...we gave up and pulled out a cake...

Storks mating.  When we first got to the nest,
it was empty which is odd for this time of
the season, but then to our relief, both storks
returned to the nest, mated, and stayed for a
 bit.  I took this from my injured post at the
cab of Ichyeh's truck.

This past Sunday in the Golan, I sprained my ankle.  It was a big pain in the butt because my lab partner and I had a lot to do.  We were putting up camera systems so we could remotely observe the storks.  I had built most of the system and done all of the wiring, so I was in charge for the day.  We started out early and after a three and a half hour drive, made it to the Golan.  The lift was there to meet us a bit before 9am and we got right to work.

Ichyeh, our lift driver, was a hero from the start.  He had a strong background in building and was able to provide us skills, suggestions, and tools to make our lives easier and our system more stable.  We all worked well together and got off to a pretty good start.  The residents of the village who I had been in touch with to get permissions for erecting the first of our systems were all impressed by how seriously we were taking the mission, and we had set out to do a really good job.  Somewhere between our electricity source and the point where we would be mounting the camera, though, I sprained my ankle.

I had been clearing chest-high bushes with my leg and making large outward steps in the process.  On one of the outward step/plant clearing maneuvers, I put my I stepped into a ditch that had been completely covered by plants.  The bottom was about a foot down, and when I landed, I was in a lot of pain,  My first thought was that I had just rolled my ankle, but after a few minutes, it was clear I would not be able to just "walk it off."  My lab partner sat me down on the spot, and Ichyeh helped me take off my shoe and take a look at my ankle.  After a brief massage, the assessment was that I hadn't broken a bone, but I also would not be able to work the rest of the day.  They helped me to the cab of Ichyeh's truck, set me up with music and air con and got to work.

My lab partner on his own.

I explained to my lab partner what the rest of the plan was, and he stepped up to the occasion   Ichyeh was also a huge help conveying messages and prevent a few major screw ups.  We came to a point where I had to do some programming work from the ground while my lab partner was in the air.  Ichyeh helped to the spot and brought over all of the supplies I needed.  Then he did a number of laps to the electricity source and back to where I was to make sure the power supply was on or off as necessary.  It was definitely beyond his job description but we wouldn't have been able to do it without him.  I was immobile on the ground and my partner was in the air on the lift working on the cameras.  Sometime during all of these laps, Ichyeh and I exchanged numbers so I could call him when he was by the power supply to let him know when to stop turning up the voltage.  We communicated successfully, I finished trouble-shooting the system, and everything was up and running.

My post for the afternoon and evening...

Success!!

We finished a few hours behind schedule because my lab partner was working alone for much of the day, but in the end we finished and we finished well.  We were off to the next site.  Time was short, and we realized that for a number of practical reasons aside from time, we wouldn't be able to succeed.  It was so Israeli when instead, I pulled out a cake I had brought and my lab partner, Ichyeh, and I stood around eating and chatting.  Ichyeh invited us to visit him in his Bedouin village saying we would always be welcome and to ask for him.  We also found out that he had been working for the lift company a few years back, after five years had left for another job, and had come back today as a trial day.  We were shocked and thrilled by how helpful and capable he was. (The next day, I called the company and compliment his work.)  We finished our cake and called it a day.  Ichyeh wished me well and left my lab partner and me to finish our work.

The system, up and running.

About an hour later, we had checked up on the camera, finalized the programming, and were heading home.  My ankle started to really hurt at that point, and once we got back to Jerusalem, I dropped off my lab partner at the bus station to Tel Aviv, a brought off the pick-up to the lab.  I was met there by another lab member who unloaded everything for us (THANK YOU!!) and took me to TEREM, the emergency clinic.  I don't think I would have survived without her.  At TEREM, I was given a wheel chair (at that point, I couldn't walk), but I was expected to maneuver it myself.  That obviously wasn't happening.

Not the best day, but at least one camera system work!!!

