So it's been quiet around here lately. The weather has turned cool and cloudy (by cool I mean it's in the 70s, which after (only!) a month of 90˚F weather feels like full-on fall), so finally the jeans and long sleeves have come out.

It's a welcome change. I was so excited when the bad weather arrived; I had forgotten (again) how much I like the cold. It rained non-stop on Saturday, with a full four hours of thunderstorms in the morning. I was thrilled and spent most of the day wrapped up in a blanket. Paul, a friend of Ben's, just moved to Edinburgh; when I asked how he liked it there, he said it's "rather grey, cold and dismal -- I love it!"

I think I sort of understand how he feels.



Last night we did something unusual and ate dinner out. Keren and Ben K. met us at Goocha, a restaurant two blocks down Dizengoff; K + BK were in the neighborhood and asked us out. Keren mentioned that this place had great seafood, so I was happy to try it.





It was excellent. I ordered shrimp in coconut milk with mango and basil, and it was heaven. Ben and Keren had mussels (Ben's with a garlic + oil sauce; Keren's with a tomato and coconut cream sauce), and BK had a rice-mussel-cheese risotto-ish thing. All were awesome. We'll definitely hit this place up whenever we get the chance -- especially when people visit!

Not to diminish the quality of the food, but it was especially good because (beyond that can of oysters I mistook for clams last week) I haven't had shellfish in months. In fact, I was surprised that half the menu was shellfish -- clams, mussels, oysters, shrimp, crab -- not that I've been looking too hard, but Goocha is the first place I've encountered that serves any of that.

There is this funny city/suburb thing going on that I don't quite understand yet: in the suburbs, there are actually more places that sell and serve non-kosher food, and which are open on the sabbath. In the city, however, almost every store is closed according to sabbath law (sundown Friday to sundown Saturday), and I have yet to find a market in the city that sells cans of clams (my mission last weekend was unsuccessful). I thought it would be the other way around, since my assumption is that cities generally host a more diverse population than the 'burbs. But as most of my experience with urban life has been in New York -- New York is definitely not like most other cities -- I'm probably way off.




And I've been meaning to say: Before I left the States everyone asked whether it would be safe here. Well, it's really safe. You can walk the streets at any time of the day or night and feel comfortable. There are always people around. I've been out until after midnight in the parks and on the beaches; even then there are still lots of people walking, jogging, talking. It's really wonderful. But -- whenever you enter any enclosure (grocery stores, malls, many cafes, etc), your bag is searched by a guard and often you're wanded with a metal detector. You have to access the university via certain pedestrian gates, and when you enter your bags are searched. It's become such a regular thing that I don't even think about it any more (and it helps that I'm such a sweet looking girl (haha), I often just get waved by).

Last night was the same -- seated next to the hostess on the patio was the guard (a twenty-something, normal guy), who I barely looked at except to absently show my bag. I thought it was a little unusual that he was carrying a man bag (you know what I mean -- those square nylon or pleather man purses -- Ben has one now, haha...) -- but I wasn't really paying attention because I was looking for K + BK. It turns out that what I saw wasn't a man bag. I had seen only the strap and assumed it was a bag. In fact, it was a mini-Uzi (says Keren, the former army sniper instructor, who then lectured us about how convenient a field weapon it is). Both Bens were awed -- that's the kind of thing you see in movies, not on a casual dinner date.

Having spent six months in Rome, where there is a very visible police force who all tote around huge machine guns always at the ready, I'm not as surprised to see heavy weaponry on the street. But it's a reminder of how tense things are under the happy surface. We really aren't in Kansas anymore.



Lastly: this is for you, Mom -- me, this morning, sitting on the messy unmade bed. I've gotta do some housecleaning today so it won't stay unmade much longer. Just thought I'd peek out from behind the camera to say a quick hello. I think you can still (although just barely) make out the tan lines from my split-toed shoes, from before I bought myself those green flip-flops.