting with a tutor on the college campus once a week to learn the basics and hopefully learn how to hold a simple conversation before we leave. So far all I've been able to do is order pasta at a restaurant because the word for pasta in Hebrew is fairly simple: pasta. Oh, well. Perhaps progress will occur soon. I sure hope so... I'm getting tired of spaghetti.
I think we may have made a few friends... This evening, we went out with a guy we met in a round-about way. Maxine, the woman hosting us on campus put us in touch with a family that lives in her community. The mother is a ceramacist like Gillian and the woman's son is a filmmaker, currently applying to film schools in the U.S. including Emerson College, my alma mater. Elon, the son, is a really cool guy, just about our age, and tonight he introduced us to a few of his friends and we all went out for drinks at the only local watering hole within several miles of Karmiel. We had an awesome time, playing Tekken 4 on Playstation2 (a rare commodity in Israel) and also play a Texas Hold'em Tournament over a few pints of Guiness on tap (another rare commodity in Israel). Good beer, good people and a good game of poker were all welcomed reminders of home that Gillian and I have missed considerably. Although it wasn't the same as a Blue Moon Wednesday or a weekly Poker Night with Russian comrades it was nice to finally socialize with Israelis outside of elementary and high school students. Hopefully it won't be the last time we meet up with them.
The only other thing that I have deemed worth mentioning to those of you who have stuck with me this far (and I appreciate that), has to do with what I see as a strange phenomenon here is Israel. Everyone hitchhikes. It's really weird. You can't drive up to an intersection without someone soliciting you for a ride. Everyone thinks it is completely normal to stand in the middle of the road and stick your thumb out in the wind. Israelis from kids serving in the army to religious Jews (curly sideburns and all) take part in this stateside forbidden practice. They even get angry at you for not stopping. I can't say I have seen anyone actually get picked up yet, but I have to assume that people are successful at this endeavor condisering no one would continue trying unless people actually stopped every once and a while. I dunno... I'm still glad we rented a car.
A few pics to tide you over until I get my new digital camera in a week or so. Maxine has been kind enough to take pics for us lately and I share them with you now:
A self-explanatory two-shot taken by Maxine.
Maxine often insists on taking photos of of the two of us for no reason whatsoever.
This is a photo of Gillian and I with a man named Gary Perl. He is the Campaign Director of American ORT and used to work for/with my father when dad worked there as the Executive Vice President. Gary came to the college for a tour and we had the opportunity to eat lunch with him. I haven't seen him for almost 15 years.
Anyhow, I think that I may start opening up the possiblility of post topics wider that I was willing to allow before. I do a lot of reading on the internet, from articles on politics to articles on technology and media. Perhaps I will begin to use this blog as a forum for sharing those types of information with you. Maybe I should take a survey of what the readership is interesting in consuming. Yes, I think that is a good idea. It will force you to form an opinion and disavow myself of any responsiblity incase I bore any of you to death...
Do you think I should keep this blog pure and continue to struggle coming up with topics that relate to my travelogue or should I expand and include posts regarding thing outside of Israel that interest me like politics and media? Leave a comment to let me and the rest of cyberspace know what you think! Thanks in advance for participating.
Miss you all and hope to hear from you soon...
A week or two ago Gillian and I confronted the people in charge of our stay here and told them that we were getting bored having the same conversation over and over again with students in the two high schools we're vollunteering in. They responded by finding us a place to teach in a school in Qiryat Bialik, only 20 or so minutes from Karmiel. We will supposedly be starting soon, teaching (not tutoring) Ethioipian students in English. I remember saying I was bored, not insane... Regardless, I think it is an opportunity to truly be useful, and maybe prove to myself once and for all that I'm not cut out to be a teacher.
Way back a few weeks ago, on the fourth of January to be exact, a birthday was had. I turned 23 years old. We didn't really make a big deal out of it or anything, simply going out for dinner to a local restaurant that specializes in chocolate. It was a very pleasant day punctuated by the consuming of an apple crumble pie, baked by Gillian Tanz, dessert chef extrodinaire. The apartment reeked of deliciousness for a week...
