Eat, Sleep, Netivot

This past weekend, thursday through saturday night, I went to Netivot to hang out with Brandon. Once again I go to a place that makes Israelis say, “why the hell are you going there?” just so I can see Brandon. We were supposed to go camping somewhere in the Negev, but for whatever reason those plans fell through and we just ended up spending time in the small but nice town in the Negev called Netivot (in case you didn't pick up the name before).

On Friday morning we (Brandon, Diana, Ashley and I) went to the nearest city called Be'er Sheva to go the the Israeli Air Force Museum. It was pretty cool with lots of zoom-zooms (aka airplanes) and tanks and anti aircraft weapons. Some planes were just retired and thus on display. Some were captured or destroyed parts of enemy planes. Brandon loves planes so he was as happy as an asthmatic making out with an albuterol fairy. The rest of us had fun too.

After the museum we went to a Yemenite restaurant. After sitting down they placed literally 500 salads on the table to eat. They were all delicious. Everything on the menu ranged from 35-45 shekels which was more than we all usually spend, but we had heard this place was amazing so we figured it would be worth it. When they finally got the one guy who could speak either Hebrew or English (as the usual waitress only spoke arabic) he offered us a special deal. He would give us a sampling of the best things on the menu for 45 shekels each. So we did and it was awesome. There was seasoned rice stuffed peppers, chicken meatballs and lamb meatballs, two kinds of soup, awesome pita/naan type bread, and a raw-ish brisket type dish that was amazing tasting and as tender as a stick of butter that Vinny kept in his pocket for an hour or two. All in all, we ate so much delicious food that when we got back to Brandon's we all passed out.


When we awoke, it was almost time for dinner. Brandon is in a program called, Otzma, and through the program they get a host family. They don't live with their host families, but the family acts as some sort of mentor family that you hang out with. So Diana, Brandon and I went there for Shabbat dinner and had an amazing Moroccan feast and played with the cutest puppies. The dinner involved salads (of course), couscous (of course), and lamb and chicken and barechas and other stuff that I don't even know what it was. Thankfully, dinner finished with some real Moroccan mint tea. It was sweeter than tea I usually drink, but was still awesome. We went back there again for lunch on Saturday and once again enjoyed an incredible Moroccan feast. Lunch involved the salads once again, fried chicken wings, an eggplant meat casserole type thing, and some potatoes things. I wish I could be more descriptive, but just trust me that it was amazing. Although it was better when home made, I would strongly recommend going to the Moroccan restaurant in Philly called Marrakesh.

Their dog had little puppies! So cute.

I came back to Ra'anana Saturday night so I could try to be productive. It does look like a couple of new internship prospects may be opening up in addition to the one I've been working on, but we'll see what comes of that.

And I apologize for the sporadic posts, lately the Internet here has not been great. Heck, it even took a few days to get this post online. I would also like to get my pictures posted to facebook soon so everyone can see what's going on besides the select few we post to the blog.

No one tell him, but I pee in sam's bed while he's sleeping so he thinks he has a bed wetting problem.