It was another busy weekend, bookended by the first fall-like day. It actually rained hard this morning -- and it wasn't just the typical 30-second shower. It was a genuinely rainy morning. I never thought it would happen! But I'm getting ahead of myself. About the weekend:

Friday we had a lazy morning (it was hot, which leads to lethargy), but finally got ourselves out of bed and visited the Tel Aviv Museum of Art. The museum has a couple of really interesting exhibits up: one of painter Diti Almog's recent work, the other of sculptor Dov Feigin's pieces from the '60s (it's too bad neither artist has a website). The museum was much larger than I expected it would be (four spacious floors), and I was impressed with the building in which it's housed -- it's high, open and airy, faced with lots of sandy-colored limestone and dark wood. It also has an outdoor sculpture garden with a surprisingly good collection of modernist sculptures.

On the way back from the museum, a few blocks south of our apartment (around the corner from the cafe where we ate our first breakfast and had those great smoothies), I found treasure on the street.

In general, there are fewer things left out on the curb than there might be in Brooklyn, and certainly fewer than there are in Ann Arbor. I think it's directly related to the small size of the thoroughfares and dense activity that always goes on at sidewalk level: the round-the-clock pedestrian traffic; the parked cars, jammed together; the lack of any buffer zone between street, sidewalk, and front gate. Still, it's in my pack-rat nature to always keep my eyes peeled for stuff.

And Friday I was lucky: Purse clasps! A whole mess of them. Three toolboxes worth. Of course, if they had looked on the street like they do in the photo, I might actually have taken all three boxes. But they were gross, completely covered with muck and dust when I picked them up.





In fact, they were so iffy-looking that at first I only picked up a couple, to see if they were even worth saving (see how nasty the ones to the left of the wash basin look? and how brown the water is?). It's lucky that it's so dry here. It was only surface gunk and probably helped preserve the finish on them. So when the first few cleaned up okay, I flew out the door (this time with a couple of plastic bags so my hands wouldn't get so filthy) and practically ran back to where I found them, collecting the rest of the good-looking ones.

I'm so excited. They're all super, super cool, probably from the '60s and '70s. It's remarkable: earlier in the summer I was trying to figure out how to get my hands on exactly this kind of clasp. And I found them just in time; we're going to Ikea sometime this week (Ikea sells fabric by the yard), so I'll definitely have some sweet cloth to use for the bodies. (Hey girlfriends, I hope you like the purse you'll be getting for Christmas!)

I brought them with me to the Sharons' house that afternoon (I figured either Dalia or Oddi would have good recommendations on how to properly deep-clean them), and Dalia laughed when she saw them. She said I remind her of a South African friend from art school, who also used to go scrounging around for things on the street. Makes me feel better that I'm not the only one, haha...


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So, yes, we also had another long, late weekend dinner at the Sharons'. This time though, the Benim had to pay for our dinner by helping to bury an irrigation hose in the Sharons' small patch of avocado trees. It was worth it.



The appetizers and first course: Appetizers: baba ghannoush, labanneh cheese, stuffed grape leaves, and deep-fried dumplings. First course: pumpkin+yam soup with Safda Sarah's handmade ravioli. For the main course we had green salad (with "sweetie" -- a mild grapefruit-like fruit), chicken skewers and kebabs. (I was too excited about the main course to remember to take photos, haha...) It was all so good.


(After-dinner cleanup.)

As usual, Dori was there. He's been given a present at every large dinner (so far, there has been a holiday every weekend, and holidays = presents). But this time we also had one to open, and it was the best present ever: Hebrew fridge magnets! (Incidentally, Dori was given the same set, haha...)



So far we've managed to spell our names and the alphabet. We know most of the letters and can sound things out slowly (the Rosetta stone for us has been the tri-lingual street signs). Our first Hebrew class meets tonight, so hopefully it won't take long for us to move past pre-school and into kindergarten. Early on, we bought some children's books, ("Layla Tov, Yariyach" (Goodnight Moon), "Goldberg," "The Little Prince") so we're also armed with new bedtime stories. In a funny way I'm really looking forward to penmanship exercises!

Yesterday was also slow. We spent some time with Keren and Ben (and later Dori, Dikla and Omer) at the beach. In a bold move I took my camera out in the water to get some shots of the fishermen and a few swimmers.



But now it's Sunday, which means it's time to get back to work. Gotta clean the house a bit and get some postcards mailed before class tonight. Ciao!