![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Even Stranger in a Strange Land
Jan. 22nd, 2011 11:52 amI am not a traveler, nor a tourist. I see ancient buildings, and my first reaction is, "What, they couldn't afford new?".
So forgive me for not seeking out all the things that you would if you were here.
I did saunter uphill to the Baha'i Gardens, which are indeed beautiful. I got wanded going in; so did everybody. I found myself admiring the strange flora, but wondering why it was all so close-cropped. Oh, right: "garden". That means the imposition of order to Old Worlders. (My mother-in-law's gardens, by contrast, are full of perennials all interweaving with each other for space and sun.)
I strolled around Sheredot Ben Gurion (I'm just guessing at the vowels; Hebrew frequently leaves them out, assuming you know the words already. Imagine reading an entire book where all of the words are abbreviations). I checked on the various restaurants, figuring I'd be coming back later for dinner. One common theme on the posted menus was the number of salads, with "5", "9", and "12" being common numbers. No, that's not the price in shekels; that's actually how many salads are served with the main course.
As I found out tonite, dining on sea bream (sort of a Mediterranean porgy), tahini and hummus both count as salads. So did the thing that looked like them, but was some kind of fish salad, which I considered redundant with my actual fish. Despite finding out that I don't mind them, I also passed on the plate of olives, as I wound up way too stuffed anyway.
Oh, reminder: never try to slug down the last swallow's worth of Turkish coffee. It just isn't worth it. I knew the grounds were there, but naively assumed that the mass of mud that I saw meant that the rest wouldn't amount to much. The rest amounted to quite a bit. Good thing the coffee tasted so good.
I've been listening to WFNX on-line to mollify the home-sickness. Even the commercials. But not Radiohead or Sublime; there's only so much I'm willing to choke my bandwidth for.
I'll probably log off and read more tonite. Despite a bit of fatigue that hit early this afternoon, I've haven't been experiencing much jet-lag. So that's good. I got up at quarter to 7 this morning (quarter to midnite, EST). We'll see just how well my brain is working with this time shift tomorrow, when I go on-site.
So forgive me for not seeking out all the things that you would if you were here.
I did saunter uphill to the Baha'i Gardens, which are indeed beautiful. I got wanded going in; so did everybody. I found myself admiring the strange flora, but wondering why it was all so close-cropped. Oh, right: "garden". That means the imposition of order to Old Worlders. (My mother-in-law's gardens, by contrast, are full of perennials all interweaving with each other for space and sun.)
I strolled around Sheredot Ben Gurion (I'm just guessing at the vowels; Hebrew frequently leaves them out, assuming you know the words already. Imagine reading an entire book where all of the words are abbreviations). I checked on the various restaurants, figuring I'd be coming back later for dinner. One common theme on the posted menus was the number of salads, with "5", "9", and "12" being common numbers. No, that's not the price in shekels; that's actually how many salads are served with the main course.
As I found out tonite, dining on sea bream (sort of a Mediterranean porgy), tahini and hummus both count as salads. So did the thing that looked like them, but was some kind of fish salad, which I considered redundant with my actual fish. Despite finding out that I don't mind them, I also passed on the plate of olives, as I wound up way too stuffed anyway.
Oh, reminder: never try to slug down the last swallow's worth of Turkish coffee. It just isn't worth it. I knew the grounds were there, but naively assumed that the mass of mud that I saw meant that the rest wouldn't amount to much. The rest amounted to quite a bit. Good thing the coffee tasted so good.
I've been listening to WFNX on-line to mollify the home-sickness. Even the commercials. But not Radiohead or Sublime; there's only so much I'm willing to choke my bandwidth for.
I'll probably log off and read more tonite. Despite a bit of fatigue that hit early this afternoon, I've haven't been experiencing much jet-lag. So that's good. I got up at quarter to 7 this morning (quarter to midnite, EST). We'll see just how well my brain is working with this time shift tomorrow, when I go on-site.