After a relatively short weight, I was brought into a nurse who took my pulse and asked me if I had any allergies.  Without looking at my ankle, she sent me to have x-rays, and then I was back in the waiting room.  My friend had to go ask for some sort of a pain killer because I had been given nothing.  She also had to keep pestering the administration to look at my x-ray.  After a miserable wait of an hour (or more, I have no idea), once I was thoroughly grossed out by snot and germs and sickness everywhere, a doctor "saw" me.  It was so Israeli when I was called back to a hallway where a doctor talked at me for all of a minute in a half.  Luckily he talked at me in a mix of English and Hebrew, but it really wasn't the most informative "doctor's visit."  After that, my friend wheeled me a little farther down the hallway while we waited for someone to come wrap my ankle.  When my name was called, a was wheeled into a nook with very sick babies, bleeding patients and a few other people getting joints bandaged.  It was an all purpose, germ-filled waiting corral and I couldn't be more excited to leave.

After a few questions to the whoever who wrapped my leg, a discharge paper only half filled out, and not even accurately (so Isareli), we went to pay (76₪ because no bones were broken; it would have been free if I had a break) and were on our way.  I left with a prescription for crutches and an air cast.  It was so Israeli that the crutches, though prescribed and subsidized, were not available at the clinic and couldn't be picked up until the next morning after 830am which was inconvenient, but luckily my friend offered to get them for me.

I spent the next day in bed and hobbling around, still not able to put much weight on my ankle.  An hour or so before seder, another friend from the lab came to pick me up and drive me to seder.  I slept at my friends that night a the two after as well, and in the end, I ended up taking a Passover break.  I couldn't hike or travel like I had considered and like my friends were, but I also didn't work.  I have spent most of my time relaxing, studying, and catching up on reading.  I got a nice surprise on Wednesday, though.  It was so Israeli when I got a call from Ichyeh.  He was calling to check up on me, make sure nothing was broken, and wish me a happy holiday.  While it has been annoying not being able to walk, my friends (and Ichyeh) have really come through.  My pharmacy, run by my insurance company, and meant to be extremely inclusive and convenient, however, has not.  My Israeli sprained ankle saga continues (but I think this blog post is a bit long so I'll save it for another day).

...it didn't get better.

I thought Thursday would be the worst of the Obama madness.  I really had counted on it.  But I was wrong.  Friday was worse.  So much worse.

I headed out of the house around 9am to go to campus to organize a few last things for my current project.  As I got to the bus stop, I saw that the road ahead was closed.  My bus would have to take a round-about route that might not stop on campus.  I decided to walk.

The deserted road to campus/home from town.

My walk started out well.  I met less cops than the day before and the ones I met said I wouldn't have a problem getting to campus via my normal route.  But that was not quite the case.  About a minuteafter I asked the first cluster of police officers if I would be able to get to campus, I was stopped and told the road was closed to pedestrians (but not to cars...so Israeli).  I explained that I had just been told the road all the way to campus would be open, so the police woman called a few other people and in the end agreed to let me pass.

A completely blocked off intersection on my walk home.

Another few minutes down the road, I was stopped again.  This time the officer said the road was closed and after our exchange and his follow-up check with a few other security officers, it actually was.  But still only to pedestrians--cars were allowed to pass freely.  It was so Israeli when he let me go anyways because I had already been given "permission" by two other people, so who was he to take it away.  I didn't complain and continued my walk to campus.  When I got to the end of the secured area, right near campus, an officer came up to me and asked if he could ask me a question.  Of course I said yes, and he asked where I had come from.  When I told him that I cam from the direction of Israel Museum, he did not seem thrilled, but I had reached campus and just continued on my way, so there was nothing else for me to do.

It was so Israeli when we used buses to block roads.

