Turn Your Frustration into Fascination

One thing my boss Jay taught me is the saying "turn your frustration into fascination."

I think this is a great idea.  It really feels a lot better to think about life that way.  Thinking about frustration just makes me more frustrated.

Let me tell you about my amazingly fascinating day!

I saw a bunch of apartments today, and I walked all over the city several times. I was coated in several layers of sweat! It's not humid here, so the heat doesn't bother me as much as it does in Boston, but everybody still develops a brine over the course of the day.

Also, I don't know quite how, but even keeping my sandals on, the bottom of my feet turned BLACK! I guess I was kicking up a lot of dirt or something?

My Fascinating Experiences Apartment Hunting

Honestly, I did meet some very nice people today.

I also met some really odd people, with really odd mannerisms. Both residents and other people that I ran into multiple times on the hunt.

A lot of apartments here are VERY inexpensive in my mind... $350 - $500/month, but they just... I don't know, they feel like where you might live in Allston while a poor undergrad.  Which actually, is basically the case for a lot of these people.  It's a cultural difference... Israelis do 2-3 years in the army or a bit more, then usually travel for a year, and THEN go to school.  So there are lots of 25 year olds who are still in school. So people who would have upgraded their living situation in the US are still on student budgets in Israel.

It might come down to living in a kind of meh apartment in order to live with cool people.

I did see one place that I LOVED. It was very pretty and very central, with two really fun guys.  But I just got the sense from them that they'd met a prospect earlier and already chosen.  Well, who knows? Maybe they were bluffing.

I'd be willing to pay more for a nicer place, but I'm not finding much in a higher price range. I know they exist in Jerusalem, I just don't know how to GET one...

Well it's only been two fascinating days. I'm sure there's a lot more fascination for me to come!

I did get to see a cool roof deck in Nachlaot. In the distance you can see the Supreme Court, Parliament, and the Israel museum.  I wish I could just live on the roof!

Someone asked me how my search was going, and I said, "the housing market is a little strange here." and he said, "don't worry! everything is a little weird here!"

My Fascinating Experience with Kashrut

Keeping kosher... it's fascinating!

You probably know you need to separate meat and milk. And you might know that you need separate dishes/utensils etc for both categories and they're not supposed to mix.

Today I was making spaghetti with tomato sauce. That's a vegetarian meal. In the apartment, there are HUGE pots in the dairy cabinet and tiny pots in the meat cabinet, and I need a big pot for the pasta and a tiny one for the sauce.

Can I use both pots since it's a vegetarian meal, not part of either group?  I asked my facebook wall, and my friend Ro called me to explain...

You can use both pots when cooking a veggy meal ONLY if you're not cooking vegetables like garlic or onions, which are "sharp" vegetables, or spicy, and can strip the meat-ness or dairy-ness out of the pots and corrupt them if mixed.

I told her maybe the can of sauce had garlic and onions in it... but apparently it's okay because they're already cooked.

I don't really know how "do not boil a kid in its mother's milk" turned into "you can use two pots if the onions in the sauce are already cooked" but it's fascinating ;).

Hebrew I Learned Today
delicious - טעים - taim

Today the guard outside Netanyahu's house was this cute young girl who was nodding off. :)

My lovely porch with the pomegranates growing!