our little trip to haifa

haifa is about as far from tel aviv as santa cruz is from san francisco. it's really not a big deal. this is something i had not realized last time i was here, when i had to figure out everything for myself.

rei dragged me to the bus station - not the one of the recent bombimg but the newer one - and we took a monit sherut (shuttle) to haifa. in a classic example of israeli inanity, they dumped us off in the middle of the highway when we got there, at the little median that separates the main lane from the exit lane. drivers apparently are too lazy to pull off the road for those who don't want to ride all the way to the bus terminal. so we hiked from the highway up to a proper roadside, where rei's brother picked us up.

rei's family is great. i can't believe there are people related to him, but there they were, and they were all super nice. he has two little brothers, although both of them are bigger than he is. his mom made us an amazing dinner complete with spicy poached pears for dessert.

i recognize the incredible irony that i spent shabbat last night with a bunch of tawonga people (rei, gal, and ben simrin) hanging out in an irish bar. now that it'm in israel, you'd think i could come up with something more inspiring. i did try briefly to convince rei to hurry up so we could make it to a shul that jill jacobs recommended to me but he was being super-lazy. and i was still tired enough that i didn't care. i'm in secularland right now and clearly, nothing jewish per se is going to happen until i get to jerusalem around my religious friends.