In other news we have taken up tennis. OK, I'll give you a moment to stop your snickering. Are you finished? Good. Let's proceed. So we've taken up tennis. Stop snickering. That's enough. I gave plenty of time to get it out of your system and I won't stand for it any longer. OK, maybe just a bit more... Anyhow, yes, we've started playing tennis, or rather swatting at a bouncy yellow ball with so-called "rackets". We're not very good at it and have the sore muscles to prove it, but we're trying anyway. We need to get out of our apartment more and be more physical. We haven't gotten much exercise since we acquired the car.
We've been taking instruction in the ways of speaking Hebrew. We're not very good at it (me worse that Gillian) but we're slowly trying to get better. We weren't able to enroll in an Ullpan program (Hebrew Language Immersion Program) because our schedule didn't allow it, but we're meeting with a tutor on the college campus once a week to learn the basics and hopefully learn how to hold a simple conversation before we leave. So far all I've been able to do is order pasta at a restaurant because the word for pasta in Hebrew is fairly simple: pasta. Oh, well. Perhaps progress will occur soon. I sure hope so... I'm getting tired of spaghetti.
I think we may have made a few friends... This evening, we went out with a guy we met in a round-about way. Maxine, the woman hosting us on campus put us in touch with a family that lives in her community. The mother is a ceramacist like Gillian and the woman's son is a filmmaker, currently applying to film schools in the U.S. including Emerson College, my alma mater. Elon, the son, is a really cool guy, just about our age, and tonight he introduced us to a few of his friends and we all went out for drinks at the only local watering hole within several miles of Karmiel. We had an awesome time, playing Tekken 4 on Playstation2 (a rare commodity in Israel) and also play a Texas Hold'em Tournament over a few pints of Guiness on tap (another rare commodity in Israel). Good beer, good people and a good game of poker were all welcomed reminders of home that Gillian and I have missed considerably. Although it wasn't the same as a Blue Moon Wednesday or a weekly Poker Night with Russian comrades it was nice to finally socialize with Israelis outside of elementary and high school students. Hopefully it won't be the last time we meet up with them.
The only other thing that I have deemed worth mentioning to those of you who have stuck with me this far (and I appreciate that), has to do with what I see as a strange phenomenon here is Israel. Everyone hitchhikes. It's really weird. You can't drive up to an intersection without someone soliciting you for a ride. Everyone thinks it is completely normal to stand in the middle of the road and stick your thumb out in the wind. Israelis from kids serving in the army to religious Jews (curly sideburns and all) take part in this stateside forbidden practice. They even get angry at you for not stopping. I can't say I have seen anyone actually get picked up yet, but I have to assume that people are successful at this endeavor condisering no one would continue trying unless people actually stopped every once and a while. I dunno... I'm still glad we rented a car.
A few pics to tide you over until I get my new digital camera in a week or so. Maxine has been kind enough to take pics for us lately and I share them with you now:
A self-explanatory two-shot taken by Maxine.
Maxine often insists on taking photos of of the two of us for no reason whatsoever.
This is a photo of Gillian and I with a man named Gary Perl. He is the Campaign Director of American ORT and used to work for/with my father when dad worked there as the Executive Vice President. Gary came to the college for a tour and we had the opportunity to eat lunch with him. I haven't seen him for almost 15 years.
Anyhow, I think that I may start opening up the possiblility of post topics wider that I was willing to allow before. I do a lot of reading on the internet, from articles on politics to articles on technology and media. Perhaps I will begin to use this blog as a forum for sharing those types of information with you. Maybe I should take a survey of what the readership is interesting in consuming. Yes, I think that is a good idea. It will force you to form an opinion and disavow myself of any responsiblity incase I bore any of you to death...
Do you think I should keep this blog pure and continue to struggle coming up with topics that relate to my travelogue or should I expand and include posts regarding thing outside of Israel that interest me like politics and media? Leave a comment to let me and the rest of cyberspace know what you think! Thanks in advance for participating.
Miss you all and hope to hear from you soon...
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