...instead of stressing out, I just said...

In Israel, a pretty common phrase is yihiyeh b'seder, it will be okay.  It is the phrase used when exams are hard, packages go missing, apartment searching feels impossible, and for just about any other time where there seems to be a relatively annoying or insurmountable amount stress.

Today, I got a call from the company that is making my closet.  I was told that it would be delivered next Thursday (!! early !!).  They gave me the delivery time and then asked if I had a second contact number.  As I am not married and living in an era where home phones are becoming obsolete, I said that I didn't.   The worker seemed a bit flustered and asked if I was sure; if my phone died or I didn't have cell reception they would need to contact someone else.  It was so Israeli when instead of stressing out, I just said yihiyeh b'seder. It was even more Israeli when he said okay.

...I tried to leave a store and...

I am getting ready to move into a new apartment, and while I am really excited about the place I found (it is completely remodeled and the location is perfect) and the roommates (really down-to-earth, green-minded Israeli) it is unfurnished.  That meant I had to decide how I wanted to buy new furniture: first hand or second, fancy schmancy, or on a budget.  I needed to buy a closet, a bed, and some furniture for my (private!!) balcony.

For my closet, I decided to buy new because by the time I found one (big enough) second hand, paid for delivery, and figured how to rebuild the not so stable closet, it would be comparable in price and not such great quality.  Buying a bed new, though, was not comparable in price to buying a used one.  It was, however, a smart decision, especially when considering what might have gone on in the bed before I bought it...

I spent most of yesterday shopping in the furniture "district" of Jerusalem: Talpiyot.  It is an industrial area with a ton of bed stores, furniture stores, kitchen stores, and the like.  I wandered around for a few hours, bounced on a few beds, took a few naps, and sweated a lot (summer here is brutal).  I met a lot of fun[ny] store owners too.  It was so Israeli when one saw that I was taking notes about prices and told me that I had to start a new, nice, clean page for his store.  It was also so Israeli when I tried to leave another store and the manager and the woman helping me (who had both brought me cups of water and asked my name--as did several other store owners) tried to get my phone number to do a follow-up.  I told them not to worry; if I wanted to buy from their store, I would obviously return.

In the end, though, I did not return to either of those stores.  I bought my closet at one store (I got to pick a finish and handles!!), and on my third trip there in one day (once to look at prices, once to order the closet, and once with a friend and her car) I also bought balcony furniture.  It wasn't such an Israeli store, but my "olah chadasha" (new immigrant) status came in handy when I asked for them to rush the order so it would come in time for me to move in without too much rush or stress.  I bought my bed (a futon, actually) in another store.  I also bonded with the manager there and managed to get a bit of a discount on the futon/delivery.  I made a comment while lying on the futon that it seemed very low to the ground.  He surprisingly told me that he would be able to special order the futon several centimeters higher, and with a bit more bargaining, I was able to order that at no extra cost too.

On the whole, furniture shopping was definitely stressful, but it wasn't so Israeli.  It was actually quite American, which was nice. Hopefully everything will get built well (I bult my balcony table well!!) and delivered in time.

...we pulled together an emergency operation in the middle of the night...

Last week, when we were in the Golan, my lab partner went up to our final nest to collect feathers and put identification rings on the two chicks in the nest.  When he got up to the nest, though, he was met with a surprise.  One of the chicks was healthy and maturing well.  The other was not.  It seemed that one of the parents had brought some sort of rope back to the nest to use in nest building, but somehow, the other chick got wrapped in the rope in such a way that he could not free itself.  The rope was wrapped so tightly around one of his legs that it broke, and eventually detached.  The way the rope was wrapped though, prevented major blood loss, and the chick is still alive.  The rope also seemed to be tied tightly to the bottom of the nest.  The chick was caught in such a position that he could not stretch or straighten his other leg, and because he could not stand, he was unable to compete with his sibling for food that the adult storks brought back to the nest.  

 While we have no way of knowing how long the chick was caught this way, we would assume more than a couple of days because the other sibling had a body mass twice that of the injured chick.  The chick hadn't eaten in what seemed like more than a few days.  We brought him down from the nest, cut off some of the rope and gave him some water to drink.  He was initially in shock, but after a few minutes and water, he seemed to be doing okay.  It was already getting late, though, and we had a three hour drive back to the Tel Aviv area.  By the time we would get back, none of the animal hospitals would be open.  It was so Israeli when my lab partner pulled out his phone and called one of the more important people he had in his phone book: someone high up in the Israel Nature & Parks Authority.  From there, we got a contact for a veterinarian, and she made the arrangements for someone to meet us at the animal hospital when we got there.  We took our drive with our stork in the back seat in pretty high spirits and delivered him to the hospital.  They did an emergency surgery and we are still waiting to hear of his progress.  If he can strengthen his healthy leg, he will be able to live in the Zoological Gardens in Tel Aviv.  While he won't be able to return to nature, his offspring could!

...we crossed private property and restricted areas, but we did it responsibly...

on the roof of the cow shed (see below)

Since arriving back in Israel, I have had plenty of lab work to do, but whenever I have the opportunity to go out to the field with my lab-mate, I try to say "yes."  Yesterday was one such day.  It was a day of a few firsts and crazy experiences (as always).

The day started early in Jerusalem, for me at least.  I had to pick up the lab jeep from campus and drive to Tel Aviv.  I am not a bad driver, and I am not bad at directions, but driving a new car in a new place isn't always the most fun.  Luckily, at 7am I missed most of the morning traffic; I had studied my map well; and I had a good handle of the HUGE (well compared to tiny Israeli cars) lab vehicle.  I arrived more or less on time and picked up my lab mate, so we could start the three-hour drive up to the Golan where our storks nest.

