How quiet things are...

I've been wanting to post for awhile, but there's been so little going on. I've been working at the Cafe, but shifts have been infrequent and the patrons have been few in number. I tried to get a different job in a fancy hotel, only to be thwarted by the Israeli Bureaucracy. I've still got some other options, but I'm wondering whether gainful employment is ever going to be possible for me here. Sigh.

Annie's family is here, which has been very nice. Yesterday, we went to Ariel, one of the largest settlements in the West Bank. We got a tour from the mayor. It's a nice town, but the mayor's an insane person. The politics involved with settlements are a whole other blog post that I just don't have the strength to pen right now. After Ariel, we went to dinner in Yafo, and the power went out as the food was arriving. Good times.

Last weekend, we rented a car and travelled to Machtesh Rimon, a huge crater in the south of Israel with inspiring views and awesome desert hikes. We climbed a mountain, then we climbed down the mountain. On the way to Machtesh Rimon, we stopped in Abu Ghosh, an Arab village just west of Jerusalem, famous for its hummus. You know how you buy hummus in the store, and some flavors are Hummus Abu Ghosh, and the hummus has this red stuff in the middle that tastes kind of spicy, but you otherwise can't place the taste? Yeah, that stuff comes from Abu Ghosh. And let me tell you, they know from hummus there too. Just awesome. The restaurant we ate at was owned by a man who had moved to Illinois, and then won the lottery, came home with his $30 million, and opened up a restaurant. There are newspaper clippings of him all over the place. Good reading material while stuffing one's face with hummus.

But enough about the hummus.

Okay, just one more thing. I want to learn to make hummus before I leave. And I'm not talking about filching a recipe from the Internet and mucking around. I want to watch the pros do it. Then come back to America as the hummus king.

This post was only marginally better than the lame Thanksgiving post. I promise, the next time something exciting / hilarious takes place, I'll be sure to make fun of it. And maybe one day I'll write about politics, but that will be a low day indeed for not just myself, but for the entire Jewish people.

Bah, I'm not even going to edit.