Hydrate your situation...preserve your sexy.

I think pretty much everyone knows that you should drink more water. But I have to say, hydration never really seemed like a truly crucial issue to me, until I got the stomach flu in the middle of a Middle East summer.

Last week I caught a bug (or ate something bad) and spent three days in bed/the bathroom. Now, if you've ever been stricken with food poisoning/stomach flu, you know that water does NOT help things. The only thing I really 'consumed' was Coke, and after 48 hours small bits of bread. 

You don't need all the details, but the new experience I had in all of this was being severely dehydrated.

On Wednesday, when my troubles began, I went to work in the morning. This means that I left my house at 8am (when it's already 75 degrees and humid) and immediately began sweating. But I couldn't drink water. It did not sit well. By 11am when I called it, left work, and headed home I had a fever, so I was cold, but it was 90 degrees outside, so I was sweating. I got home and took a shower, nursed a bottle of Coke, but all I wanted was water. I have never been more thirsty in my life.

Granted, this situation is far from an emergency, I was not dying of thirst in the Sahara. But I wanted water like I was, and I knew I couldn't drink any. 

The long and short of it is, now that my body is back to normal, I'm drinking as much water as I can at every opportunity I get. I have never (not even after almost 2 years here in Israel) been more aware that hydration is key. It is basic. It is the number one need any of us have. 

So folks, wherever you are...take a sip of water. Be grateful that you have enough whenever you want it, and keep your situation hydrated.

Why can't every weekend be like this?

The way every day should end...

In the last two weeks the weather here in Tel Aviv has shifted from "summer" to "I'm melting."

Which basically means that you sweat standing still in the shade at 8am.

So, to beat the heat and mark the arrival of real summer in Israel...

we went camping on the beach last weekend.

The tent city.

I have to say, Israelis just get how to do summer.

After a quick drive to less-crowded beaches north of Tel Aviv, Itzik and his man-friends took less than 30 min to set up a large common tent, a kitchen, a small tent city, and the relaxing began.

Not bad for the first thing you see when you wake up on a Saturday morning...

Waitin' for Mom to wake up.

We spent Friday night and Saturday grilling, drinking, swimming, drinking, eating, drinking...you get it.

It never ceases to amaze me how remarkably peaceful it is if you just get a stone's throw outside of Tel Aviv.

Steak, drinks, bonfires, friends, soft sand, and the Mediterranean Sea...

this is summer done right.

Lately.

There have been so many things I wanted to write about but I really haven't had much energy left over after trying to live my life this last month to write about it. So, here's a quick update:

A month ago I started a new job, 

so Itzik and I decided that it was time to start looking for a new place to live.

Both of these things sound exciting, but turned out to be real trials for our relationship.

The bad news is that it caused so many arguments I wasn't sure we'd make it to a new place.

The good news is that we found a place, and moved this weekend.

We made it.

Beach Season

Maggy and Kurt came to Tel Aviv to celebrate their anniversary a couple of weeks ago, 

and we spent an afternoon on the beach together. 

Their visit coincided with a 'heat wave' which marked the beginning of summer (it was 90 degrees all week), and it felt so good to swim in the sea and relax in the hot sun (...under an umbrella with lots of SPF). 

Summer here makes me feel simultaneously excited and terrified. The weather now is so beautiful- 85 during the day, 70 at night) but come June/July/August it will be too hot to function. It's almost like winter, in that you don't leave the comfort of temperature controlled indoors unless you are going from A to B...or to the beach. In any case...I'm bathing in sunscreen these days.

Moving

Balagan.

It's no secret that moving is one of the most stressful life events there is.

Add to that the language barrier (not being able to read online apt postings, needing a translator at the bank, feeling generally useless and making your partner feel totally burdened...) 

well...you can imagine how fun the process has been. 

Itzik has been incredible, and done so much work to find a new home for us.

I've done as much as possible, and tried to be patient and understanding when he felt (understandably) overwhelmed.

Now that I'm not living there anymore, I can say openly how wretched our old place was.

It was Itzik's bachelor pad, and I felt like I was squatting there for the last 8 months.

The landlord was a jerk, the plumbing backed up into our bathroom, there were bugs, loud neighbors, zero storage, less space, one window, and was far from where we both work and play. 

We had no elbow room, felt claustrophobic, and it was not good for either of us as individuals or a couple.

But now we have a much bigger place, in the middle of Tel Aviv, with a real kitchen, a huge living room, big windows, and landlords who are friends of Itzik's family.  And I can walk to work in less than 15 minutes.

I really feel like this is the beginning of a new phase for us.

I'll post pictures after we've really unpacked...

This is the first time I ever had movers (cause I never had much furniture before...)

and it was the best ever. These two dudes came in at 6:30am on Friday (Itzik and I pulled an all-nighter on Thursday after work) and in less than two hours had moved ALL of our stuff out of the old place, onto a truck, and into the new place. Amazing. 

They did the heavy lifting, and I was still exhausted, but my back wasn't destroyed and it was so quick!

These guys were amazing, but truly, that must be the worst job ever.

To celebrate the move we went out for dinner on Friday night.

We happen to live a block from the only Pizza Hut in Tel Aviv, and I could not have been happier.

We stuffed ourselves and fell asleep fat and happy amidst a pile of boxes...a perfect shabbat.

....when you're having fun.

Time really has flown by the last couple of months...I've been so busy living life that I've neglected writing about it for a little while.
I feel like an apology is in order, although it seems a little self-involved to assume that anyone has been really bothered by my recent blogging hiatus. However, I know there are a handful of you out there who have noticed (and not just the ten Norwegians who the stats tool in blogger tells me have been reading this month),
so- Mom, Dad, Ellen and Holly...you have my apologies.