When we got to the North, we drove around a bit observing the nests.  The storks have grown a lot since we came last to ring and take feathers.  The nestlings of one nest were already beginning flight exercises.  The nestlings of the other nest were younger, and we came, in part, with the intention of going up to their nest to get feathers and ring them because last time they were too small.  Before we went up to the nest, though, we had a lot of observing to do.  An overarching goal in the Golan is to catch the adult storks and put on trackers and transmitters.  That way we can understand more about their migration.  There are also adults that don't have rings, so if we can ring them, they can easily be identified in Israel or elsewhere, and their ages, breeding sites, and other details can be more accurately be recorded.

Catching adult storks, though, is not so easy.  We have been trying a number of things until now and none have worked, so yesterday was dedicated to determining if our storks have fixed foraging sites, and if so, locating them.    We first observed the comings of goings from a hill between two relatively close nests.  We tried getting to the hill from several different angles, but there was a pretty serious fence around it.  As we were trying to get to the hill, one of the adults flew up.  I quickly scrambled to the roof of the jeep to get a better view of where she came from and where she was off to.  Once she flew off, we continued searching for a cut-through to the hill.

our picnic/observation spot on an old bunker

We finally found a gate that wasn't locked and pulled the jeep up to the entrance.  On the other side of the fence that we were about to cross to climb to the hill of an old bunker that was fenced off from most sides was a horse and a young foal.  The foal looked pretty exhausted from the heat and was lying in the sun.  It was so Israeli when, before going in and setting up our picnic area/observing point, we called the village security to tell them not only about the young foal but also that we would be sitting there for the next several hours to observe.  We also told them that we would be going up to the nest later in the day.  All went well and we began our ascent.  As we were walking up, we were greeted by a few more animals: donkeys this time.  They came out from inside the shady, cool, defunct bunker and began to follow us.  After a few minutes though, they turned around, and we found ourselves a nice sunny spot to put our chairs and umbrellas.

our car far far away and on the other side of the barbed fence

We had a nice picnic and did some good observing.  After getting a sense of where the storks were flying we tried to drive around a bit and see if we could see them foraging.  No such luck.  Instead we went for ice cream and then continued to a reservoir to see if the storks were there.  When we got there, there was barbed wire, a notice about drowning, and not a soul in sight.  It was so Israeli when we casually walked up to the wire and climbed right through.  We saw a ton of storks and other birds and even a few storks, but most of the storks we saw were younger, non-breeding ones.  We walked around the reservoir for a while, though, seeing the sights and the birds.  Then we went back to the car to drive to another area of the reservoir (also through a fence of two and past a few private property signs).  This view and another pond area used by the cows as a watering hole (they were actually swimming!) were nice but free of storks so we decided to head back to the nest with the young storks, collect feathers, and drive to one more watering whole that might be a foraging site for storks.

ladder to the roof

squirting cucumber

Right as we were pulling into the farm with the nests, though, we saw an adult land on the nest.  We parked and quickly scrambled up a ladder to the roof of a cowshed.  We got up just in time to see the stork fly off into the direction we were suspecting, thus further confirming our suspicion that they might be foraging on the trail we wanted to drive on near the watering whole.  We came down to the fence and headed over to the nest with a member of the village and his lift/cherry picker/thing.  While we were waiting for him, I discovered (i.e. my lab partner introduced me) to the coolest plant ever, the squirting cucumber.  When you touch them they pop, squirt, and break off the vine almost simultaneously. I definitely went around for a good five minutes finding ripe ones to touch and explode while my lab-mate was getting ready to go up to the nest.  I joined him a few minutes later to prepare feather sample envelopes and the sorts, and then the lift was ready.  The rest of our day, however, did not go as planned....

...a box containing biological samples...

I have been back in Israel just a few days, but they have been busy ones.  Within the first 24 hours of my arrival, I collected all of my bags, took a two hour sheirt ride home, unpacked and organized my room, saw a friend, slept a decent night's sleep, more-or-less adjusted to the time change, grocery shopped, and went back to work.

When I got to work, after being greeted with warm welcomes and demands for chocolate (lab policy: anyone who leaves the country must return with chocolate from the place they visited), I unlocked the door to my office and was met with four boxes bursting with feather samples.  I knew that most of my samples were being collected and shipped while I was away, but I guess I just never wrapped my head around it.  Although I am still waiting for another couple of boxes (sent later than these), these have arrived safe and sound.  That usually doesn't happen with the Israeli Post. (I've been waiting almost two months for a package and have be battling with the Post Office—so Israeli.  More on that next time, though.)  And sending feathers across borders may or may not be frowned upon.  In my case, though, a note to FedEx that was simply taped on the box seemed to clear it up.  As I started looking through the boxes of feathers, I was surprised when I saw what the notice actually said, "CONTENTS: Office/work material (feathers).  This package contains non-hazardous material from scientific collections that do not risk public health.  No commercial value (declared value = 1 euro)."  It was so Israeli when (or maybe more aptly, only in Israel would) a box containing biological samples (feathers) was shipped internationally and arrived unscathed within days, even with the questionable contents declared for all to see.  Needless to say I am quite glad because some of my peers have not been as lucky with shipments.

Now that I have my feathers, the fun part starts: hours upon hours of lab work.  I know most of the procedures that I will be using; now I just need to perfect them and fine tune the for this sample set.   I'm sure I will still lead a very Israeli life, but it is about to get busy with lab work and an upcoming ulpan. But there are never a shortage of stories and crazy experiences here, and I couldn't be happier.