Touring with my sister!

Recently my beloved little sister took a break from med school residency interviews to visit me and my husband in Israel. You better believe we crammed as much as we could into one week including Jerusalem (above), an after-hours soak in the Dead Sea (below #1), hanging out in Tel Aviv (Jaffa Port, below #2), and the Sea of Galilee (below #s 3 and 4). We also went to Bethlehem, Nazareth, Acre, and Haifa.

It's fun to experience new things with family, don't you think? So, when are you coming to visit?

Rain Rain Go Away

It has rained for a week and a half straight (strange weather for this part of the world), and I'm starting to miss the warmth. Time to bake some chocolate chip pumpkin bread.

In other news, we are the proud aunt and uncle of a new baby boy!! We have total baby fever and can't wait for the next skype date.

This is a picture from a recent trip to Bethlehem before the weather took a turn for the worse. Come back, sunshine!

Marines, You Rock!

I am usually a pretty stubborn tomboy.* Sometimes [ahem, almost always] I don't even blow-dry my hair in the morning. But when I get the chance, I love dressing up.

This weekend my spouse and I attended a celebration for the anniversary of the Marine Corps. Our Embassy (as are all Embassies) is guarded by a sweet group of Marines, so it is a tradition to have a ball to celebrate the occasion. I have loved getting to know the young men and women who are assigned to our post. I think it's a lovely tradition and a great way to build up the community.

We had a fun time with our friends and coworkers. Little known fact: I LOVE to dance!

*PS: sort of obsessed with the blog Tomboy Style right now. Have you read it?

The Great Outdoors

Do you like camping? Living abroad, I miss Shenandoah National Park where we used to camp with our friends. However, we've had some good experiences here in Israel, including last weekend. What is your favorite part of camping? Mine is waking up the next morning bundled up in a sleeping bag and feeling so refreshed and relaxed (and looking forward to the campfire coffee!).

We picked up some fresh ground Arabic coffee with hel (a spicy cardamom mixture added to coffee) in Nazareth on our way to the campsite and my spouse made it in our copper Turkish kettle.

Last weekend we also biked in the "soldier ride" with some visiting wounded veterans as part of the wounded warrior project. I don't usually interact with a lot of veterans, so it was a unique and meaningful opportunity.

Let's Catch Up!

We've got some catching up to do!

This first picture was taken a few weekends ago during a promotional sailing lesson. If you live on the East Coast of America, you wouldn't believe how nice the weather still is in Israel. Although we loved the lesson and were inspired by the skipper's "Do you have a dream of sailing to Greece?" pitch, we need more time to think about it before we commit the time and money for certification lessons.

Last week a friend from A-100 came for a visit, which was a great excuse to go out to our favorite restaurants and try some new ones. We loved showing her our city and hearing about her experiences at her post. Here we are with a group of friends at a winery in the Judean hills.

I know you're dying to hear what we were for Halloween this year! We decided to go as the characters from the movie Drive. David's jacket turned out great, and I wore a blonde wig to be Carey Mulligan. Unfortunately, no one here had seen the movie.

Lastly, we ran another 10K. Remember the Nike Night Run we ran last year? I wasn't as sore or tired after the race this year--which either means I ran slower or I am in better shape. I'm going with the latter option and setting my sights higher: Half marathon anyone?

On Blogging and Modern Communication

I enjoy blogging so much more than Facebook or other forms of modern communication. I know I don't update my own blog nearly enough, but I enjoy checking up on the blogs I follow--my friends, family, and even some strangers whom I have come to regard as friends. Blogs are like a secret window into someone's life, and a well crafted blog is thought-provoking and engaging, like a good novel. I'll admit, there is a degree of voyeurism and hyper-reality to the culture--many people write about this or that outfit, makeup, interior decorating, crafting, or party planning--but behind all of that is a narrative arc that to me is completely sincere. I don't think I'm the only one who feels this way, but explaining it to someone who is not familiar with the culture is very difficult.

My book club just read the book The Most Human Human by Brian Christian. I highly recommend it! It is all about the author's endeavor to win the most "Human Human" award in the Turing Test: A test where a judge will chat for five minutes with a human "confederate" and an AI chatbot and afterwards guess which is which. The most "Human Human" award goes to the confederate who was able to convince the most judges that he was a human. The book got all of us thinking about what it means to be human when computers and AI are becoming increasingly complex.

I brought up my blogging "hobby" and one of my friends jokingly (but a little not) asked how I know the people who write these blogs are who they say they are. "I know a Nigerian prince who could use some money..." she teased. She has a point, and I was horrified and enthralled by the documentary Catfish (Watch it! I won't give away anything here). It would be very difficult for a chatbot to maintain a sophisticated blog... but a very bored human could exaggerate the details of his or her life or fabricate something entirely. But I've never mistrusted the blogging community...at least not the ones that I read.

What do you think? Do you have a similar relationship to the blogs you read? Have you ever doubted an author's sincerity? Do I live in a gullible la la land?

New Year and More

We've recently passed several milestones of the Jewish Calendar. For Rosh HaShana (Jewish New Year) my husband and I visited our old stomping grounds: Vienna, Austria. We took advantage of the direct flight and the fact that we had two days off work. Vienna is my favorite city in Europe. Forget Paris or Berlin...Vienna is the place to be. My husband and I studied abroad there and lived there after graduating college. This time when we visited, it felt like we had never left--and we almost didn't want to! Below you will see (1) the "exotischer salat" at the Nashmarkt, complete with the new wine called Sturm, (2) the Hapsburg Palace Shoenbrunn, and (3) the Vienna woods.

For Yom Kippur (the Jewish Day of Atonement) all the streets were closed to traffic and we rode our bikes on the highway to a neighboring town. It was a good workout and an eerie experience. The next day we just relaxed in our apartment because everything is closed.

Celebrating two New Years gives me two chances to renew my resolutions. This year I still would like to learn how to make bread (so far I have made banana bread, honey bread, naan, biscuits, scones, and pizza dough) and I would like to start waking up earlier, reading the newspaper, and walking to work while listening to a podcast or book on tape. We'll see how long that lasts.

Last, but certainly not least, a blogger friend of mine, Kate Miss, recently found out some bad news about her boyfriend. You can read about it here and/or support them by purchasing some of her rad prints as a fundraiser. I have been very shaken by the fact that they are so young, but I also know that young people are resourceful and generous. Please consider buying a print for a good cause.

Thanks everyone and Shana Tova vMetuka (have a good and sweet new year)!