..we day drank in the lab...

Some of you might think that I am confusing America with Israel.  On American college campuses, day drinking in a huge thing.  It usually happens at bars, in apartments, or in other venues not associated with the university.  Here in Israel, we do day drinking a little bit differently.

Not once, but twice this week we had day drinking experiences.  One was organized. the other, less so.  Let's start with the less so.  We (the department of Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior) had just finished our weekly meeting.  Each week, a guest lecturer comes and presents to our department. These meetings are accompanied by coffee and cookies (so Israeli) and afterwards, we all usually go our separate ways for about a half hour before reconvening for lunch.

After this week's lecture, though, we (our lab, not the whole department) decided to make a toast.  A visiting researcher from the Czech Republic had brought us a bottle of Becherovka herbal bitters a few months back, and another Czech researcher was coming to visit later in the week, so the time had come to drink the bottle.  We wouldn't want to slight our collaborators by shunning their generous gift.  So we all gathered around in a circle in the lobby of our building at one in the afternoon with mugs and cups (we don't use disposables in our lab) and made a toast: "To finishing grant proposals!"  Spontaneous drinking was a nice treat and a good way to bond.  We plan to reconvene again the day before grant recipients are published (and hopefully again after).

This wasn't the first time that we did a bit of day drinking.  At the end of last year, in honor of grants received and awards won, we had a toast with wine in our department, and we had another this year to kick it off.  These were both classy events: a small cup of wine for a worthy toast.

Today's organized drinking, though, was not so refined.  The whole School of Biology had a beginning of the year kick-off with beer for students and professors.  There was hardly even a speech (unlike at the department toasts).  Instead there was free beer (a cup--not Solo Red--a person), snacks, and even a sax player.  Who would have thought that twice in one week we (my lab/all of biology/professors/30+-year-old PhD students) would take a break, just for fun, and have a drink in the middle of the day.

People always ask me if college in America is like the movies, and I usually say yes.  Israel isn't doing too badly either, though!