The rest of the day went down hill from there.  I was able to catch a bus into town without too many problems, but getting home was a disaster.  Somewhere between the 78°F morning and my sunny shopping trip around town, the winds picked up. Then the temperature dropped, and we were in the midst of a full blown dust storm.  I went to wait for a bus because the weather was too horrendous to walk in.  It was also apparently too horrendous for Obama because instead of flying to Bethlehem he drove.  And because he drove the roads were closed.  And because the roads were closed my bus couldn't drive its normal route.  And because I live at the intersection of all of two closed roads, I couldn't take a different bus.  And because there was a sand storm, I was miserable for the entire walk home.  I was so happy to be wearing sunglasses as eye protection.  But I also desperately wanted a scarf.  I was inhaling sand and could feel it caking on my lips, recently chap-sticked in response to the sudden appearance of cold, dry weather.  It had cooled off quite a bit too, and I was not prepared for the chill or the sand or the walk.  I was prepared for Obama to leave and for my life to return to normal.  Now, it finally has.

One of the many memes surrounding Obama's visit.

...we tried to turn left and the president...

This sign is all over the city!

The past couple of days have been crazy ones.  I have been working on a really big project in the lab, and I have been putting in a ton of hours.  I was also swamped with Pesach shopping and preparations, and to make matters worse, President Obama is in town.

The country has been preparing for his visit for over a week.  There are flags and signs and banners EVERYWHERE, and now that he is here, there is security in more places than just EVERYWHERE.

I thought that by staying on campus for the majority of his visit, I would avoid the problem, but Wednesday, when I was trying to get back from the machsan (the place where we order and pick up equipment (PVC pipes, pippettes, printer paper, etc.)), I was told I wasn't allowed to walk back across campus to my lab.  The president's helicopter was about to land in the stadium just outside of campus, and therefore, I had to make the most ridiculous circle ever just to walk somewhere which should have been less that ten minutes away.

The Israeli Museum with a blimp above it...at 615am.

The next day wasn't much better.  Obama was supposed to be visiting the Israel Museum (between my house and campus--I walk through its parking lot on my normal route to the lab) around 9am.  Postings on various governmental websites said that the roads would be closed in the area starting at about 745, the time I usually take my bus through the area to campus.  I decided to walk that morning to avoid any stop-us, and I decided to leave my house around 630 to be safely in the lab before 7 and before any road closures.  I did not miss the road closures, however.  And the police and soldiers coordinating traffic were not vary organized.  I can not tell you the number of times I had to cross to the other side of the street or swoop around various areas.  My twenty minute walk was almost doubled because the president was sleeping in a hotel across town.

That wasn't the end of it though.  I was supposed to tutor in the afternoon yesterday across town.  I was a bit nervous about the buses, and although the roads were supposed to be open during my arrival and departure from tutoring, I decided that I would walk instead of relying on buses.  I get an email an hour or so before I am planning on leaving from the family I work with saying that the roads by their house are already closed and that I will not be able to get there.  Obama was giving a speech in a convention center at least 20 minutes away from their house by car at the time that I got the email, yet somehow, just the fact that he is in the country has the power to shut down the whole city.  I wasn't too upset about being spared an hour and twenty minute walk, but it was still beyond ridiculous.

Most annoyingly (thus far), must have been my journey to dinner.  It would normally be a 20 minute bus ride, but the bus I wanted wasn't running.  I was too exhausted to walk by the end of my day, so I decided that I would take a bus to the central bus station and from there transfer to where I needed to go.  The bus I wanted came, and I got on.  It started to drive its normal route.  Then we came to a road block.  We needed to make a left turn, and the police wouldn't let us.  The president was across town where I tutor, though, so the block really made no sense.  The street we were turning onto was a two way street, and traffic was running in the other direction, but our direction was blocked.  It was so Israeli when our bus driver did a fair bit of yelling at the "lazy police of Israel" (his words, not mine) saying there should be someone at the start of the street we had come from telling buses that the routes would be closed, amongst other much more colorful things.

After a few tense minutes of yelling, we straightened ourselves out, continued straight to a traffic circle, turned around, and drove back the way we came to find another route.  It was even more Israeli when as we were approaching our "blocked left turn," now on the right, we were surprised to see people turning down the road.  In the two minutes it had taken us to turn around at the traffic circle, the road had been unblocked and we were able to turn down it and continue the normal route.  The rest of my trip was filled with traffic, both president related and otherwise, and it took me over an hour to get to my destination, but dinner was worth it...yummmm.