That being said...what's happening in Tel Aviv? A lot. So much, in fact, that I'm not quite sure where to begin. I also haven't been using my camera quite as much lately (the zoom is broken) and I've felt bad assaulting you guys with prose void of any photographic/aesthetic component. I'll try to keep this post as succinct as possible.

April and May have been beautiful. It's already summer in my book (the weather lately has been about as hot as it ever really gets in PA or Boston) and it's only going to get worse. I'm actually a little anxious about summer in the Middle East- soon it will be almost impossible to be outside for very long during the day unless you're at the beach, nay... in the water.

The thing is, I'd rather suffer intense summer than this type of winter...

Can you blame me?

I spent a lot of time in at the end of April and beginning of May on schoolwork- I had two really big papers for school due, so a lot of my time was spent in seclusion writing (academic writing, less fun than blogging...for sure.) Being a student isn't my favorite thing, I'll be honest, I haven't been thrilled with my program, but I appreciate the opportunity to learn and meet new and interesting people...essentially, I am so happy to be in Israel that I am willing to put up with the frustrations of school.

When I'm not trying to keep up with my studies, I'm just trying to figure out what will happen when school is over, and to enjoy myself (I do live in paradise, after all). I've discovered recently Sunday mornings on the beach. The weather has been so beautiful that the beaches are now packed all weekend long. Its really quite amazing to see, but I'm also naturally averse to crowds. I've mentioned before that Sunday is the Israeli Monday, but I don't have classes on Sundays this semester, so I have the incredible opportunity to spend my Sunday mornings on almost empty Mediterranean beaches.

.
You'll hear no complaints from me.

I've also been spending a lot of time with my boyfriend (it still feels strange saying that, when does that go away?), Itzik. I am still trying to figure out how much I want to share about it here on the interwebs- its no secret or anything, but this week I had views from Brazil, Norway, Germany, Ireland, Russia, Costa Rica, and Hong Kong...so, you know. Its hard to know where to draw the line. I will tell you that I was beginning to think if I got any better at being single there wouldn't be any room for a real partner in my life. At least not at this point. But we don't get to choose where and when these things happen sometimes, do we? To move abraod I had to make a choice that I would live every day here like I was staying forever, so that I wouldn't miss out on what real life here is like. Cause that's the point right? Live your life the best way you can today, cause who knows what will happen tomorrow. And in doing that, I was given the gift of someone who makes it easy for me to be the version of myself I like the most- and who loves me even when I'm at my worst. 

And he makes me laugh. What more could a girl ask for?

One of the best parts is getting to see Israel from an Israeli's perspective. He and his friends are really cool people, I'm seeing new areas of the country (we camp on the beaches north of Tel Aviv sometimes, and I've gotten to visit his hometown a few times), and I'm getting a lot of exposure to Hebrew. Itzik's English is stellar, so we don't have trouble communicating, but I'm working hard on absorbing as much of the language as possible...slowly slowly. It will come.

Nothing is perfect however. It's strange getting into a relationship in a world that is not my own, not having my people around to share it with. I have friends here, even one or two who have known me longer than 9 months, but it's still hard sometimes. After our last camping weekend I was thinking about how much I wished I could just hang out (in English) with someone from home. Itzik's friends are great, but when I'm with a group of people who are communicating only in Hebrew for a whole weekend, eventually I just kind of tune out and retreat to that quiet place in my own thoughts- often those thoughts are of my friends and family back home. So after camping we came home and I was missing my friends and all of a sudden....Ilya was here.

I know, right? What? How? The long and short of it is that he came for a few days unexpectedly to visit an ill family member, and I got to hang out with him for a few hours on his way in and out of the country. Literally, one second I was missing my friends back home, and the next I was sitting at a bar with one. It was fantastic! A little surreal, but still so comforting to be with someone from my world, you know?

Yeah, this happened.
A little DP reunion was just what the doctor ordered! We had dinner with Libbie and got all caught up!

So, that's a little bit of an update, dear readers. Again, my apologies for the recent truancy. I'll make more of an effort to keep you guys updated more efficiently. Thanks for hanging in with me.

This weekend I am nursing a cold and looking forward to Shabbat dinner with Itzik's family. His cousins from the US are in town for a few weeks and tonight I get to hang out with their adorable kids...including a 3 month old little girl named Libby! I met her older brother, Gur (which means "puppy"), earlier this week. He's five, and we are pretty into each other. I mean, both of us have sisters named Libby- that's a bond that can't be broken. I can't wait to hold the baby, squeeze her chunky little thighs and eat her face (can you tell I miss nannying a little bit??). I'll try and get some photos to share, if I can put the baby down long enough to pick up a camera.

The return of summer.

It seems to me that every weekend between February and May is some sort of holiday in Israel-

this country is not joking around...work hard, play harder.

This week began a two-week break from school for Pesach (Passover).

And, as if in a message from the Lord saying "enjoy yourself in the Land of Milk and Honey"

the weather conveniently became instantly beautiful. It's warm and sunny in the afternoons and cool and comfortable in the evenings.

Nicole, Cara and I decided to start our mini-vacation by marking the opening of beach season.

Yesterday we walked down to the sea, found a few friends from school on the sand to frolic around with, and basically it was a perfect Tel Aviv afternoon.

Summer has arrived.

(We may have even indulged in some shawarma at some point. mmmmmmm.)