President Obama is leaving today, and I couldn't be more excited!  Enjoy him, America.  He's all yours.

...we were toursists in our own city

A few months ago, my friends and I took part in an awesome Friday morning activity: a scavenger hunt in Nachlaot, a historic residential neighborhood in Jerusalem. One of our friends works for a company that designs scavenger hunts, and she wanted to try it out on us before she led a group of visiting tourists in the same hunt.

We lucked out and had beautiful weather. We split into two teams; got a list of clues, a map, and a source sheet with some interesting facts; and then we were off. It was a really fun morning, and I saw so many things I have never noticed. I lived in the area of the scavenger hunt for a few months, and there were so many things to which I was completely oblivious. Below are a few pictures of some amazing things that I had walked by tens of times and never noticed.

 

 

Part of the scavenger hunt was also to talk to a local and learn something new about the area. I was the nominee of our group because my Hebrew was the best, and I picked a photographer who was snapping up some of the same pictures as we were.  He turned out not to be a local of Nachlaot, but he lived just outside of Jerusalem and came often to photograph historic areas in this city and throughout the country. He was not religious, but he was drawn to the Old City and beautiful historical shuls. He seemed like a pretty typical, secular Israeli, but seeing his appreciation for Jerusalem was really inspiring. The conversation with him was a nice reminder of why I love this city, and walking around exploring was a great way to spend the morning enjoying the nice weather. Now I'm just waiting for our friend to need another trial run so I can explore even more of this amazing city I call home.

 

...I looked up to see a huge aquarium coming at me.

I work in an ecology lab.  We study birds, but a trademark of just about everyone in the lab is an unbounded  love for animals.  Last month, the entryway of our building was remodeled.  We got a new aquarium and a few display cases for some skulls, sells, fossils, and skeletons.  There was one question though: what to do with the old aquarium.

Before...Filthy.  The fire hose is coming in for the rescue...

The old aquarium was a disgusting thing that I had never really looked at.  I wasn't sure if there were fish inside or just a few plants, moldy-looking sand, and dirty, brown water.  Lo and behold, there were fish in the tank, and these fish weren't "pretty enough" for the new aquarium in our new entryway.  Because we are animal lovers, our lab somehow became responsible for preventing the demise of the fish in the old tank.  I, being less involved in department things, as I am still relatively new, was in my office for most of this day- (entire day-) long discussion.  Suddenly, I heard a terrible screeching noise.  It was so Israeli when I popped my head out of my room and was shocked to see a huge, mostly empty (water was removed to make moving easier) aquarium, table and all, coming at me.

My office was not the original destination of the tank, but after finding that it wouldn't fit in the proposed location, it ended up in our room, a dirty, sad fish tank.  I went back to work while discussion continued, and the next time I looked up, there was a fire hose being pulled through the door.  The tank was filled, and the water started to clear the slightest bit.  Each day, the tank got a new addition: oxygen, a filter, new plants, rocks, a super-strong magnet to clean the glass, etc.  And each day, the fish got prettier.  They went from dull to bright and patterned with stripes and colored spots, and since they have been moved to our room, not a single one has died.  (Apparently they had been dying at a rate of at least one fish per day.)

The fish tank, while not completely clear, is on it's way to beauty.  Our fish are much healthier, and they are really starting to develop unique behaviors.  One fish, in particular, has taken to guarding a large rock on the left side of the tank; that is why most of the fish can be seen on the right side, away from his aggressive behavior.  Another result of our efforts is that the clean glass has a mirror effect, and it is quite a show to watch the fish interact not only with one another but also with themselves.  It is definitely distracting to have the fish with us, but it is also relaxing and fun.  Hopefully with care, and an eventual division of the fish into a second aquarium (to eliminate crowding), they will continue to thrive and maybe even reproduce.  Fun fact: These fish carry their eggs in their mouths until hatching.

After: Mirror-y with a concentration of fish on the right side...